Archive for category: Community

In January 2021, Kenya will replace South Africa as one of the three elected African members (A3) on the United Nations Security Council, joining Niger and Tunisia. Kenya was elected for the 2021-22 term, together with India, Ireland, Mexico and Norway.

Member states need to ensure the council’s responses to peace and security problems are relevant and effective. For Africa in particular, membership is an opportunity to showcase coherent leadership in the world’s most important decision-making organ.

Joining the Security Council isn’t an isolated act for any African member state, but rather part of an ongoing relay to ensure collective African interests are effectively addressed. In recent years, the A3 have shown that, when presenting unified positions, they are more influential on the council, especially on African matters.

African countries usually have their candidacy endorsed by the African Union (AU) summit. Historically this has been a fairly uncontroversial process. Based on continental rotation, South Africa’s replacement was due to come from East Africa. In August 2019, Kenya secured an endorsement by the AU’s Permanent Representatives Committee (PRC), the organ comprising all member state delegates to discuss day-to-day AU affairs.

Djibouti called on its links to the International Organisation of La Francophonie, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Arab League. By questioning the AU’s endorsement process, it had important supporters from the UN Security Council permanent members, the P5 and France in particular.

Kenya engaged with a wide range of countries from the Commonwealth, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe and the Pacific, often using the PRC endorsement as an entry point for its legitimacy argument. It seems this approach paid off.

Despite the controversy with Djibouti, Kenya comes to the council as a regional power that frequently champions peace and security initiatives in Africa. It previously served as the UN Peacebuilding Commission chair, and was a key African voice in the negotiations for the Sustainable Development Goals. Kenya’s success during its term will however be determined by how it crafts a relationship with the P5 and navigates complicated council dynamics.

During the campaign, both Kenya and Djibouti claimed they had China’s backing. China was expected to be more favourable to a Djibouti victory, being heavily influential in the Red Sea through its only overseas military base. However Kenya is also a relevant regional player, and a vital Chinese trading hub in Africa. So the extent of China’s influence in Kenya shouldn’t be underestimated.

There are many lessons that Kenya can learn from previous A3 members on how to maximise its term. A Security Council analyst in New York told ISS Today that the sooner it completes its staffing process in New York, the better. When South Africa joined the council in 2019, it struggled to get its house in order in a timely manner, so it had a slow start.

Joining the council as an observer from October 2020 should give Kenya the chance to learn, practise and craft partnerships. It can identify the division of labour in its mission early on, and find ways to quickly and effectively develop positions in Nairobi, Addis Ababa and New York.

Emerging countries often have smaller missions in New York, so Kenya will need to beef up its mission to the UN. It will also have to be clear on where to focus its attention through an effective internal division of labour and balanced positions.

Kenya is expected to continue the role played by South Africa, and previously by Ethiopia and Egypt, to foster A3 unity based on AU positions. However, recent examples already show the difficulties it will face. The A3 was divided in approving a new political mission in Sudan, which is billed to replace the UN-AU peace operation in Darfur. Kenya has a key role to play in ensuring that the strategic partnership between the AU and UN is sustained.

Kenya has been active in the UN Peacebuilding Commission, and is expected to be a champion for the sustaining peace agenda. This will be particularly relevant for Kenya’s immediate region, which should dominate its strategic engagements on the council.

Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Abyei are all key issues on the council. Kenya will likely be an active member regarding negotiations in these countries. It should ensure the council supports the Horn of Africa as the region tackles its long-term peace challenges.

Kenya shouldn’t join the Security Council just for global visibility or to pursue only its national positions. Rather the term should be seen as an opportunity for coordination among African stakeholders. The two years on the council are short, and while it may seem like a sprint, if countries work together, the relay can transform the term into a coordinated marathon. Working with past and current members is not a luxury; it is a necessity.

In preparing for its term, Kenya has a great opportunity to learn from current A3 members in setting up its internal decision making and staffing systems, and to develop positions on specific issues. This will confirm that African member states can become more influential on the council, and effectively contribute to sustainable peace and development on the continent.

Source: ISS Africa

In February 2020, many analysts assumed Covid-19 would arrive in Africa before it reached Europe. From the outset, international humanitarian experts have worried about how the virus would impact Africa. While the long-term implications have yet to be seen on the continent, Covid’s impact in Europe – with hundreds of thousands of cases – is undeniable, creating as famed cartoonist Gado illustrates, a ‘new world order’. There is, of course, a certain irony to how these events have unfolded, particularly since African social and cultural norms are often blamed for outbreaks and epidemics on the continent.

Humour, particularly in the African context, has frequently been analysed as a source of social commentary and political resistance. Social commentators and comedians use different avenues – cartoons, standup comedy, memes, televised satire shows and impromptu everyday humour – to challenge politicians and subvert the status quo. Nigerian cartoonists, for example, have long poked fun at their politicians, but particularly in the midst of Coronavirus. These cartoons specifically comment on the propensity of their politicians to seek medical help abroad instead of using their own services.

The current Covid-19 crisis has extended this satirical social critique beyond just commenting on their own state structures and politicians (although there is certainly no shortage of these cartoons and memes across different African countries). Rather, these humorous critiques have extended to commentary about the global order.

African countries are frequently featured in media for health crises and outbreaks, most recently the Ebola epidemics in West Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Both implicit and explicit narratives framed these epidemics often pointing to ‘backward’ social practices contributing to transmission, making it ‘their own fault’. By contrast, European narratives about Covid transmissions have not been so quick to victim-blame, rather pointing to structural and governmental issues.

During the West African Ebola epidemic too, people were victimised on a global scale. The outbreak led to a mass hysteria in the global North, leading many countries to impose restrictions and, in some cases, full bans from Ebola-affected areas. However, memes, like the one featured below, acted as social commentary during this period, pointing to how disease becomes ‘more prominent’ when it is seen as a problem in the global North.

In the midst of Covid, however, these narratives have been turned on their head. From March onward, many African countries began banning flights from Covid hotspots, including Europe. Indeed, most initial infections found in African countries did come from people who had travelled from European countries.

The irony of the epidemic’s transmission route has certainly not been lost on Africans. Both professional humourists, particularly cartoonists (but also ordinary people) have used the epidemic as a platform for broader colonial critiques. The cartoon below, designed by a Ugandan artist, has circulated across the continent through various social media platforms. It is of course poking fun at European immigration policies, which in recent years, have become more and more stringent. The epidemic, however, placed these restrictions on Europeans, thus creating an undeniable irony and opportunity for humorous social commentary.

Using an ambiguous joking medium permits people to comment and critique in ways that they may not usually feel comfortable. Covid in particular has allowed ordinary citizens the opportunity to subtly subvert not only their local status quo, but a global one. Humour has been used by Africans to express their Schadenfreude: the misfortune of the mighty, which has provided a form of psychological vindication. When a report leaked that the French Ministry was predicting conflict in Africa as a result of the Covid outbreak, some responded to these reports with satire that reminded the public of the long-troubled relations between France and its former colonies in Africa.

Social media has allowed for these critiques to be widely circulated across continents. Like the disease itself, which can infect anyone (though the economically disadvantaged and minorities are disproportionally affected), humour ignores the boundaries of social distancing. Virtually everyone with access to social media, regardless of status, engages with satire and irony through digital memes and cartoons. Such joking signifies who are able to have a laugh but are simultaneously critiquing the ongoing colonial order that has arguably contributed to the ever-worsening crisis.

While humour can certainly be used to comment on and even resist colonial structures, there is also a danger in it. Humorous memes and satire can have negative consequences. For instance, they can contribute to the spread of misinformation and fake news in both the global North and global South, as satire can sometimes be misappropriated in an effort to cast blame, resulting in intense social debates and scapegoats.

While satire and social media both have positive and negative consequences, the (post)colonial irony of Covid’s transmission route is noteworthy and African satirists have certainly taken note. Africans are now not only fighting and commenting on the Covid epidemic, but on long-established colonial narratives – and part of this battle is through the medium of humour.

Source: African Arguments 

There has long been a vast divide in perceptions of human smuggling between those with and without actual experience of it. In the international press, for instance, the industry is commonly presented as a multi-million-dollar criminal enterprise run by hardened criminals. By contrast, for many on the inside, smuggling is a perfectly legitimate livelihood. Human smugglers – not to be confused with human traffickers who use coercion or deception for the means of exploitation– are simply service providers who, for a fee, help migrants cross boundaries and overcome barriers.

With COVID-19, however, this may all be changing. New evidence gathered by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime suggests growing hostility towards human smuggling in regions where the activity is deeply entrenched in the political economy.

In areas of southern Libya – home to key hubs on the “northern route” to Europe – municipalities have called on the military to increase patrolling to combat smuggling. This is a significant shift given that the enterprise underpins many livelihoods in the area. In this region – as well as across Algeria’s southern borders and in northern Mali – smugglers also report that they are reducing their activities to avoid spreading the coronavirus.

For the same reason, various armed groups say they have imposed restrictions on movement within territories they control. The Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA), which has consolidated support across much northern Mali including in the important transit points of Timbuktu and Gao, has limited freedom of movement across the areas it controls. Meanwhile in southern Libya, Tebu militants have become markedly more hostile to human smuggling and intercepted smugglers coming through Niger.

From legitimate livelihood to crime?

Human smuggling – defined as the facilitation of unlawful entry of a person into a country for material profit – is only criminalised in a few places in Africa. In those countries, the activity can attract extremely high penalties. Far more countries prescribe administrative penalties to those found guilty of facilitating irregular migration, distinguished from human smuggling offences partly because they do not include the “material profit” element.

In Niger, a 2015 law became the first piece of legislation in Africa devoted solely to smuggling offences. It criminalised human smuggling in Niger for the first time. Enforcement of this law dealt a significant blow to the economy of the north where the activity forms the core livelihood for many. This change created a considerable disjunct between Niger’s legal position on human smuggling – making it punishable by imprisonment of 5-30 years – and the popular perception that smugglers merely provide a transport service for migrants looking for a better life.

In the short term, COVID-19 seems to be closing this gap. As has been the case around the world, the disease has created acute fears of contagion in Niger and created stigma around human movement. This fear is even greater with the coronavirus as it can be spread by asymptomatic carriers.

The Ebola pandemic in West Africa caused similar fears in 2014-15. It too prompted some community-led restrictions of movement. A local journalist at the time reported that the fear triggered by the disease contributed to the 2015 blockade of people smugglers in Zuwara, a town on Libya’s northern coast that had previously operated as a key disembarkation point for smugglers coordinating journeys towards Europe.

What will happen after COVID-19?

The impact on human smuggling caused by the Ebola context was temporary. The same is likely to be true of COVID-19. In fact, many smugglers have decided to continue their operations despite the pandemic, including in southern Libya, northern Niger and Chad.

After COVID-19, much of the Sahel is likely to be characterised by spiralling unemployment and decimated livelihoods, together with food scarcity. Fears of contagion are likely to linger, prompting states – and possibly some local communities – to maintain some restrictions on movement.

At the same time, however, demand for smuggling services is likely to spike. Migrants and refugees will need help to navigate journeys that had been made more difficult during the pandemic. Meanwhile, demand may also increase if pathways for legal migration narrow in the wake of COVID-19.

Smugglers themselves, who are often part of the communities they serve, will also face an increasingly limited set of livelihood options. In the face of renewed demand, the lure of smuggling profits is likely to trump lingering fears of contagion.

The smuggling market is experiencing a temporary lull in activity. This is due to both by government restrictions and community-led taboos. When the threat of COVID-19 subsides, this newfound stigma around smuggling may or may not last. But either way, the human smuggling market looks set to recover quickly and expand further. It may become even more crucial to migration within, and out of, the African continent.

Source: African Arguments