Category: News & Politics

T2T: Three friends, 24 countries, 165 days and 30 901km

Despite Africa’s impressive economic growth, it’s clear from the way people talk about and do business on the continent that views of Africa have not changed dramatically in the past 20 years. Some views are excessively positive, others overly negative. Both are equally harmful. We – that being me, my husband Matt and our friend Ishtar Lakhani – think it’s high time that changed. And so an idea was born – to do something to make people see Africa differently.

The aim of the T2T Africa expedition is to help people see Africa differently. (Pic: Supplied)

Having lived in three African countries – Ghana, Kenya and South Africa – and traveled or worked in another 20 between us, we learnt the hard way how narrow our view of the continent was. We now know that different size and colour condoms are required in even neighbouring countries. We know that a marketing campaign that was successful in one country can fail in another simply because the model wasn’t wearing shoes, and in that country only prostitutes don’t wear shoes.

We’ve learnt that differences go deeper than belief systems and languages, and similarities are not neatly contained within the arbitrary lines on maps. The treasure chest of cultures that exists on the continent requires more understanding and respect.

But what would be the best way to share these lessons? The most obvious way would be to illustrate that Africa is a continent of 54 diverse countries and to show as many countries as possible in as much detail as possible. We believe achieving this could be as simple as getting in a car and driving as far as time and money would allow.

This would give us access to some of the many unsung, self-funded projects that sustain thousands of people each day, allow us to learn about some of the cutting-edge technology that is helping to push the continent forward and, best of all, meet lots and lots of people. It’s these details that we believe could help all of us see Africa differently.

So that’s what we’re going to do: three friends, 24 countries, 165 days and 30 901km.

From the 5 October 2013 Ishtar Lakhani, Matt Angus-Hammond and I will be driving from Tsitsikamma in South Africa to Tataouine in Tunisia, via the southernmost and northernmost points of the continent with detours to the east and west coasts.

Along the way we will share as many pictures and stories as we can of the things we will see and learn, whether it be the story of a start-up entrepreneur, a trail blazing eco-tourism initiative or an incredible human being whose name we should all know.

The months-long trip will take the three South Africans to the four corners of the continent. (Pic: Supplied)

We’ll send updates via Twitter, our Facebook page, website, a weekly blog here on the Mail & Guardian’s Voices of Africa site and through as many other channels as we can along the way.

We also hope that our journey will make a difference to the people we meet along the way. One of our team is doing a master’s degree in food security and the other two have been part of a successful food garden in Orlando West, Soweto for eight years, so it made sense to take advantage of this experience.

So in addition to our #seeAfricadifferently campaign we will be planting 45 food gardens – an average of two per country – en route. The seeds and water-carrying equipment for this initiative will be purchased with R61 050 raised via Thundafund, Africa’s first crowd-funding platform, over a 60 day period.

Volunteers are being sourced via social media and experts all over the continent are generously giving us their time to make sure this has the best chance of succeeding. We know the gardens won’t all survive and that if we go back in two years some may no longer exist. But we also know that with the right people involved, within five years a single garden could be feeding an entire school of 60 staff and children daily.

Preparing for this trip has already taught us many lessons and the only thing we now know for sure is that while we don’t know what we’re in for it’s sure to be one heck of a journey. We hope you’ll join us for the ride

Tracy Angus-Hammond is a disabilities activist and social researcher with a passion for convincing others to see Africa differently. She volunteers at Nkanyezi and occasionally contributes to Africa: The Good News. She is also the owner and manager of a research consultancy, Angus Hammond Africa. Tracy has lived, traveled worked in more than 20 countries in Africa. Follow her on Twitter or visit the T2T website for more details on the trip.

12 years ago

Mali’s rescued manuscripts must go back to Timbuktu, say custodians

Dr Mohamed Diagayeté is in an agitated state as he stands in front of stacks of green metal cases containing thousands of invaluable ancient manuscripts from the fabled medieval city of Timbuktu, northern Mali. “Bamako is the worst; it is hell,” he says in halting English.

A museum guard displays a burnt ancient manuscript in its box at the Ahmed Baba Centre for Documentation and Research, in Timbuktu. (Pic: Reuters)

The senior researcher of the state-run Ahmed Baba Institute is not referring to the traffic or Bamako’s urban sprawl, but its climate, particularly the humidity, along with the dust, termites and even mice that threaten this literary treasure trove smuggled out of Timbuktu last year under the noses of jihadists.

When Timbuktu, a centre of Islamic learning between the 13th and 17th centuries, fell into the hands of Tuareg separatists and Islamists last year, researchers at the institute – named after a 16th-century intellectual – feared for the safety of the 40 000 manuscripts in its possession.

In a daring act of subterfuge, the institute’s researchers spirited thousands of documents, covering subjects such as religious studies, mathematics, medicine, astronomy and music to Bamako, the capital, more than 965km away.

Metal cases were brought surreptitiously to the desert city of Timbuktu, where the documents, some dating to the ninth century, were carefully packed away. Then, over a period of months, the material – mostly written in Arabic, but also centuries-old texts in Greek, Latin, French, English and German – was smuggled out on buses, cars or pirogue boats to the south on the Niger River. Guards at the institute, drivers and boatmen were the unsung heroes in this enterprise. Some 25 000 documents were taken away from the institute between June and October last year, as well thousands of others from private homes.

It was just as well. In a fit of pique and cultural vandalism comparable to the destruction of the Buddhist statues at Bamiyan in Afghanistan, the Islamists set fire to the institute’s two libraries containing the manuscripts before the arrival of French forces. Last week, a suicide attack was carried out near the Djingareyber mosque in Timbuktu, which is on the world heritage list of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco).

According to Drissa Traoré, head of documentation at the institute, thousands of valuable manuscripts were lost, some destroyed, others stolen.

People look through ancient manuscripts at the Ahmed Baba Centre for Documentation and Research in Timbuktu after Islamists torched the building. (Pic: AFP)

The saved manuscripts are being stored in a nondescript, two-storey faded-rose house in an alley off a main road in the capital. The house stands near an unfinished building, there is rubbish strewn outside on the red dirt road. On a wall around the corner someone has scrawled “empire du mafia”.

The location is not publicised, and visitors are vetted by the institute’s head, Dr Abdoulkadri Maïga, who works elsewhere in a cluttered office with a small fridge by his side. He says there are about 100 000 genuine manuscripts, some owned by the institute, others privately owned by families, although some estimates put the number at 300 000. Many of the privately owned papers were also taken to Bamako.

After Maïga is satisfied, visitors are dispatched to follow a motorbike driver to the documents. The cases are piled on top of each other in a small air-conditioned room to protect them from Bamako’s humidity. Gingerly, Traoré takes out an 18th-century manuscript on jurisprudence from the top of a case. The battered leather cover is falling apart. He opens the book to reveal exquisitely delicate calligraphy. The oldest manuscript at the makeshift library in Bamako dates to the 12th century.

For Diagayeté and his colleagues, the manuscripts cannot return home fast enough. “Some of us have started to go back, but I can’t say when the manuscripts will go, but we want it to be as soon as possible,” he said.

In the meantime, the manuscripts have to be protected from Bamako’s “hellish” conditions. Researchers have begun cataloguing the documents and placing them in special brown boxes made from cardboard-like material. These boxes arrived in December, followed by the shelves on which to store them. The shelves arrived only a couple of weeks ago, so the documents have languished for months in their metal cases, hardly ideal conditions for such delicate items.

No wonder Diagayeté is exasperated. Part of his frustration is aimed at Unesco, which promised to help the institute. Its director-general, Irina Bokova, said in February that the organisation would do everything possible to safeguard and rebuild Mali’s cultural heritage, which she described as “a vital part of the country’s identity and history and fundamental for its future”.

“Its restoration and reconstruction will give the people of Mali the strength and the confidence to rebuild national unity and look to the future,” she added.

“Unesco was very, very late. Talk is easy, but action is hard,” Diagayeté said.

Three sets of metal floor-to-ceiling shelves have been assembled, and more are being put together. In the long term, there are plans to restore and digitise the manuscripts under a Unesco scheme run by Luxembourg. In the meantime, the institute is adamant that the documents should go back to Timbuktu. “Timbuktu without the manuscripts is without value, and the manuscripts without Timbuktu have no value,” Maïga said.

Mark Tran for the Guardian

12 years ago

What are teens getting up to online in Africa’s innovation hub?

“In boarding school there were a group of girls who were from Nairobi and they were hip and cool, they were computer literate … They would open email accounts for us and show us how to go about the internet and so on, that is how I learnt how to use the internet … log into Facebook and even text our boyfriends back home.” – Female, 15-17, Kitui, Kenya

I remember the first time I heard about Facebook – it was early in 2007 while I was attending university. My sister was on an exchange abroad and encouraged me to join. By the end of that same year I had connected with all my university friends and even some old friends from school.

Fast forward six years, and the first memories of using the world’s most popular social media site come back to me when I was presented with the findings of A (Private) Public Space, a study about the use of the Internet and social media among adolescents in Kenya. Based primarily on focus group discussions conducted in three locations in the country, one of our main motivations for undertaking this particular study was to understand the how and why of what Kenyan children and youth are doing online.

Scholars watch the film Madagascar in the computer lab at Mwelu Foundation in Mathare slum, Nairobi, Kenya. (Pic: Unicef Kenya/2013/Huxta)

The title of the study comes from a sentiment expressed by the majority of participants – that social media and their mobile phones give them the opportunity to construct their own private worlds, to explore their identities free from the interference of family members, to strengthen existing social connections and to establish new ones.

“On the internet you are more confident than face to face. There are some things you can say there that you fear saying face to face.” – Male, 15-17, Kisii

While the findings are not nationally representative – a limitation of the methodology – the study provides a fascinating look into the habits and uses of the Internet and social media by young people in the country. While less than one-third of Kenyans have access to the Internet, the proliferation of affordable Internet-enabled mobile phones and flexible pre-paid schemes is helping to shift this rapidly. Kenya also has one the largest Facebook and Twitter user bases on the continent and the popularity of social media was clearly expressed by the study participants.

It is also not uncommon to hear of Kenya being referred to as the Silicon Valley of Africa, yet in spite of the country’s status as an ICT innovation hub, the study found that overall digital media was not fully integrated into the participants’ learning environments and education. While some shared examples of using the Internet and their mobile phones to research topics for school, many felt that their parents and caregivers mostly saw the Internet as a distraction from schoolwork and learning.

Risks of online use
In addition to looking at habits and uses, the study also sought to understand how risks associated with online use – including cyber-bullying, suggestive self-exposure, exposure to harmful content, scams, and grooming for sexual exploitation – were perceived by young people, to give us insight that can inform future interventions and awareness-raising campaigns on child online safety.

“This guy I befriended on Facebook, he started telling me to send him photos of myself without clothes on, I told him I can’t, he insisted and I refused, he then started [verbally] abusing me and I called him a few names too, he could not stop and I shared with my older cousin who blocked him for me.” – Female, 15-17, Nairobi South B

The discussions on topics related to online safety revealed that many of the participants appeared to have only an abstract awareness of risk. Many were aware but ultimately did not believe that a dangerous encounter could befall them, or they felt they were employing the right preventative measures, or that being connected ultimately outweighed the risk of online harassment or unpleasant experiences. Knowledge of or interest in changing privacy settings was low, although most reported knowing how to block unwanted interactions.

A teenager texts a friend on a mobile phone at Cura Rotary Home, an orphanage for children who’ve lost their parents to Aids, in Cura village, 20km from central Nairobi, Kenya. (Pic: Unicef Kenya/2013/Huxta)

For me the clear take-away from the discussions on risk and safety with Kenyan teens is that in order to be successful, any awareness-raising and educational efforts need to take into account all these complexities.

Approaches based on fear-mongering or preaching are unlikely to be effective. This is not to suggest that children and youth should not be taught about the potential risks of immersion in the digital world. However outreach messaging should balance issues of safety with the developmental and learning opportunities afforded by the Internet, and promote positive online interaction through the concept of digital citizenship.

There is a real opportunity here to empower peer support groups and youth organisations to take the lead on this, while at the same time working with parents, teachers and child protection services to strengthen their ability to provide support, and working with policy makers to improve relevant policies and legal environments. By doing this, we can start to create environments where opportunities are maximised and risk is minimised – and children and youth in middle-income and developing countries have the right base from which to emerge as leaders in the global information and communication technology sector.

You can download the full report here.

Kate Pawelczyk is the project manager of Voices of Youth Citizens – a UNICEF initiative that seeks to understand how young people in middle-income and developing countries are using digital media to inform awareness-raising, interventions and policy advocacy. Kate is South African and currently based in New York City. Any questions about the study in Kenya or the Voices of Youth Citizens initiative can be directed to her via email.

12 years ago

Rwanda rail project on track to bridge Africa’s economic divide

Hundreds of lorries trundle through the Rwanda-Tanzania border every hour, damaging Rwanda’s narrow hilly roads. A $13.5-billion (R136-billion) railway project linking the Kenyan port of Mombasa to Kigali, the Rwandan capital, cannot come soon enough for Silas Lwakabamba, Rwanda’s minister of infrastructure.
“The trucks carry too much load, they end up spoiling the road,” he said. “Rail will be faster and can carry more. Maintenance of rail will be much easier.”

A woman walks on a main street of Rwanda’s capital Kigali. (Pic: Reuters)

The 2 935km line is one of several big infrastructure projects on the continent, reflecting renewed global interest among policymakers after years of focusing on health and education. Besides the Mombasa-Kigali rail link, a seven-year initiative to connect Niger and Ivory Coast is to begin next year as part of efforts to improve rail infrastructure in west Africa.

The railway would link Niamey, the capital of landlocked Niger, with the Ivorian commercial hub of Abidjan, via the capital of Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou, after the extension of mining activities in west Africa.

Dams are also back in fashion. Ethiopia is pressing ahead with its Grand Renaissance dam to the consternation of Egypt, which fears that the project will curb its water supply. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, work is scheduled to start on Inga III, a $20-billion project.

“Infrastructure is critical for development,” said Lwakabamba. “For the transport sector, we need roads, rail and air, they are all very critical for economic development. And we can’t do anything without energy.”

Rwanda is also involved in the Rusumo falls hydroelectric project to increase power supply of electricity to the national grids of Burundi, Rwanda, and Tanzania, a project backed by the International Development Association, the World Bank’s soft loan arm, and the African Development Bank.

Africa accounts for just 3% of global trade and African countries trade 10% of their goods with each other, compared with 65% between European countries. Landlocked countries are hit particularly hard by poor infrastructure, paying up to 84% more to export their goods than a coastal country. Improving regional markets in Africa would have a significant impact on economic development and poverty reduction.

Huge infrastructure needs
The continent’s infrastructure needs are huge, but financing levels are only half the estimated $93-billion needed annually between now and 2015 to sustain 7% growth rates. Infrastructure is the key issue around plans for a development bank by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – known as the Brics.

The Mombasa-Kigali link is getting attention at the highest level. Leaders from Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda have been meeting regularly on the project and plan to discuss financing next month in Kigali. Funding has been secured from China for the $3.7-billion Mombasa-Nairobi section, a distance of 500km, and construction is due to begin in November.

The 200km Rwanda section will cost $1.5-billion and Rwanda is still lining up financing. The line will be used to carry coffee, tea and other agricultural products and minerals out of Rwanda and machinery into the country. The railway will be designed for freight speeds of 80kph but will be open for other passenger travel too.

The Mombasa-Kampala-Kigali railway project entails a 1 184km rail from Mombasa through Nairobi to Malaba and branching to Kisumu (Kenya); a 1 400km rail from Malaba to Kampala, Uganda and linking to four Ugandan towns before connecting to the main line to Rwanda at Mirima Hills; a 201km rail from Mirima Hills to Kigali and an extra 150km rail to other towns in Rwanda.

The existing railway between Mombasa and Kampala dates to the colonial era, and has a small gauge. The new line will have a standard gauge, which is wider, and therefore faster and capable of carrying heavier loads. Rwanda will build its section from scratch as there is no existing line.

The project is unlikely to receive support from UK taxpayers as the Department for International Development has withdrawn £21-million (R343-million) in general budget support – direct aid to the Rwandan government – shifting it to sector support, focusing on health and education. The decision was taken after allegations that Rwanda was supporting M23 rebels in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“We do respect decision of the UK government,” said Lwakabamba. “We obviously prefer budget support as it allows us a degree of flexibility on priorities. The UK concentrates more on education and social areas.”

Mark Tran for the Guardian

12 years ago

Côte d’Ivoire puts hope in first feature film on conflict years

Chased by a lynch-mob, a young man runs for his life – closely watched by director Philippe Lacote who is shooting the first feature film on the bloody chaos that rocked his native Côte d’Ivoire from 2002 to 2011.

The film “Run”, shot in Bassam near the Ivorian capital Abidjan and directed by Philippe Lacote, tells the story of the 2010-2011 political and military crisis in Côte d’Ivoire. (Pic: AFP)

Run, both the film title and the main character’s name, chronicles the slide from innocence to violence and crime in this resource-rich country that was once a beacon of stability in west Africa. Today, the wounds of war remain raw, politicians still trade crude insults and the former president awaits trial for crimes against humanity.

“The film’s main question is, ‘How did we come to such violence?'” said the Franco-Ivorian director, lamenting the thousands of people killed during a decade of rebellion, civil war and post-election violence.

Lacote, who finished shooting in September, hopes his film will be both cathartic for victims of the crisis and instructive for younger Ivorians, but also revive cinema in a country where only two of the 80 movie houses are still in use.

His project drew attention when presented in pre-production at the 2012 Cannes film festival. And while the film has touched some nerves at home, the state has agreed to finance seven percent of its €1.8-million (R24-million) budget, with the rest coming from France and Israel.

The buzz has also brought native son Isaach de Bankole – who appeared in the 2006 James Bond thriller Casino Royale and Lars von Trier’s 2005 film Manderlay – back home for the first time in 17 years to play a role in Run.

Based on real events
The story centres around a peaceable teenager who is on track to become a village “rainmaker” or sorcerer but instead joins the Young Patriots, followers of the former president Laurent Gbagbo who are capable of extreme violence.

“When I was filming the Young Patriots, I asked one of the youths how he came to join them,” says the 42-year-old Lacote of an earlier documentary. “He answered, ‘I have three lives!’ – and that became the basis for writing the film.”

Although fiction, Lacote’s film is grounded in real events. “There are scenes that remind me exactly of what I lived through during and after the war,” says Abdul Karim Konate, 32, who plays the role of Run.

Some 3 000 people lost their lives in the violence triggered by Gbagbo’s refusal to admit defeat in 2010 elections to his arch-rival Alassane Ouattara, who finally took office in May 2011.

“I was there in Yopougon (a Gbagbo stronghold), there where things really got hot,” said Konate. “We are telling the story. We need to tell it to those who have not seen it.”

Run is Lacote’s first full-length feature film. He calls it “indirectly political” and asserts his “right to approach the subject matter via fiction” while admitting that he finds himself on “slippery ground”.

Starting from scratch
“We have already had problems,” the director conceded. “We were filming in a former headquarters of the FPI (Gbagbo’s Ivorian Popular Front party) occupied now by the Ivorian army. The FPI press accused us of making a film to gather evidence against Laurent Gbagbo,” who is jailed in The Hague awaiting trial by the International Criminal Court.

“My objective is not to say who is right or wrong. It is to recount the crisis seen through an individual prism,” Lacote said.

Officials in charge of the country’s film industry also hope Run will help get Ivorian cinema back on its feet.

The film business here is currently “flat on its face”, said Mamidou Coulibaly-Diakite, who manages public funds earmarked for Ivorian cinema. Prominent Ivorian directors such as Henri Duparc, Gnoan M’Bala, Yeo Kozoloa and Fadika Kramo-Lancine have either died or have not worked in more than a decade.
“We have to start everything again from scratch,” he said.

In the long run, Coulibaly-Diakite said he dreams that Côte d’Ivoire, formerly the economic and financial hub of west Africa, can rival Nigeria’s thriving cinema scene.

Run is due to be released in 2014 and distributed in France and Germany, and to be screened at several festivals, according to the film’s French producer Claire Gadea.

Christophe Koffi for AFP