This blog was originally posted on NewSecurityBeat, a blog of the Environmental Change and Security Program at the Wilson Center.

Nigeria is home to many violent conflicts, one of which is the farmers-herders conflict that has posed severe security challenges in the country. The human toll of the violence has been immense, claiming more lives than the Boko Haram insurgency. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed or displaced. Nigeria has also experienced increased ethnic, regional, and religious polarization, and this crisis has undermined national stability and unity.

Yet Nigeria is also one of the most religious countries in the world. And while significant attention is given to understanding the drivers of the conflict and the efforts of state actors in resolving the conflict, little attention has been devoted to examining the peacebuilding role of non-state actors such as religious institutions—often referred to as faith based organizations (FBOs). These groups are increasingly active and effective non-state actors in international and domestic peacebuilding in Nigeria.

The gap that these FBOs seek to fill is significant. The insincerity and failure of the political elites and weak governance by institutions have failed to cope with both systemic challenges (poverty, inequality, climate change, increasing political violence, and Islamic insurgency) and more immediate crises (COVID-19, financial systems). Many victims are turning to religion—and FBOs—for solutions.

The Roots of Conflict

The conflict between farmers and herders (also known as “pastoralists”) is centered on a collision between two ways of life on shared land. Yet, both groups are essential because Nigeria relies heavily on agricultural produce from both of them. Religious belief and geography also divide the two groups. Herders are predominantly Muslims hailing from northern Nigeria, while farmers are predominantly Christians and reside in both the southern and northern parts of the country.

Despite these divides, both groups have cohabited for decades. Many pastoral and farming settlements developed symbiotic relationships through reciprocity, economic exchanges, and support. However, there has been a decrease in economic cooperation as climate change decreases both the availability—and access to—shared land and water resources. Increasingly, the farmer-herder relationship is characterized by violent conflicts.

The Role of FBOs: Interfaith Mediation Centre

The role of FBOs—and the religious leaders who operate them—is important in Nigerian peacebuilding. These organizations are highly respected, and religious leaders enjoy high status in their communities. This social capital and “divine” mission give religious leaders significant legitimacy. It also allows them to occupy a unique position in influencing and addressing the needs of the people and carrying out peacebuilding roles. This public perception also provides religious leaders with avenues to influence society in key areas, including behavior, norms, and civil obligations.

One example of how this perception leads to action was the establishment of the Interfaith Mediation Centre (IMC) in response to the outbreak and escalation of violent conflict between farmers and herders in Kaduna State in northern Nigeria in 1992.  The center’s initial purpose was to mediate that conflict, but it has also been active in offering assistance to resolve other religious conflicts in Kaduna state and beyond for many years.

The two religious leaders who created the IMC—Imam Muhammad Ashafa and Pastor James Wuye—were initially active in championing the escalation of the 1992 conflict. Their decision to join forces led to a subsequent de-escalation of the discord. They have not only used their agency to reach out to militias, but they have also facilitated training sessions that allow community members (including youths, women, religious figures, and traditional or ethnic leaders) to become civic peace activists. The goal is to create a more tolerant, cooperative community in which all groups can coexist peacefully.

IMC’s grassroot efforts to promote peace in the region have also expanded into regional projects and capacity building programs to address ethnic, religious, and farmer-herder conflicts. The group has also embarked on early warning and early response community-based initiatives like the Community Peace Action Network (CPAN), which collects, analyzes, and disseminates conflict and peace information coming from areas of crisis. The goal is to prevent anticipated violent conflict, and influence decision making by relevant actors involved in the situation.

Continuous dialogue with the conflict’s primary stakeholders—the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria and the All-Farmers Association of Nigeria—has further strengthened this FBO’s interventions. The IMC’s engagement and collaboration have provided avenues for various communities to de-escalate tensions—and also to ensure that the aggrieved parties act upon their recommendations.

A Growing Movement

The example of the IMC’s peacebuilding efforts has motivated more religious leaders to take on conflict resolution roles to further achieve lasting peace among religious groups in Nigeria. “They pioneered peacebuilding in Kaduna, and I decided to get into it to contribute my quota,” observed Pastor Yohanna Buru in an interview with the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California (USC).

Pastor Buru’s response was to start the Kaduna-based Peace Revival and Reconciliation Foundation of Nigeria, a nonprofit that works to help Muslims and Christians accept each other and respect their religious, ethnic, and social differences.

Other FBOs have also entered the picture. The National Inter-Religious Council (NIREC), comprised of 25 Christians and 25 Muslims, has also been active in the peacebuilding arena. When an attack on Christians by Fulani herdsmen led to a subsequent counterattack by local Christian youths in Nigeria’s north-central state of Benue in 2018, the NIREC helped to enforce a peaceful coexistence between farmers and herders.

The process by which the NIREC did so demonstrates the power of FBOs to carry out peace interventions. The council’s leaders initiated a dialogue between the parties to the conflict, advising and counseling them to be forgiving and patient, and to apply lessons from religious teachings. The NIREC has also established its own early warning and response systems for local conflicts. And, in conjunction with local governments and traditional institutions, the council has developed grassroots conflict resolution infrastructure such as mediation and restorative justice units and processes.

What Must Be Done Next?

As we have seen, FBOs are a rich resource for peacebuilding efforts. Religious leaders and institutions have become important stakeholders and a central component of these activities because they are trusted by the people.

Yet, while these interventions have been largely successful, significant and noticeable spontaneous attacks in the conflict between farmers and herders still occur. The absence of African Traditional Religion’s (ATR) participation in interfaith mediations between farmers and herders in Nigeria also challenges the inclusive nature of FBOs in Nigeria.

There is a role for the international community to play in these efforts. Governments and NGOs could assist FBOs to strengthen their conflict mediation, resolution, reconciliation, and peacebuilding capacities—especially in the communities most affected by conflict. This support could be achieved with investment initiatives to train religious leaders and improve their mediation skills, as well as funding and developing more robust local early warning, conflict resolution, and restorative justice frameworks for local conflicts. These efforts could also provide platforms for parties to a dispute to interact and pursue collective dialogue on long-lasting solutions to their conflict.

There is also a clear need for FBOs to adopt a more inclusive approach that provides traditional institutions with the opportunity to participate in interfaith dialogue and peacebuilding. Such an initiative would assist in bridging the gaps in the process where traditional matters that involve victims of this conflict are left unaddressed.

Finally, these conflicts must also be addressed through an interdisciplinary lens. Researchers and experts in the fields of conflict resolution, development and peace studies, peacekeeping, and post-conflict reconstruction must explore the possibilities offered by FBOs and conduct extensive research that examines their growing impact on conflict resolution in Nigeria.

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Ojemire B. Daniel is a PhD student in the Global Governance and Human Security program at the University of Massachusetts Boston. His research interests include climate change, conflict resolution, natural resources and violent conflicts in Africa (especially Nigeria), and human security.

Sources: African Journal of Emerging Issues; Center for Religion and Civic Culture; Council on Foreign Relations; Interfaith Mediation Centre; International Crisis Group; Mercy Corps; National Inter-Religious Council; Peace Revival and Reconciliation Foundation of Nigeria; USIP; U.S. State Department

Photo Credit: A young fulani herder walking with his livestock along the roadside in Lekki, Lagos, Nigeria, courtesy of Alucardion/Shutterstock.com.

The opinions expressed on this blog are solely those of the authors. They do not reflect the views of the Wilson Center or those of Carnegie Corporation of New York. The Wilson Center’s Africa Program provides a safe space for various perspectives to be shared and discussed on critical issues of importance to both Africa and the United States.

This blog was originally posted on NewSecurityBeat, a blog of the Environmental Change and Security Program at the Wilson Center.

The Central Sahel is increasingly deemed the new epicenter of terrorism, accounting for 35 percent of global terrorism deaths in 2021. Yet as the situation in the region continues to deteriorate, artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) both persists and proliferates. For instance, in Mali, where much of the region’s security crisis originates, this conundrum is laid bare.

As in many parts of the world, ASGM is an age-old tradition in this Sahelian nation. History relates that Mansa Musa, the King of the ancient Malian empire, famously gave away so much gold in the 14^th century that it caused severe inflation in Egypt and parts of the Middle East for years to come.

The challenges that Malians face today are numerous. In addition to two successive coups d’états in 2020 and 2021, the nation also faces rapidly expanding terrorist activity, a doubling of the population since the year 2000 to 22 million people, and the severe consequences of climate change. Yet gold—and ASGM—still provide Malians with a viable livelihood. This is especially true for women and youth, who also play important roles in local peacebuilding efforts.

The booming sector is mainly viewed as a threat to peace and security in the sub-region, but it also presents a critical opportunity to leverage broader peacebuilding benefits, if it is managed well.

Looming Threats

Artisanal and small-scale gold mining is a mostly informal activity, and one does not have to look further than neighboring countries to appreciate how the sector can be exploited by non-state armed groups, including terrorist organizations.

In both Burkina Faso and Niger, terrorist organizations are reported to benefit both directly and indirectly from the gold trade. After terrorist activity spilled over from Mali in 2018, this activity expanded rapidly. Strategies used by these groups range from directly controlling mine sites to ambushing and extorting revenue from both artisanal and industrial miners.

Though Mali was the original source of the region’s terrorist activity, it is fortunate that non-state armed groups’ involvement in gold production and trade there has been relatively limited in comparison. But why? Tracking the overlap between ASGM sites with security incidents (as shown on the map below) reveals that most of Mali’s gold is found in the southwestern part of the country, where armed groups have historically been less active.

Nevertheless, roughly two-thirds of the country’s territory is beyond state control. Thus, it is hard for the government of Mali to control informal gold supply chains—a state of affairs that risks their capture by armed groups. The northeastern region of Kidal underscores this risk.

According to the UN Group of Experts on Mali, the Coordination des Mouvements de l’Azawad (an umbrella organization for non-state armed groups that signed the 2015 Algiers Peace Agreement) and Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (a similar coalition of al-Qaeda-aligned groups) control access to gold sites in Kidal and ensure miners’ safety in exchange for financial payments. Any continued spread of extremist activity toward the southwest of the country would therefore risk the capture of many more gold supply chains by non-state armed groups unless they were preemptively secured.

A Regional Gold Trade Hub

Unfortunately, Mali’s gold supply chains are a far cry from being secured. This is evidenced in a forthcoming policy paper by Pact and the Malian Ministry of Mines, Energy and Water which identifies obstacles and provides recommendations for responsible gold trading in Mali. National stakeholders, including the government, private sector, and civil society validated the report—which demonstrates that Mali is becoming a major hub for smuggling West African gold to the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—at a workshop in Bamako in March 2023.

A comparison of export data for artisanal gold obtained from Malian authorities with publicly available import trade data for the UAE (obtained from UN Comtrade) reveals that 22,842 kilograms of artisanal gold were exported from Mali to the UAE in 2021, as compared to 174,296 kilograms of gold imported into the UAE. Since no industrially produced gold in Mali is known to be imported into the UAE for refining, it can be inferred that all the gold imported into the UAE originates from artisanal mines.

The declared artisanal gold legally exported from Mali in 2021 thus constitutes only 13 percent of the gold originating from Mali that was imported into the UAE. This suggests that the remaining 87 percent—151,454 kilograms of gold worth $6.36 billion—is being smuggled from Mali to the UAE.

Additionally, the UAE import data for Mali greatly exceeds that nation’s total national ASGM gold production figures (estimated at 26 to 50 tons per annum). This helps confirm other reports that artisanal gold from neighboring countries is trafficked through Bamako’s international airport to Dubai’s free trade zone.

The scale of this informality in the gold trade further underscores the risk posed by non-state armed groups in Mali. They could capture more ASGM supply chains if they continue to expand toward southwestern Mali and into the wider Sahel and coastal West Africa regions, which host significant ASGM activity.

This is one key argument in favor of a different solution: formalization. The value of the informal shipments detailed above is equivalent to 33 percent of Mali’s $19 billion GDP in 2021. If the ASGM gold trade was formalized, its government might generate considerable revenue through export taxes, and tap into the sector’s full peace benefits.

Untapped Peacebuilding Benefits of Formalization

Fortunately, much can be done to help prevent such a situation from materializing. Reinforcing security around known ASGM sites and gold trading routes in proximity to non-state armed groups would be a start.

But considering that the sector’s informality lies at the heart of many of the problems associated with it, it seems more important that ASGM production and trade are formalized to the greatest degree possible.

How would that happen? Pact’s policy paper puts forth some key formalization steps identified by Malian stakeholders, including providing legal access for ASGM miners to gold-rich land and addressing regulatory loopholes that facilitate gold smuggling. It also recommends revising institutional roles and responsibilities to ensure greater accountability in gold trade regulation, as well as increased collaboration between regional policymakers and the UAE government.

Yet the most important proposal may be to build capacity for both miners and gold traders to enable them to comply with national laws and regulations. Accomplishing this may eventually allow the adoption of international standards aimed at ‘delinking’ the sector from armed conflict and transnational crime.

Besides curbing the deteriorating security situation in Mali and the broader (central) Sahel and West African regions, such steps can also yield important peacebuilding benefits.

Former Tuareg fighters operating in Mali’s Kidal region offer one case study. During the region’s 2018 gold rush, many of them dropped their arms to earn a living in the region’s ASGM mines, as they provided viable income, and until this date, ASGM remains the region’s main economic activity, providing livelihoods for an estimated 80 percent of the working population. Ex-combatants in places as diverse as the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sierra Leone have equally been documented to have left behind their criminal activities to engage in ASM, even when the sector remains largely informal and unsupported.

Substantive research on the issue confirms that formalizing ASGM in a holistic manner can leverage the sector’s full sustainable development and peacebuilding potential at multiple levels of governance. At the local level, formalization efforts that enable miners to professionalize their livelihoods to the benefit of their families and communities can facilitate ex-combatants’ reintegration into society. They can also promote social cohesion and provide marginalized youth with meaningful future prospects that can help prevent their recruitment into non-state armed groups.

At the national and regional levels, formalization can help curb transnational crime, generate government revenues, and provide broader socio-economic stability. Its global effects promise a better implementation of existing bilateral and multilateral strategies that prioritize preventative approaches to conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Indeed, formalizing ASGM can address the root causes of violent conflict and align with measures such as the US Global Fragility Act or the UN Secretary General’s Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism.

The evidence is clear. It is time for the full peacebuilding benefits of ASGM formalization to be recognized. Next, formalization must be integrated into national, regional, and global peace and security frameworks—and especially into programs targeting fragile regions such as the Central Sahel.

The special force was brought in for the first time in Ethiopian history by the Somali Region in the early 2010s with the support of the federal government and foreign assistance. Its main purpose was to counter insurgencies by armed groups declared terrorists by the federal government. Over time, the trend was replicated by the rest of the regions, and most organized their own special forces. In this article, I argue that the federal government’s dissolution of the special forces is unconstitutional.

The Sources of Objections

The federal constitution, the supreme law of the country, in apportioning powers between the federal government and regions, has entrusted power to the latter to maintain peace and order in the state by establishing a state police force (Article 52(2)(g)). There is no clear understanding of whether this allows regions to establish a security apparatus like the special force under consideration, with special training and equipped with advanced military weapons not used by the regular police.

The recent protests in the Amhara Region were not mainly related to the constitutionality of the decision to dismantle the special forces. It grew out of the skepticism of many inhabitants and political elites in the region, who believed  they would be more vulnerable to attacks, particularly from forces in the regions of Tigray and Oromia, if the special forces were dissolved. There was also suspicion among such groups that the process would target the Amhara forces and leave others intact. The federal government’s poor effort to clarify the confusion, its apparent unwillingness to address the concerns expressed, and its adamant determination to implement the plan regardless of the consequences caused further complications surrounding the process.

What Ought to Have Been Done?

It appears that the federal government proceeded with its plan with the conviction that its decision was constitutional, given that regions lack constitutional authority to establish special forces other than the regular police.  But the federal government cannot step into the affairs of states under the guise of ensuring observance of the constitution, save in exceptional cases provided for in it.

The constitution has specified that any decision of a government organ that contravenes its provisions shall have no effect (Article 9(1)). The House of the Federation (HOF), the upper house of the federal parliament, which comprises representatives of ethnic groups in the regions, is an organ that has the power to determine the constitutionality of decisions or practices through constitutional interpretation. Until it is decided in this way, the region’s action will be deemed constitutional. The region’s right to autonomy, which the constitution gives profound emphasis and protection, requires that the federal government refrains from taking actions concerning regions, including the special forces created by them, without the HOF deciding the latter’s act to be unconstitutional (Articles 39(3) and 50(8)).

The federal government’s actions will not also be acceptable, although states have consented to it. The region’s right to autonomy is grounded in the right of nations, nationalities, and peoples to self-administration, which cannot be limited by the will of the incumbent government administering the regions. Therefore, the only option available to the federal government was to request that the HOF determine the constitutionality of establishing special regional forces before passing a decision to dissolve them. Even though the HOF is deeply criticized for being impartial in favor of the ruling government, its significance in mitigating the problem should not be entirely discounted. Consideration of the matter by the HOF means that the public in the regions it represents gets a role in determining the fate of the special forces.

It should also be recalled that unconstitutional decisions of the federal government that ignored the public have had disastrous consequences in Ethiopia. For example, the masterplan the federal government developed in 2015 to expand the capital city, Addis Ababa, was the source of serious problems, mainly because the public in the Oromia Region surrounding the city was not engaged in the preparation of the plan, contrary to the constitution. The measures the security forces took to crack down on the protest, as it is well documented, caused serious human rights violations, such as the killings of several individuals. The way the federal government handled the present case casts doubt as to whether it is prepared to learn lessons from the prior unconstitutional actions that had dire consequences.

Failure by the federal government to abide by the constitution may entail a loss of public confidence in its ability to resolve other controversial aspects of the constitution that are increasingly causing conflicts in the country, such as those relating to the boundaries of regions, that may be settled through constitutional revision. To uphold the rule of law and address the intricate challenges facing the country, it is imperative that the government comply with the constitution.

Zelalem Shiferaw Woldemichael is currently a PhD candidate at the Melbourne Law School.

Photo Credit: Bumble Dee/Shutterstock.com

The opinions expressed on this blog are solely those of the authors. They do not reflect the views of the Wilson Center or those of Carnegie Corporation of New York. The Wilson Center’s Africa Program provides a safe space for various perspectives to be shared and discussed on critical issues of importance to both Africa and the United States.

Hemedti allied himself more closely with civilian groups from a coalition, the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), that had shared power with the military between Bashir’s fall and the coup in 2021 as the plan for a new transition took shape. Analysts and diplomats agreed that this was a part of Hemedti’s plan to reinvent himself as a statesman, most likely to lead the military in the civilian government.

Before the most recent violence between two fierce competing factions broke out in Sudan on April 15, 2023, the primary diplomatic initiatives by regional and international players were to bring the nation back under civilian government. In October 2021, the Sudanese military overthrew the civilian government, suspended the constitution, and detained several ministers, including Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. It made the case that Sudan’s civilian administration was too fractured to handle the country’s security risks. General Burhan, the head of the coup government in Sudan, added that the military’s measures were necessary to uphold the revolution’s objectives and advances, which led to the overthrow of longstanding leader Omar al-Bashir in 2019.

Burhan, however, made the unexpected revelation that the military was prepared to return power to civilians in July 2022. This move provided a chance to restart the democratic transition. While many people doubted the military’s sincerity in returning control to civilians, influential political groups rejected Burhan’s assertion. They advocated for intensifying protests that resulted in numerous fatalities and extensive property damage.

Nonetheless, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), of which Sudan is a member, the United States as a partner bilaterally and a leader in the United Nations, and the African Union continued with negotiations for a democratic process. Indeed, Volker Perthes, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Sudan, stated in March 2023 that a solution and the restoration of a civilian government were “closer than they have ever been” for Sudanese parties. However, fighting broke out between the two opposing military leaders in April 2023, shattering hopes for signing of the transition agreements, which showed that neither side was prepared for a civilian transition.

What may persuade the military to cede authority to civilians?

In Sudan, the military has held power for more than three decades and controls practically the entire industrial base and the economy. It is challenging to negotiate a power transition with civilians because each party must make complex compromises to reach an agreement. The question would be: what compromises should the civilians make in the arrangement if the military is giving up power it has controlled for decades? In such a scenario, the military would want assurance that it will not be victimized by the reforms, sidelined, or targeted for criticism.

The United States, in collaboration with the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia (collectively known as the QUAD for Sudan) can facilitate the African Union and IGAD to initiate civil sector reforms so that the civilian authority can serve the Sudanese population. Additionally, dialogue with the military should be conducted to agree on what sectors they can oversee and those that should be left to civilians  to maintain the military’s productivity. While key areas may occasionally remain in the state authority’s control, in some cases, particular sectors may be privatized to address the economic decay and disintegration.

Finally, any intervention aimed at a transitional framework from military to civilian administration should not be a short-term project.  It must be a carefully thought-out and deliberate approach that gradually diminishes military influence or presence in government to the bare minimum over time. This move would enable long-term civil-military relations, which could prevent future coups.

Ruth Namatovu is a Doctor of International Affairs candidate and a Graduate Research Assistant at Johns Hopkins University-School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.

Photo Credit: Zakariya Irfan/Shutterstock.com

The opinions expressed on this blog are solely those of the authors. They do not reflect the views of the Wilson Center or those of Carnegie Corporation of New York. The Wilson Center’s Africa Program provides a safe space for various perspectives to be shared and discussed on critical issues of importance to both Africa and the United States.

On March 21, Uganda’s Parliament passed the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Bill, widely hailed as among the world’s harshest anti-gay laws. Though same-sex relations were already illegal in the country, this bill further cracks down on LGBTQ+ rights. It imposes the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” (including sex when the “offender” is a person living with HIV), mandates life in prison for those convicted of homosexual relations, instates a 20-year prison sentence for the promotion or abetting of homosexuality, and requires by law that family, friends, neighbors, and healthcare workers report the homosexual relations of their loved ones or face up to six months of jail time.

This law has significant human rights impacts, including decreased access to health services for LGBTQ+ individuals. Activists warn that the legislation could criminalize inclusive HIV efforts, undermining global efforts to end AIDS by 2030.

History of the Legislation

This isn’t the first time a harsh anti-homosexuality act has appeared on the floor of Uganda’s Parliament. The initial iteration of the act was introduced in 2009 after significant lobbying by American evangelicals. Though nations like the U.S. attempted diplomatic intervention against the bill, it was signed into law five years later–only to be struck down on a technicality. The law’s dismissal on procedural grounds has left the possibility of new anti-gay legislation, an opening that Uganda’s Members of Parliament have now taken advantage of.

The 2023 bill has yet to be signed by President Yoweri Museveni. However, if the past is any indicator, signs point toward his signature of the bill. In 2014, Museveni signed the initial iteration of this bill into law. Though the bill was later struck down, Museveni has continued his anti-gay rhetoric. In a presidential address to Parliament this past March, Museveni described gay people as “deviants” and called on the West to “stop impos(ing) their practices on other people.”

On April 20, Museveni sent the bill back to Parliament for improvements after congratulating the body on their “strong stand” against homosexuality. He claimed to have no issues with the punishments set out in the bill, but rather with the fact that the bill has no provisions for the “rehabilitation” of LGBTQ+ individuals who “would like to live normal lives again.” It is yet to be seen what exact changes will be made to the bill, but it appears as though such changes would prompt Museveni to sign the bill, as he otherwise “totally agree(s)” with the legislation.

Health Impacts 

Today, 1.4 million Ugandans live with HIV, with millions more at risk of infection. LGBTQ+ individuals are among the most vulnerable to the disease. In 2021, 51% of new HIV cases in Sub-Saharan Africa occurred in key vulnerable populations and their sexual partners, including men who have sex with men, sex workers, people who inject drugs, and transgender people.

This new legislation will drive vulnerable LGBTQ+ communities away from testing and life-saving services due to fears of being outed and arrested, directly affecting HIV rates. Research shows that the criminalization of homosexuality in Sub-Saharan Africa increases the incidence of HIV among LGBTQ+ populations. In countries that criminalize homosexuality, men who have sex with men have a five times greater incidence of HIV than men who have sex with men in countries without such laws. The harsh crackdown proposed in Uganda’s 2023 legislation will only further contribute to this inequity between Uganda and its neighbors without anti-gay laws.

The legislation will also obstruct healthcare workers from providing HIV prevention resources, testing, and treatment. According to Asia Russell, Executive Director of NGO Health GAP, healthcare workers attempting to implement LGBTQ+ inclusive HIV programming “risk prison time, steep fines, and the ethical nightmare of having to report fellow Ugandans simply for doing their job.”

Concerns of obstructed health work are not without historical basis. In April 2014, just after the 2014 Anti-Homosexuality bill was passed, Ugandan police raided a U.S.-funded HIV healthcare provider and arrested an employee for “training youths in homosexuality.” This incident raised concerns about anti-gay laws driving the arrest of healthcare workers and the seizure of confidential health records that could out numerous LGBTQ+ patients.

Implications for the Implementation of PEPFAR 

The United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is credited with saving millions of lives and altering the global trajectory of the HIV epidemic. PEPFAR currently invests about $400 million annually to support Uganda’s HIV response and provides prevention, testing, and treatment services through inclusive clinics. Among the 1.4 million Ugandans living with HIV, 1.3 million receive PEPFAR-supported treatment.

According to Russell, the bill will make some PEPFAR-funded programs in Uganda “completely illegal.” A halt in PEPFAR implementation will seriously affect the health of Uganda’s population, simultaneously thwarting the country’s progress in eradicating HIV and impeding PEPFAR’s aims of controlling the epidemic globally.

Policy Interventions: Are Aid Cuts the Answer?

In 2014, the World Bank and countries including the United States, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Denmark suspended or redirected aid in response to Museveni signing off on Uganda’s anti-homosexuality legislation. Though these actions were targeted toward censuring breaches in human rights, such aid restrictions had devastating impacts on the health of all Ugandans–LGBTQ+ or not.

Thus far, no government or multilateral organization has restricted aid to Uganda in response to Parliament passing the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Bill. However, some may choose to do so if Museveni signs the bill, mirroring their 2014 decision of waiting until the bill was signed and enacted by the president before cutting aid.

Today, the U.S. government is the single largest donor to Uganda’s health sector, contributing 32% of total health spending in Uganda annually. Halting this funding will prevent millions of Ugandans from receiving necessary healthcare. According to Shantal Mulungi, executive director of Coloured Voice Truth, if the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and the United States halt their HIV and AIDS services in Uganda, “then automatically all patients on ARVs (antiretroviral drugs) will be sentenced to death.”

Cutting aid to Uganda could also heighten violence and hatred against LGBTQ+ people, who may be portrayed as the scapegoat for aid cuts.

Alternative Interventions: What Do Activists Suggest?

Many Ugandan LGBTQ+ activists in both 2014 and today advocate for alternative interventions to aid cuts, which could disproportionately impact the health of vulnerable LGBTQ+ populations.

Nicholas Opiyo, Executive Director and Lead Attorney of Chapter Four Uganda suggests sanctions that target leaders involved in all forms of human rights violation. Some examples of human rights violations in Uganda today include unlawful or arbitrary killings, denial of a fair public trial, restrictions on freedom of expression, and more. By considering all human rights abuses, not just abuses against LGBTQ+ individuals, Opiyo suggests that international actors can ensure that their interventions don’t single out LGBTQ+ people as the only Africans the international community cares about, thus preventing further animosity against LGBTQ+ people.

Dr. Frank Mugisha, Executive Director at Sexual Minorities Uganda, suggests a suite of actions that could prevent the spread of anti-gay rhetoric throughout the continent. These interventions include holding religious leaders accountable for spreading hatred, imposing travel restrictions against those spreading anti-gay rhetoric, exposing extreme anti-gay groups from outside of Africa that are advocating on the continent, and directly supporting activists on the ground.

Mulguni suggests that the United Nations back up campaigns for LGBTQ+ equality with international law enshrining LGBTQ+ rights. Alternatively, she suggests that the UN impose measures that force nations to comply with the human rights treaties they have signed. “That is the permanent solution,” she said. “Sanctions and all that will not solve this problem.”

The global community can support the work that these activists are doing in Uganda through the power of strong bilateral partnerships and value-oriented policy. Future interventions should focus on supporting, rather than further harming, Ugandans of all sexual and gender orientations.

Amanda Clark is the Staff Intern at the Wilson Center Africa Program for the Spring 2023 term (January-April). She is a recent graduate of Muhlenberg College, where she received a BA in Sustainability Studies with a focus on international sustainable development.

Photo Credit: Gay Pride, Uganda, Africa 2014. Held in secret by Lake Victoria, Entebbe, following ruling of homosexuality laws in Uganda. iain statham/Shutterstock.com

The opinions expressed on this blog are solely those of the authors. They do not reflect the views of the Wilson Center or those of Carnegie Corporation of New York. The Wilson Center’s Africa Program provides a safe space for various perspectives to be shared and discussed on critical issues of importance to both Africa and the United States.

But when COVID-19 wreaked havoc across the globe, the responses exposed the continued entrenchment of global inequities. Vaccines were readily available to some but a distant hope for others. Instead of distributing COVID-19 vaccines based solely on need, countries used “vaccine diplomacy” to win allies. More recently, the aid industry’s rapid response to the war in Ukraine—driven in part by diverting aid resources from crises in Africa—has also reinforced the perception that aid benefits the privileged few.

To better understand the evolving power dynamics in aid between 2020 and 2022, we convened a series of discussions that sought to put African voices at the forefront. We held informal conversations with thought-leaders from across the African continent. We then brought them together in online consultations to see how their perspectives converged and diverged. Finally, we brought donor voices into the discussion through a high-level roundtable in Geneva, Switzerland.

In each of these discussions, we focused on the dynamics of aid on the African continent, asking: Have calls for more equitable aid led to changes in how aid is designed and distributed across Africa? Has there been a shift in the locus of power in international aid? If so, where and how has this shift taken place? Given the current trajectory, how will aid power dynamics likely evolve in the coming years? We summarize the key findings below.

One, all actors in the aid industry have sources of power. Shifts in aid dynamics threaten to undermine the power of each of these actors, diminishing incentives for real change.

In an increasingly multipolar world, aid power dynamics are no longer as simple as donor-recipient government relations. Our participants made clear that aid is shaped by a wide range of increasingly diverse actors, including international donors, recipient governments, international and national NGOs, civil society organizations (CSOs), citizens in the recipient country (and in the donor country), as well as private sector companies operating in the international development space. Although power is not shared equally, each of these actors has its own source of power and dependencies. They each also have something to lose.

Donors have the power of the purse. Recipient governments have the power of consent, given their sovereign right to determine who operates on their territory and how. Both are accountable to their political constituencies. Donors also depend on international NGOs or commercial international development companies to win aid bids and distribute goods and services to government agencies, domestic partners, or other domestic actors. Civil society and social movements often want to challenge the authority of governments (and sometimes donors). But they are often financially dependent on donors and/or governments and, just like donors, require consent from national governments to continue to operate.

In this interdependent system, shifts in the relative power of one actor will reverberate throughout the system. Moreover, patterns of aid dependency make changing aid power dynamics difficult. Aid-dependent economies rely on aid to sustain their macro-economic policies and expenditures. When aid is withdrawn, governments must find alternative sources of income or face social and political unrest. Sometimes they may have to institute significant austerity measures, which may exacerbate popular protests.

Participants argued that donors and recipients should have an exit strategy for an aid partnership. As one participant argued, “Aid is meant to be a temporary bandage or a crutch, not a permanent prosthetic.” However, exit strategies are challenging when so many actors remain dependent on the current system.

Two, the growing threat of populism and democratic backsliding underscores the critical need to strengthen local civil society organizations (CSOs).

Several participants highlighted the importance of supporting civil society actors to protect civic space in a context of increasing democratic backsliding. Many CSOs remain aid-dependent, especially when they operate in contexts where civic space is restricted, resources are limited, or they otherwise lack broad constituent support. When these CSOs also advocate for greater government accountability and transparency, they often face political targeting and reductions in their potential funding. Donors can play a critical role in protecting this civic space by providing CSOs with aid that helps insulate them from domestic political pressures and supports their civic programming. However, their reliance on external aid continues to reinforce aid power dynamics where CSOs are more accountable to foreign donors than their local constituents.

Three, true localization of aid is challenged by subcontracting, capacity building, and elite NGOs.

Participants agreed that aid should be “owned” by domestic actors (i.e., “local ownership”) but that attempts at localization often lead to subcontracting. Localization and subcontracting are not the same. In common practice, donors issue a call for proposals, which national NGOs or foreign international development firms respond. The winner is then contracted with implementing the donor’s planned project or program. Instead, participants agreed that national NGOs and other “local” partners should be closely involved from the project’s inception through its design, implementation, and evaluation. They should be treated as true partners—not just as subcontractors or bystanders—so that aid can benefit from their knowledge, skills, and expertise.

Participants also noted that aid is frequently given to NGOs or firms run by the country’s elites, excluding smaller NGOs or community organizations that are genuinely connected to communities. These elite domestic development actors may be skilled in speaking donor lingo, understanding donor lingo, and producing satisfactory financial reports, but they can lack legitimacy with local communities and have a harder time bringing about sustainable change on the ground. Instead, our participants emphasized that aid should be delivered to those who understand the problem and can provide domestically owned and sustained solutions.

Shifting power dynamics in foreign aid are complex, continuous, multifaceted, and multilayered. They require careful consideration, ongoing reflection, and rigorous policy analysis and attention. The solutions are complex, but the need is clear. It is also clear from our consultations that until the power dynamics are more balanced between domestic and international actors in the global aid architecture, the ability of international aid to deliver inclusive, equitable, and sustainable development in Africa will remain constrained.

The authors are grateful for support received by Humanity United, the Knowledge Platform on Security & Rule of Law, the Raymond Frankel Foundation, the US Institute of Peace, and the University of Geneva. The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the funders, the Wilson Center or those of Carnegie Corporation of New York. The Wilson Center’s Africa Program provides a safe space for various perspectives to be shared and discussed on critical issues of importance to both Africa and the United States.

Photo Credit: 3D Illustration, money for the world by DesignRage/Shutterstock.com

Vice President Kamala Harris recently made her first official trip to the African continent. Harris traveled to Ghana, Tanzania, and Zambia for a weeklong visit. During the White House’s African Leaders Summit in December 2022, the Biden administration promised to make multiple high-level trips to Africa. First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, and Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) traveled to different African countries this year. Vice President Harris is the highest-ranking Biden administration official to travel to Africa thus far, and President Biden plans to make a visit later this year.

Harris’s stop in Ghana was the most extensive of her trip, and it illuminated Ghana’s historical ties to the African Diaspora. Diaspora means dispersal and can apply to different global communities. In that vein, African diaspora includes people of African descent on the African continent, in the Americas, and around the globe. Here, I highlight some historical and contemporary connections between members of the Diaspora in West Africa and in the Americas.

Harris is of mixed-race heritage, with a mother from India and a father from Jamaica. Jamaica played a part in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, with Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast), fueling some of the enslavement of those sold into the trans-Atlantic slave trade. After several high-profile events and dinners, Harris, her team, and some U.S. journalists and Ghanaian photographers visited Cape Coast Castle. In what was a heavily armed fortress, newly captured Africans were held in extensive underground dungeons until they were loaded onto the ships bound for the Americas.

My research and scholarship focus largely on Africa and the African Diaspora, and I grew up in Texas. I have visited slave plantations, slave castles, and slave houses throughout the United States and West Africa. However, I never experienced the horror and despair found in Cape Coast Castle elsewhere. The dungeons are dank, damp, and foreboding. Imagine someone who lived along the sunny, humid West African coast or a few hundred miles into the interior, who was suddenly captured, moved, and held in such conditions.

Not being free is stark, but not knowing when, if, or how you might regain your freedom is unimaginable. Captured Africans forcibly traversed the Middle Passage across the Atlantic and were enslaved in the Americas. Most had no idea why they were captured, where they were going, and how long they would be held. Kunta Kinte, whose life provided the basis for the main character in Alex Haley’s Roots, was almost 20 when he was captured in the Gambia. He was shipped to Annapolis, Maryland, and enslaved on a plantation in Virginia. Kunta sought his freedom for years and ran away multiple times until his foot was severed, disabling him and limiting his mobility. His experience embodies the search for the freedom of African Americans in the New World.

Vice President Harris was affected by her visit to Cape Coast Castle, and the gravity of the visit is evident in photographs. She was visibly upset when she spoke after her visit; her husband, Doug Emhoff, wiped away her tears. Harris is the highest-ranking U.S. government official of African descent with ties to slavery ever to visit the Cape Coast Castle. While President Barack Obama visited the castle in 2009, he has no ancestral ties to those who had been enslaved in the Atlantic Slave Trade. At the castle, CNN journalist Anderson Cooper asked Obama what the trip meant to him as well as his wife Michelle and their daughters Sasha and Malia. Obama responded that the other three members of his family had different ties to the African continent than he—the child of a Kenyan father and white American mother—did.

When I visited Cape Coast, I traveled there from Accra, Ghana, where I was based for several weeks. I traveled to Cape Coast to attend a Juneteenth celebration. Ironically, a place with such strong historical ties to the trans-Atlantic slave trade acknowledged and even imported some semblance of the holiday created by freed Black Texans. While the celebration looked quite different from what I had experienced growing up, I used the opportunity to spend time in the community with local Ghanaians and Black Americans who made the sojourn to Cape Coast to honor their ancestors.

At Cape Coast Castle, Vice President Harris said, “But yet, they survived. And they tell another history—a history of endurance, a history of faith, a history in believing what is possible, a history not only that tells about the ability that each individual has to survive, but to thrive.” With those fitting remarks, Harris spoke to the Diaspora in the Americas; but her words also apply to U.S. government policy in Africa. Everyone should be able to survive, thrive, and engage at the most equitable starting point possible.

In Ghana, the Vice President announced U.S. and partner government pledges for financial and technical support for regional security (West Africa and the Sahel). Vice President Harris also pledged $1 billion for women’s economic empowerment that will help enable more women achieve economic independence. From a policy perspective, more substantial engagement in women’s economic activity is well overdue. In my own research in Senegal, Ghana, and elsewhere on the continent, I’ve chronicled some of the disparities in women’s access to formal lending structures for instance. In some cases, as the women pharmacy owners that I chronicle in Pharmacy in Senegal: Gender, Healing and Entrepreneurship, women have been able to transcend some of the barriers. However, this is largely tied to educational rank, class, and other factors of privilege. It is imperative that the U.S. government not only target women in high-level, “white collar,” and major tech entrepreneurs but those who engage in more modest economic activities. Women of lower socio-economic strata often need the support the most.

Though the primary purpose of the Vice President’s trip to Ghana was part of the White House’s larger plan to renew U.S.-Africa foreign policy engagement, Harris’s Cape Coast Castle visit fulfilled a larger mission. It illuminated the ties to African-descended people in Africa and the Americas and greater possibilities for future engagements between these groups. In December, President Biden announced the creation of an advisory council on African Diaspora engagement. Ideally, this committee will be one of many initiatives to engage Africa and its Diaspora. Members of the Diaspora with knowledge of the continent and ideas for sustained engagement should be key drivers in this initiative. Ideally, this committee will include diverse representation form myriad parts of the diaspora, particularly regional representation of recent African immigrant communities to the United States as well as Black Americans with long ancestral ties to the United States.

The Diaspora—from those whose ancestors were dispersed through the trans-Atlantic trade, to those born in the United States of African immigrants, and those who recently emigrated from the continent—are watching as the United States continues to advance its engagement with the continent.

Dr. Donna A. Patterson is Professor & Chair of the Department of History, Political Science, and Philosophy at Delaware State University. She is the author of Pharmacy in Senegal: Gender Healing and Entrepreneurship. She holds a PhD in African history.

Photo Credit: Vice President Kamala Harris visits the Cape Coast paramount chief and the historic Cape Coast Castle by the U.S. Embassy Ghana via Flickr. (License)

The opinions expressed on this blog are solely those of the authors. They do not reflect the views of the Wilson Center or those of Carnegie Corporation of New York. The Wilson Center’s Africa Program provides a safe space for various perspectives to be shared and discussed on critical issues of importance to both Africa and the United States.

The two years of bloody war in the Tigray region of Ethiopia have caused severe damage to essential social services there and in the neighboring regions of Afar and Amhara, including the education sector. The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) estimates that more than 2.8 million children have missed education in Afar, Amhara and Tigray in 2021. The war deprived Tigray’s children of education, which is especially concerning as this follows the prolonged disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and many children still cannot return to school. For example, the AU’s African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child called on African countries to “either ban the use of schools for military purposes, or, at a minimum, enact concrete measures to deter the use of schools for military purposes.” However, all warring parties used schools as military bases throughout the war.

Eritrean Defense Forces (EDF) especially committed widespread abuses against civilians during its involvement in the war alongside the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) against Tigrayan forces. Both EDF and ENDF forces have bombed, looted, and occupied schools, sometimes using these sites to commit other crimes, including weaponized rape. Widespread and systematic Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (CRSV) has been a main tool of the war. One Mekelle resident told Human Rights Watch, “I saw different women taken inside [a school]. Sometimes they would stay two, three, or five days, and we would see them go in and out of the school. They appeared beaten and were crying as they would leave… No one could ask the women what happened to them, and the atmosphere made it difficult to do so.”

These actions are in discord with national and international law and declarations. Under Ethiopia’s criminal code, “the confiscation, destruction, removal, rendering useless or appropriation of property such as […] schools” is a war crime. Furthermore, the African Union Peace and Security Council has urged all African countries to endorse the Safe Schools Declaration an international political commitment currently supported by countries—to take concrete measures to better protect schools, including by refraining from using schools for military purposes. As of March 2023, Ethiopia has not endorsed the declaration.

Studying the Impact

According to a study on the damage to Tigray’s education sector, the war has reversed years of progress. In 2021, the Tigray education bureau conducted a preliminary assessment that included 2,054 primary, elementary, and secondary public schools and two teachers’ training colleges, excluding schools in Western and parts of Northern Tigray that Eritrea and Amhara occupied. The study’s findings indicate that 88.3% of classrooms were severely damaged. This damage included the theft, tear down, and burning of 96.5% of student desks, 95.9% of blackboards, 63.5% of student textbooks as well as the vandalism or destruction of 85.1% of computers, 79.9% of plasma screens, 84.5% of science laboratory equipment, 92.5% of educational models, and more than 48% of toilets.

The study also revealed that primary school students in Tigray now walk an average of 7.3 kilometers to school, up from 2.5 kilometers just two years ago due to damage to the school. Similarly, high school students will have to walk an average of 17 kilometers to their schools, up from 7 kilometers before November 2020. Class-to-student ratios have also risen from 39:1 pre-war to 434:1 in primary schools and 43:1 pre-war to 365:1 in high schools. During the study, the education bureau also identified 1,911 students and 235 teachers (elementary and secondary schools) who were killed during the war. Because the study only covered the period from November 2020 to September 2021, the true tally of atrocities could greatly outnumber the reported figures.

Moving Forward Post-War

After the brutal war, the TPLF and the Ethiopian government signed a deal on a permanent cessation of hostilities on November 2, 2022. Positive steps have since been taken in its implementation. However, the non-Ethiopian National Defense Force parties have not yet withdrawn from constitutionally recognized territories of Tigray to their pre-November 3, 2020 lines of deployment. There has thus been a failure to enact restoration of pre-war territorial and administrative status quo ante and to return internally displaced persons to their homes from the schools currently housing them. Now, six months after the peace deal, the Eritrean forces are also still in Tigray. The issue of justice and accountability seem also to be delayed or left unaddressed. True peace can only be achieved if the atrocities in Ethiopia do not enjoy impunity and survivors are given a voice. All sides have to respect the agreement and follow through on pledges “to implement an inclusive and comprehensive transitional justice process”.

The war in Tigray has taken a terrible toll on education in the region, which may affect the lives of Tigray’s future generations. Therefore, the warring parties should take swift and appropriate measures to fully implement the peace deal and return Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and refugees, thereby fostering durable peace. Despite positive trends, including forming an Interim Regional Administration (IRA) and removing the TPLF from the designated terrorist list, the non-ENDF parties should withdraw quickly from Western Tigray (Wolkait) and Southern Tigray (Raya zone) which is not implemented as per the peace deal yet. The Eritrean troops should also withdraw from Tigray territory.

The Tigray education bureau is collaborating with non-governmental and humanitarian organizations to facilitate IDPs return to their areas, teacher reimbursements, and textbook purchases, all of which are major roadblocks to resuming education, on top of the urgent need to restore destroyed school infrastructures. Further complicating the problem, the majority of the IDPs housed in the schools compound have been displaced from Western and Southern parts of Tigray that are still under the occupation of non-ENDF parties. For the IDPs to be able to return to their homes, the issue of disputed areas (Wolkait and Raya zones) must be resolved.

UNICEF Ethiopia stated in February 2023 that it is providing informal education services to countless children who were deprived of school due to COVID-19 and the conflict in northern Ethiopia, as well as facilitating the gradual return of students to school until classes resume. The United Nations said accelerated learning activities are required for children who have been out of school for more than three years in war torn areas. The Ethiopian News Agency reported that the federal government working to resume formal schooling in the area and that the Ministry of Education has commenced preliminary preparation to resume education after studying the extent of damage and identifying the issues needed to start education. Rebuilding these damaged facilities in the region should be a priority. The government in collaboration with the United Nations, aid agencies, and international partners should also take quick steps to ensure that once rebuilt, schools and universities can reopen safely.

Photo Credit: Chew Ber Primary School was badly damaged by conflict in North Gondar, Amhara Region, Ethiopia. © UNICEF Ethiopia/2023/Waterton via Flickr (License)

The opinions expressed on this blog are solely those of the authors. They do not reflect the views of the Wilson Center or those of Carnegie Corporation of New York. The Wilson Center’s Africa Program provides a safe space for various perspectives to be shared and discussed on critical issues of importance to both Africa and the United States.

A plot of land that was in the process of being cleared for agriculture in Kenya. Photo by Amanda Clark

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 70 to 80% of people in Sub-Saharan Africa rely on herbal medicine as their primary form of health care. In some countries, the rates are even higher—in Ethiopia and Burundi, 90% of the population uses traditional medicine to meet their healthcare needs. Other communities use traditional medicine as a supplement to modern (or Western) medical practices–one study shows that 76% of members of Kenya’s Kuku Ranch use both herbal and modern medicine in tandem.¹ Most forms of traditional medicine are herbal or plant-based and thus rely on the accessibility of plant resources.

Risks Posed by Deforestation

While global deforestation rates have decreased, thus reducing the risk to medicinal plants in some regions, deforestation is on the rise in Africa. The continent experienced a net annual forest loss of 3.94 million hectares (ha) from 2010–2020, making Africa’s deforestation rates the highest of any global region. This directly affects plant biodiversity—33% of Africa’s tropical vegetation is potentially threatened by extinction, while another third is considered rare.

Deforestation simultaneously presents two dangers to medicinal plants:

1) they are cut down in the process of clearing vegetation, and 2) the habitats they grow in are fragmented, affecting plants’ dispersal, species interactions, and resource availability.

High deforestation rates on the African continent made it increasingly difficult for traditional medical practitioners to find medicinal plants. It can take hours for practitioners to find the plant that they need—if they find it at all.

The increasing scarcity of medicinal plants has hiked up the cost of herbal medical care. Practitioners report that in some regions of Nigeria, prices for traditional medical care increased by 50-100% from 2018-2022. Other herbal medical practitioners have turned to more available but less effective plants for treating diseases, thus reducing the efficacy of treatment.

In communities whose medical care solely relies on traditional medicine due to the high cost or inaccessibility of modern medical practices, deforestation’s impacts on medicinal plants make treating diseases–from malaria to STDs–increasingly difficult.

Global Impacts

African communities are just some that are missing the health benefits of plants due to deforestation. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, “40% of the drugs behind the pharmacist’s counter in the Western world are derived from plants that people have used for centuries, including the top 20 best-selling prescription drugs in the United States today.” Some forms of chemotherapy, called plant alkaloids, come directly from plants. Other drugs, like aspirin, include synthetic ingredients that the medicinal properties of plants have inspired.

Research on medicinal plants in Africa and their benefits to both modern and traditional medical practices is still ongoing. Artemisia afra, or African Wormwood, was studied due to its potential to fight against diseases and disorders from COVID-19 to depression. An extract called Trimesemine™, derived from the Sceletium tortuosum, or Kanna, could be used to treat Alzheimer’s disease. While current research shows the many benefits of these plants, more clinical research is required to understand how they can be applied in modern medical practices.

According to WHO, significant medical and pharmacological discoveries are continuously made through a greater understanding of the Earth’s biodiversity. A loss in biodiversity, such as that caused by deforestation, may thus limit the future discovery of potential treatments for diseases and health problems experienced by individuals worldwide.

The Use of Olchilichili (Maasai name) — Commiphora Africana (scientific name) — African Myrrh (common English name). Sap can be used as an antibiotic cream on small injuries, especially those caused by chiggers. Photo by Amanda Clark

Moving Forward: Recommendations and Options

1. Preventing Deforestation

Deforestation in Africa is primarily driven by agricultural expansion, mineral extraction, infrastructure development, commercial logging, and charcoal and biofuel production. Numerous actions can be taken across local, federal, and international levels to reduce the drivers and the resulting high rates of deforestation.

For example, increasing agricultural yields may decrease the need for agricultural expansion, resulting in slower deforestation rates. In 2022, the average crop yield across the continent was just 4.0 tons of crops per hectare, compared to a global average minus Africa of 7.6 tons of crops per hectare. Crop yields can be increased through inputs such as improved irrigation systems, soil erosion protection methods, fertilizers, and drought-resistant high-yield seeds, among others. Programs that educate or partner with farmers to provide resources may help decrease deforestation in the long term.

2. Protecting Plant Resources

Deforestation is, to some extent, inevitable. Africa’s rising population, ongoing advances in development, and need for food security will require land to be cleared for settlement, infrastructure, and agriculture. While it is essential to minimalize deforestation as much as possible, it is also important to protect plant biodiversity from inevitable deforestation by creating protected areas and medicinal plant gardens.

Nigeria, for example, currently has 34 botanical gardens in which plant biodiversity is preserved. These gardens, however, have insufficient resources for extractive use and thus limit or prevent traditional medicine practitioners from harvesting the plants they need. Many protected areas, such as national parks, similarly stop local communities from harvesting plants on protected land. In South Africa, for example, communities have the legal right to access parks only as non-extractive paying visitors.

3. Ensuring Adequate Access

The limited accessibility of existing botanical gardens and protected areas to local communities presents a need for new modes of biodiversity protection. One such system can be seen in Kenya’s community conservancies. To form a community conservancy, landowners pool their plots of land together and create a lease agreement that preserves the land for wildlife protection and sustainable land use practices–such as grazing, tourism, and medicinal plant harvesting. Another potential method of preserving plants for medicinal use is the creation of community-owned extractive gardens.

4. Compensating Traditional Knowledge

These methods of biodiversity conservation require everything from legal expertise to land ownership and thus demand community access to financial resources. While there are many potential modes of securing such resources, including NGO support or government policies, it is worth looking into legal mechanisms through which Indigenous communities can reap the benefits of their knowledge’s use in modern medical practices.

The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization, signed and ratified by 138 countries worldwide, outlines the measures countries can take to regulate access to biological resources for innovation purposes.

Most African governments signed and ratified the treaty and therefore have the legal right to ensure international pharmaceutical organizations follow benefit-sharing guidelines. While some countries, like the United States, never signed or ratified the Nagoya Protocol, companies based in non-signatory countries must comply with the Access and Benefits Sharing (ABS) laws of provider countries. Though the Nagoya Protocol allows communities to reap the benefits of their traditional knowledge, studies show that  around the world, and especially in Africa, ABS principles are only weakly implemented.

While critics of the Nagoya Protocol claim that it may slow the process of medical research due to the necessity of receiving prior and informed consent from local communities, ABS laws can provide legal certainty to communities who share their knowledge and resources, thus incentivizing communities to engage with researchers. Therefore, implementing the Nagoya Protocol’s principles can significantly benefit African and global communities.

In many countries throughout the African continent, there are few or no legislative, administrative, or policy measures implementing the Nagoya Protocol. Kenya is one exception, with nine policy tools for implementing Nagoya Protocol principles. One policy of note is the Protection of Traditional Knowledge and Cultural Expressions Act of 2016, which allows communities to hold a new form of intellectual property right (IPR) so they may receive royalties from companies’ use of their cultural heritage.

There is a need for African governments to strengthen regulations and ensure that communities are receiving an equitable share of the benefits of their knowledge. The money communities receive from benefit sharing can support local conservation practices, thus protecting and ensuring community access to medicinal plants. African countries with few or no legislative tools can adopt policies similar to Kenya’s Traditional Knowledge and Cultural Expressions Act. These governments can consider compiling policy advancements with adequate enforcement of ABS laws, public education efforts, and high levels of engagement with local communities, thereby ensuring that communities know and have access to their rights.

Conclusion

Taking action to prevent deforestation, protect plant resources, ensure adequate community access, and compensate for traditional knowledge used to create commercial drugs could guarantee that African medicinal plants can be used for both traditional medicine and global pharmaceutical research. In a world in which both disease and science are constantly evolving, it is necessary to ensure that the resources of the present remain accessible for future use and research.

Amanda Clark is the Staff Intern at the Wilson Center Africa Program for the Spring 2023 term (January-April). She is a recent graduate of Muhlenberg College, where she received a BA in Sustainability Studies with a focus on international sustainable development.

Photo Credits: Amanda Clark

¹Kiringe, J. W. (2005). Ecological and anthropological threats to ethno-medicinal plant resources and their utilization in Maasai communal ranches in the Amboseli region of Kenya. Ethnobotany Research and Applications, 3, 231–242. https://doi.org/10.17348/era.3.0.231-242

The opinions expressed on this blog are solely those of the authors. They do not reflect the views of the Wilson Center or those of Carnegie Corporation of New York. The Wilson Center’s Africa Program provides a safe space for various perspectives to be shared and discussed on critical issues of importance to both Africa and the United States.

It has been a decade since African leaders envisioned a fifty-year transformational plan, Agenda 2063, by signing the 50th-anniversary solemn declaration at the African Union (AU) Summit held in Addis Ababa in May 2013. Agenda 2063, under the auspices of the AU, guides the continental, regional, and national development plans to transform the continent with sustainable development.

Africa is completing the first ten-year implementation plan (FTYIP) (2013-2023) and is about to embark on the second ten-year implementation plan. The first phase had its achievements and shortcomings, as documented by the first and second continental reports on its implementation. Reports recorded achievements in the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA); however, there needed to be more areas of economic transformation and job creation, among others.

The challenges that the AU, Regional Economic Communities (RECs), and African governments have faced thus far can provide new opportunities for implementing the transformational plan. During the second implementation period, there is space for a greater focus on preventing violent conflicts, pursuing long-term global partnerships, strengthening horizontal relations of the RECs, and investing in the potential of the AfCFTA.

Preventing Violent Conflicts

The AU and regional bodies attempted to address conflicts during the FTYIP. However, their inability for timely and efficient responses indicates the challenging task to prevent conflicts. In this regard, the Tigray conflict in Ethiopia, breaking out in November 2020 and lasting for two years, is evidence that the AU and the regional organization Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) were not playing their part in preventing the conflict from becoming an all-out war. The Continental Early Warning System (CEWS), which is responsible for anticipating and preventing conflicts, was operational when tensions were building between Tigray Region and the Ethiopian federal government but failed to deescalate them.

The lack of clear delimitation between the AU and the RECs on how and when to become involved in conflict resolution, combined with concerns of sovereignty raised by governments, contributed to preventing the AU and regional blocs from playing an effective role in resolving armed conflicts. Though there is an agreement and frequent engagement between the AU and regional bodies on peace and security matters, the absence of clear mandates and coherence made interventions remain limited. Moreover, states’ competing interests largely determine regional and continental responses to domestic conflicts and crises in neighboring countries.

These factors contributed to not meeting the “silencing the gun by 2020” target in the FTYIP and having consequences on implementing other priority areas and flagship projects. The AU must thus critically assess the effectiveness of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) and find ways to boost its overall capacity and enhance coordination with regional bodies for timely and efficient responses to conflicts. Above all, African governments are responsible for opening up space for all citizens to participate in the national processes. This can promote peace and security and pave the way for the people to focus on social and economic development activities.

Pursuing Long-term Global Partnerships

The AU and African countries have established several global partnerships that are greatly helping to improve the social and economic life of citizens. The partnerships have also been instrumental in combating violent terrorism in the continent.

Agenda 2063 visualizes a long-term people-centered plan that requires policymakers to consider future generations while initiating and implementing policies. In this context, the outcomes of global partnerships and their implication on the environment, democratic governance, the rule of law, and job creation, among others, should be examined.

With diversified interests of global powers and African States, partnerships exist to advance diverse agendas that impact African citizens. Therefore, African governments must show the political will to review the long-term benefits of the current and future partnerships based on their shared vision. Thus, the partnerships should be audited against all national, regional, and continental aspirations. If required, reshaping the contents in the framework of the transformational plan should be considered.

Strengthening Horizontal Relations of the RECs

Regional Economic Communities are central in promoting the regional integration process. The progress, however, has been slow due to factors such as competing for national interests such as poor infrastructure and lack of institutional capacity.

In addition to working on the integration process of their individual regions, some regional bodies, such as the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East Africa Community(EAC), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), have attempted to establish horizontal cooperation. This would help them better facilitate continental initiatives implemented in their regions and beyond.

The AU and regional bodies should analyze how these initiatives for horizontal cooperation can speed up the integration process more if backed by the continental institutional mechanisms. The outcome would lead them to design a policy framework for establishing collaboration among regional bodies.

Such measures can contribute to harmonizing regional policies and pave the way to integrate RECs works. It can help to coordinate better and minimize the challenges of implementing the AfCFTA and other benefits.

Investing in the Potential of the AfCFTA

During the FTYIP, African leaders showed a high political commitment to establish the AfCFTA, which was expected to boost intra-African trade drastically. The adoption of the AU theme for 2023 as “The Year of AfCFTA: Acceleration of the African Continental Free Trade Area Implementation” confirms the determination by AU, regional blocs, and African governments to materialize AfCFTA.

The potential of AfCFTA is immense, as it benefits African citizens in many ways. Its full implementation can take 50 million people out of extreme poverty in 2035—just after the end of the second implementation phase. When borders open to businesses and the free movement of goods and people is enabled, the continental integration process could speed up, paving the way to materializing the long-term vision in the remaining implementation phases.

To reach this landmark achievement, however, the continued political commitment of African governments is essential. There must be strong coordination between all levels to find solutions to challenges. Accordingly, the competing interest of states, institutional capacities, issues of infrastructure and logistics, and diversifying the export products, amongst others, should be given due attention to be addressed for the smooth operation of AfCFTA.

Conclusion

Africa has finalized the FTYIP and moving to the next ten-year implementation phase of Agenda 2063. The achievements and shortcomings in FTYIP brought opportunities for the next implementation phase.

The AU, RECs, and African governments should build up on the FTYIP successes like the AfCFTA that can bring meaningful changes to the lives of millions of Africans. Besides, the AU and regional bodies should set clear mandates, enhance coordination to respond to conflicts, and strengthen early warning mechanisms. National governments should widen the political space for citizens to participate in national affairs that can minimize conflicts. Institutionalizing horizontal cooperation of the regional bodies and establishing global partnerships in line with the continental agenda are instrumental to sustainable social and economic development.

Nebiyu Daniel Meshesha was a former Ethiopian diplomat that served at the Ethiopian Embassy in Nairobi and Washington, DC. He has BA degree in Political Science and International Relations and MA degree in International Relations from Addis Ababa University.

Photo Credit: Addis Ababa: African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia by Albert González Farran/UNAMID (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

The opinions expressed on this blog are solely those of the authors. They do not reflect the views of the Wilson Center or those of Carnegie Corporation of New York. The Wilson Center’s Africa Program provides a safe space for various perspectives to be shared and discussed on critical issues of importance to both Africa and the United States.