African Studies
Utafiti: Journal of African Perspectives
Call for Papers: Utafiti is inviting you to submit your manuscript – any topic in the humanities - for consideration in the next issues.
Highlights
News & Announcements
Stay up-to-date with the Brill African Studies Community and sign up to our newsletter!
Sign upNew at Brill: Afrika Focus
This journal promotes critical and worldly debates with Africa at the centre.
New Series: Africa Futures / Afrique Futurs
Published in association with the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), Africa Futures features cutting-edge research that critically reflects on some of the big questions relevant to imagining Africa’s future as a place.
Listen to our podcast on Africa and Climate Change
Robin Attfield talks about how Africa finds itself vulnerable to drought but also the flooding of its coastline, among other untoward environmental effects of climate change and civil war.
The year 2020 proved to be a pivotal year for Europe and Africa, but by no means as anticipated. The EU had already built up serious ambitions by prioritising future relations with Africa on the European Council’s strategic agenda, and Commission president Ursula von der Leyen confirmed this direction in her political manifesto.
While the public health impact of the Covid-19 pandemic was ultimately not as catastrophic as anticipated, the ensuing restrictions to public and economic life negatively affected the lives of citizens, resulting in rising police repression, increased hardship and dissatisfaction, and the postponement of the planned local elections. Powers were concentrated in the hands of the executive, as many emergency measures were initially passed as presidential decrees, only to be approved later by the parliament, dominated by the mpla (Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola). This in turn led to a hardening of the social climate and a more aggressive stance by security forces towards citizens, who sought to protest against continued corruption in public life.
The year 2020 marked 60 years of Benin’s independence, which was celebrated modestly as compared with the 50th anniversary, without the traditional parade of security and defence forces, and without foreign guests. Though Benin, like other countries, had to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic, the low-key celebrations also symbolised the relatively morose political atmosphere, resulting from the recent controversial elections.
This was an unprecedented year that was dominated by efforts to contain the Covid-19 pandemic through the use of a public state of emergency and associated regulations that centralised power around the presidency but without much success. Owing to Covid-19, the domestic economy almost came to a halt as the key revenue earners for the country, mainly minerals and tourism, were negatively affected to the extent that the economy shrank by 8.9%. Corruption, maladministration, and money laundering seemed to increase during the state of public emergency, as there was no accountability and transparency in government processes. Despite the challenge of Covid-19, the country sustained its foreign policy.
In Burkina Faso, 2020 presented yet another tumultuous year.The views expressed in this chapter are those of the author and are not an official policy or position of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. The first person to officially die of Covid-19 in sub-Saharan Africa fell victim to the pandemic in Ouagadougou. President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré and his political party faced down electoral challengers in joint presidential and legislative elections in November. Insecurity worsened in areas already hard hit by militant Islamist insurgencies, which showed worrying signs of spreading to new regions of the country. The mounting challenges presented by the insecurity propelled ever greater international coordination among neighbouring countries and international supporters. In September, disastrous flooding as a result of unseasonably heavy rains exacerbated the already challenging humanitarian situation facing the country. By the end of the year, nearly one in 20 citizens had been displaced from their homes.
Burundi was marked by three major developments in 2020. Firstly, the 2020 elections were awaited with apprehension by many, both inside and outside the country, especially after the 2015 electoral period had been marked by significant episodes of violence, and considering the uncertainty around the cndd–fdd (Conseil National pour la Défense de la Démocratie – Forces pour la Défense de la Démocratie) presidential candidate until just a few months before the elections. However, for the first time in history, the country experienced a peaceful transfer of power from one elected president to another, when Évariste Ndayishimiye replaced incumbent Pierre Nkurunziza, both belonging to the cndd–fdd. Secondly, on 8 June, the unexpected death of President Nkurunziza left a significant void in the political system, which had become increasingly centralised around his figure. This void was promptly filled by Ndayishimiye, who situated himself in a position of both continuity and change within the administration system that developed under Nkurunziza. Thirdly, all this happened in the context of the global Covid-19 pandemic, towards which the Nkurunziza government adopted an attitude of denial and kept soliciting god’s protection, while Ndayishimiye, after the death of Nkurunziza, faced the virus with more substantial measures.
The pandemic prompted a severe set-back in the country’s important tourism sector, which dropped drastically by 75% in terms of tourist arrivals. In addition to the crisis provoked by the pandemic, in the second half of the year the controversial extradition proceedings against the arrested Colombian businessman Alex Saab, the special envoy of Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro wanted by the US for money laundering, dominated the local debate. In the municipal elections of 25 October, the ruling Movimento para a Democracia (MpD) lost the capital Praia and three other municipalities to the opposition Partido Africano da Independência de Cabo Verde (paicv) but remained the dominant party at the local level, controlling 14 of the country’s 22 municipalities.
Cameroon was still engaged in a war against separatist groups in its two Anglophone regions, where each belligerent party committed massacres, thereby putting the authorities in a difficult position vis-à-vis their international partners. In spite of the deteriorating security situation, regional and local elections were held by the government, all of which were carried by the presidential party. Hundreds of people were arrested at demonstrations organised by the opposition in the context of these elections. Though the Covid-19 pandemic only moderately impacted the country’s health situation, the damage inflicted on the economy was much more serious.
While the overall political situation in the notoriously unstable drc – the biggest country of the sub-region – was somewhat consolidated, this was not the case for popular security. With the car entering a new cycle of violence and Cameroon plus Chad equally embroiled in violent conflict, the sub-region looked particularly unsafe. Covid-19 had effects on both the regional and the world economy, which in turn hit mostly the oil-producing countries in Central Africa. The future of the Central African franc as a common currency within cemac remained unclear, and cemac itself did not make important headlines.