AFRICA POLICY JOURNAL A Harvard Kennedy School student publication
Spring 2019 The Africa Policy Journal
The Africa Policy Journal (APJ) is a student-run publication dedicated to promoting dialogue about African policy and current affairs in the realms of governance, law, education, business, health, design, and culture. The Journal was started in 2006 by students at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government but has recently expanded to encompass all the schools of Harvard University. With its online platform (apj.hkspublications.org) and annual print publications, the APJ acts as a hub fortimely debate, opinion, research, and analysis into the most significant opportunities and challenges facing African nations and peoples today.
All views expressed in the Africa Policy Journal are those of the authors or interviewees only and do not represent the views of Harvard University, the John F. Kennedy Schoolof Government, the staff of the Africa Policy Journal, the Faculty Advisory Board of the Africa Policy Journal, or any associates of the journal.
Cover Design by Alicia Bello. Layout by Liliana Ballesteros.
© 2019 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved. Except as otherwise specified, no article or portion herein is to be reproduced or adapted to otherworks without the express written consent of the editors of the Africa Policy Journal.
ii Africa Policy Journal Sponsors and Partners
The Harvard Kennedy School Student Government (KSSG) The Center for African Studies (CAS) The Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government (M-RCBG) The Malcolm Weiner Center for Social Policy The Africa Caucus at the Harvard Kennedy School
Spring 2019 iii Acknowledgements
We would like to recognize and thank the people who helped produce this year’s journal. We thank Martha Foley, Assistant Director of Student Services, who provides endless support of our work. We would also like to thank the Center for African Studies (CAS), the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, the Kennedy School Student Government (KSSG), the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy, and the Africa Caucus at the Harvard Kennedy School for their financial support and encouragement.
We also thank Sam Bollier, our copy editor at the Kennedy School, for his work to ensure the journal came together to meet the HKS student journal standards of excellence. Last but not least, we would like to thank all of our contributors who have turned their passions and research on Africa-related topics into well-formed and articulate academic articles and opinion pieces that we are proud to share with our readers.
iv Africa Policy Journal Staff
Youssouf Camara is Editor-in-Chief and a joint degree MPA/ID candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School and MBA candidate at Harvard Business School. Before starting graduate school, Youssouf worked for CrossBoundary LLC in Mali, advising investors in evaluating and executing investments in the region. Prior to that, he worked for the Boston Consulting Group and Accenture Consulting. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Huntsman Program in 2013. Born and raised in Congo-Brazzaville to Malian and Beninese parents, Youssouf has also lived in Côte d’Ivoire and the United States.
MbaMemme “Memme” Onwudiwe is Senior Interview Editor and a J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School. Memme was born in Xenia, Ohio to Nigerian and Ghanaian parents. He attended Ohio Wesleyan University and has worked as an intern at the Independent National Electoral Commission (Nigeria) in 2013, a research fellow at the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative in 2015, and a temporary attachment at the Nigerian Office for Trade Negotiations in 2018. Memme has served as co-Editor-in- Chief of the Africa Policy Journal and President the Harvard African Law Association. He is currently EVP at the Harvard Law-MIT start-up Evisort.
Mark Doumba is Managing Editor and an MPA candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School. Mark is a former investment banker turned entrepreneur-in- vestor. He is involved in a number of companies in the Logistics, Telecom, and Mobile Payment Industries. From a policy perspective, Mark was active in the design of the Green Climate Fund, and served on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of Mining and Metals. He most recently co-founded Okoume Capital SA, a €30.6-million, sovereign-backed venture capital firm designed to finance entrepreneurship in Gabon. Mark is a Forbes “30 under 30” honoree. He is a graduate of George Washington University and the London School of Economics (LSE).
Jackson Miller is a Publishing Editor and a Master in Public Policy (MPP) candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School. Jackson comes to the Kennedy School after spending years mapping and exposing transnational organized criminal syndicates across sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Asia for law en- forcement action. Jackson has also co-authored public-facing reports on the
Spring 2019 v nexus of international security and environmental crime. Jackson’s current research examines the ways in which Africa-China relations are shaping new forms of transnational governance. He has presented work at the As- sociation for Asian Studies (USA); the International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas (Japan); Howard University (USA); and the Center for Afro-Hispanic Studies (Spain). A proud graduate of the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University, Jackson considers himself proficient in Mandarin and French.
Terrence Neal is a Publishing Editor and a J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School, where he focuses on international law and development and energy issues. Terrence holds a BA in Public Policy from Duke University, and also studied Global Governance Studies at Sciences Po Law School. This past summer, he worked at Covington & Burlington and Three Crowns, helping to advise on public international law, international investment law, and energy-related matters. In 2017, Terrence interned in the International Energy Agency’s Office of the Legal Counsel.
Lucy Shaw is a Publishing Editor and a joint degree student at the Kennedy School and Harvard Business School, pursuing an MBA and a Master in Public Administration in International Development. Lucy’s career to date has blended African rural development with management consulting for businesses and governments. Lucy worked at CrossBoundary to launch the first Mini-Grid Innovation Lab for Africa, testing business model ideas in the field with mini-grid companies to support investment. She also worked at the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency, leading projects to develop nationwide government programs and policies in mechanization, food security, rural finance, and inputs. Lucy was previously a consultant at Boston Consulting Group, focusing on energy and government.
Hezekiah “Hez” Shobiye is a Publishing Editor with the Africa Policy Journal. Hez is a public health professional passionate about increasing access to quality and affordable healthcare for all. Prior to coming to Harvard, he worked as an advisor to the Born Free Africa Foundation supporting the Nigerian federal health ministry’s plan to eliminate mother-to-child trans- mission of HIV, and most recently worked with PharmAccess Foundation vi Africa Policy Journal in the Netherlands to explore provider-contracting strategies for a new State Health Insurance Scheme in Nigeria. His professional experience spans across several countries including Nigeria, Switzerland, the Philippines, and the United States. In 2012, he co-founded Promenade Youth Initiative, a non-profit that has empowered over 2,500 Nigerian youth with skills for entrepreneurship, leadership, and responsible citizenship, and in 2014, won the Nigeria-America Partnership Award for his passion and contribution to social change. Hez is an alumnus of the Global Health Corps and Carrington Youth Fellowships in the United States and Nigeria, respectively. He earned his DrPH from Boston University.
Rick Wolthusen is a Publishing Editor and a Master in Public Policy (MPP) candidate/McCloy Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School with a focus on public health and social issues and human rights. Rick was born and raised in Germany and is a researcher in neuroscience and a medical doctor (certified in Germany and the US). He is also the co-founder/CEO of the German NGO On The Move e.V., which builds holistic mental health infrastructure in developing countries with local partners. He not only lectures nursing students in psychiatry and neurology, but also teaches the general public about the brain and neuroscience (“Brain Awareness”) to overcome the stigma and human rights violations associated with mental illness.
Aysha Valery is a Media Editor and is currently pursuing her Master’s in Public Policy here at the Harvard Kennedy School. She is a member of the New York State Bar and worked as an Attorney Advisor for the U.S. Department of Justice in Atlanta, Georgia from 2016 to 2018. Before working in Atlanta, Aysha graduated from Cornell Law School with a Juris Doctor degree in 2016. Aysha received her Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and International Studies from Yale University in 2011. Aysha’s focus at the Kennedy School is on conflict resolution and international development in war-torn countries in Africa. This focus grew out of her extensive studies and research on inter- national human rights law. She developed a particular focus on the conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan. After graduating from the Kennedy School, Aysha plans to work with people in these countries to conduct peace negotiations and to create economic development projects so that they can facilitate their transition from war to peace.
Spring 2019 vii David Leftwich is a Media Editor and a first-year Master in Public Policy (MPP) candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School. Born and raised in Pitts- burgh, PA, he graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in the spring of 2018 with a double major in political science and psychology. In the past, David has interned with USAID, the Hudson Institute, and the State Department focusing on development policy in sub-Saharan Africa. Outside of this work, David has volunteered as a tutor for Somali refugee children and worked as a consultant for nonprofits in the Pittsburgh area. David hopes to focus on new policy areas, such as digital governance and behavioral economics, while at Harvard.
Ameze “Mez” Belo-Osagie is an Interview Editor and a first-year student in a JD/PhD program split between Harvard Law School and Stanford’s Department of Political Science. Mez was born in Boston to Nigerian and Ghanaian parents, and grew up between Lagos, London, and Accra. She graduated cum laude from Yale with a dual distinction in Political Science and African Studies. Later, she completed her National Youth Service in Nigeria, working for J.C. Wylie Strategies & Solutions, a security-focused think tank, and volunteering at the Legal Defense and Assistance Project. In her free time, she enjoys African literature and pop-social science podcasts.
Hamza Sebti is an Interview Editor and an LL.M. student at Harvard Law School. He graduated from Panthéon-Assas University in Paris, France, in 2016 and has practiced corporate law in France. Born and raised in Moroc- co, Hamza is an Afro-optimist and believes that the African youth has an important role to play in Africa’s development.
Oladeji Tiamiyu is a Senior Liaison and a J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School. He previously worked in international development with the Inter- national Republican Institute in Washington D.C., as a teacher in Reunion Island off the coast of Madagascar, and with Linklaters LLP in New York City. Oladeji is fluent in Yoruba and French. He has a particular interest in the politics of the Indian Ocean. In his leisure time, Oladeji enjoys hiking, stargazing, and listening to Toumani Diabaté.
viii Africa Policy Journal Contributors
Professor Agnes Binagwaho, MD, M(Ped), PhD is a Rwandan pediatrician who returned to Rwanda in July 1996, two years after the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. Since then, she has provided clinical care in the public sector as well as held a number of project management, health system strengthening, and government positions. Since 2008, Professor Binagwaho has been a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is also a Professor of the Practice of Global Health Delivery at the University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda as well as an Adjunct Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. Professor Binagwaho’s academic engagements include research on health equity, HIV/AIDS, information and communi- cation technologies (ICT) in e-health, and pediatric care delivery systems. She has published over 150 peer-reviewed articles. Professor Binagwaho currently resides in Kigali.
Gashaw Ayferam Endaylalu is a lecturer and researcher at the Department of Civics and Ethical Studies at Debre Berehan University, Ethiopia. His primary research interests include contemporary global and regional issues related to hydro-politics, water governance, and foreign policy. Gashaw’s earlier published research has focused on the Syrian context, the influence of competing foreign powers in the Horn of Africa, and partnerships between China and African countries. He holds a Master’s degree in International Relations and Diplomacy from Addis Ababa University.
Dr. Robtel Neajai Pailey is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the De- partment of International Development, at the University of Oxford. She is a Liberian academic, activist and author with over 15 years of combined professional experience in Africa, Europe and North America. Her core areas of research expertise include the political economy of development, migration, citizenship, conflict, post-war recovery and governance, all with respect to Africa. In her Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship project, Robtel examines how socio-economic development is mediated by race and citizenship in Liberia. Robtel has consulted across a broad range of fields while supporting universities, governments, NGOs, media institutions, and regional and multilateral agencies. She has practitioner-based proficiencies
Spring 2019 ix in qualitative research, capacity development, policy design and analysis, program management, report and grant writing, journalism and strategic communications.
Lucy Shaw is a joint degree student at the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School pursuing an MBA and a Master in Public Admin- istration in International Development. Lucy’s career to date has blended African rural development with management consulting for businesses and governments. Lucy worked at CrossBoundary to launch the first Mini-Grid Innovation Lab for Africa, testing business model ideas in the field with mini-grid companies to support investment. She also worked at the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency, leading projects to develop nation-wide government programs and policies in mechanization, food security, rural finance and inputs. Lucy was previously a consultant at Boston Consulting Group, focusing on energy and government.
Evelyne Wanjiku is a PhD student of Gender and Development at Kenyatta University in Kenya. Her main area of focus is Gender and ICT, the internet, and social media. She focuses on how these tools can be enhanced to reduce inequalities and promote development. She is also an Alumnus of the African school on internet governance and a 2019 Mozilla Open Leader.
Dr. Christopher Zambakari is Founder & CEO of The Zambakari Advi- sory. He is a Doctor of Law and Policy, Professor at Cambridge Graduate University International, Assistant Editor of The Sudan Studies Association Bulletin, and a Hartley B. and Ruth B. Barker Endowed Rotary Peace Fellow. He is based in the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland, Australia. His area of research and expertise is policy development that ensures political stability and socioeconomic development, and his interests include modern political and legal thought, governance and democracy, the rule of law, postcolonial violence, and nation-building projects in Africa. His work has been published in law, economic, and public policy journals.
x Africa Policy Journal Table of Contents
Editor’s Remarks 2
Features Changes in Global Health Governance are Needed for Sustainable Health Development in Africa, Professor Agnes Binagwaho 3
Keeping the Lights on in Liberia Through Off-grid Innovation Lucy Shaw 9
How Africa Can Adopt a Pan-African Migration and Development Agenda, Dr. Robtel Neajai Pailey 20
The Quest for Hydro Hegemony and the Changing Power Relation in the Eastern Nile Basin, Gashaw Ayferam Endaylalu 33
A Discourse on the Legacy of Colonialism for Women in Africa Dr. Christopher Zambakari 45
Situational Analysis of Revenge Pornography in Kenya Evelyne Wanjiku 55
Interview Interview with Oby Ezekwesili 68 Editor’s Remarks
We are proud to present the 2019 edition of the Africa Policy Journal.
2018 was a transformative year for Africa. In it, we saw extraordinary transitions of power in Liberia and Ethiopia as well as the signature of a historic free trade agreement by 40+ African countries. In that same period, we witnessed the passing of giants like Kofi Annan and Winnie Mandela.
In these ever-evolving times, our mandate has been to look beyond the headlines to provide rigorous and thought-provoking analyses of the major issues and ideas affecting Africa today. In this edition, we cover a wide variety of topics, from health governance reform to social change. These articles are the product of the hard work of our amazing contributors who have graciously shared with us their expertise and knowledge.
We would like to extend our deepest gratitude to this year’s editing team for their hard work. We also thank our Advisory Board members, the Center for African Studies, Dean Doug Elmendorf, Martha Foley, Professor Ruth Okediji, the Harvard Kennedy School Student Government, and the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy for their continued support over the years.
We thank you for reading and hope that you will continue to be our partner in changing both the perception and reality of the continent’s rise. To see more of the great content we publish, visit our site – apj.hkspublications.org.
Youssouf Camara Memme O. Onwudiwe Editor-in-Chief Senior Interview Editor Africa Policy Journal Africa Policy Journal
2 Africa Policy Journal Feature
Changes in Global Health Governance Are Needed for Sustainable Health Development in Africa
Professor Agnes Binagwaho, MD, Agnes Binagwaho M(Ped), PhD is a Rwandan pediatrician who returned to Rwanda in July 1996, two years after the 1994 genocide against The African continent is often looked upon as a place of despair – a land of the Tutsi. Since then, she has provided wars, famines, corruption, genocides, clinical care in the public sector as well as and poverty. This unfortunate stereo- held a number of project management, type and the failure of international health system strengthening, and health organizations to truly partner government positions. Since 2008, with African governments contributes Professor Binagwaho has been a Senior to the failure of African health systems Lecturer in the Department of Global to reach their full potential. Health and Social Medicine at Harvard This outdated view of Africa ig- Medical School. She is also a Professor nores the progress that has occurred of the Practice of Global Health throughout this vast and diverse Delivery at the University of Global region. In the past half-century, Health Equity in Rwanda, as well as an sub-Saharan African countries have Adjunct Clinical Professor of Pediatrics transformed from colonial structures at the Geisel School of Medicine at to entities of national self-determina- Dartmouth. Professor Binagwaho’s tion and independence. After all, five academic engagements include research of the ten fastest-growing economies in the world are in sub-Saharan Africa.1 on health equity, HIV/AIDS, information Note: Based on IMF forecasts, in and communication technologies (ICT) 2018, five of the 10 fastest growing in e-health, and pediatric care delivery economies in the world are in sub-Sa- systems. She has published over 150 peer- haran Africa.2 reviewed articles. Professor Binagwaho Alongside this economic growth, currently resides in Kigali. Africa has also made notable gains in
Spring 2019 3 Figure 1 population health. Life expectancy in collaborating with international has increased and the rate of deaths partners. By leveraging international due to malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/ donor funding and government invest- AIDS, and stunting have declined. ment, and thoughtful and deliberate Maternal mortality has also declined program implementation, Rwanda over the last three decades, and child has made tremendous strides in key mortality has dropped by 50 percent health and development indicators. while life expectancy has more than The percentage of the population doubled since the mid-1990s.3 These living in extreme poverty has dropped very real gains should be celebrated from nearly 42 percent in 2001 to 16 and serve as motivation for continued percent in 2014.4 In 2015, an estimat- progress. ed 75 percent of eligible Rwandans Through my experience in Rwan- were covered by the community-based da, I have seen firsthand how eco- health insurance program, Mutuelles nomic development can translate de santé.5 This, combined with those into human development and vice covered through public or private versa. Critical to this growth is that insurance, made health insurance it is driven by homegrown solutions, coverage in the entire population improved governance, political sta- among the highest in the world at 91 bility, a clear vision for long-term percent in 2010, ahead of the majority planning, and the support of partners of Africa and countries like the United who share that vision. The story of States.6 Today, Rwandan children are Rwanda in the post-genocide era is one among the most comprehensively of coordination and of an equity-based vaccinated, with 93 percent of all agenda, both in national initiatives and children having received a full suite
4 Africa Policy Journal of vaccinations against 11 antigens, where you live significantly determine and with over 90 percent of eligible the health risks you face and the girls receiving the human papilloma diseases you may die from. virus (HPV) vaccine.7 In my view, global governance These positive developments were structures – the international insti- not a coincidence, but rather the result tutions such as the World Health of effective and collaborative part- Organization (WHO), United Na- nerships. While I served as Rwanda’s tions, and the International Monetary Minister of Health, I witnessed the Fund – play an unfortunate role in result of comprehensive governance. replicating and perpetuating dispar- We coordinated with international ities in power between the so-called partners that shared the Rwandan “developing” and “developed” world. vision for success and endorsed our These institutions often dictate how equity-based agenda. As one example, development money must be spent, we were able to leverage foreign aid even when national governments have in the fight against HIV in Rwanda. ideas that are better adapted to their Today, there is no known HIV-positive own national development plans. This Rwandan in need of an antiretroviral also translates into double standards, (ARV) regimen who is denied this such as when the WHO issues differ- life-saving treatment. Rwanda has also ent guidelines for infectious disease successfully reduced mother-to-child response, such as tuberculosis, for the transmission of HIV to below 2 per- rich and the poor countries. While cent.8 These achievements have been these differing standards are intended possible and still continue, because to address differences in economic ac- of visionary national leadership and cess, they also have the adverse effect investments in the health system, with of implying that human life should be the additional understanding that valued differently. From a normative locally driven health initiatives are perspective, there is an urgent need to those that are most likely to endure. reimagine these international health While Rwanda is one of the few institutions and the role that aid can African countries to have achieved play in helping the African continent most of the health-related Millennium reach its full potential. Development Goals (MDGs), it is In addition, recent history has not the only country on the African taught us that developing an effective continent to have made substantial global health system is critical not just gains in health.9 While I applaud this for Africa, but for the entire world. progress, it concerns me that even Only a few years ago, Liberia, Sierra to this day, where you are born and Leone, and Guinea were ravaged
Spring 2019 5 by an Ebola epidemic. These three changing climate. Emerging health countries most affected by Ebola had threats, such as global warming, water all experienced a host of assaults in pollution, and industrialization in prior decades, including civil wars, other parts of the world, will cause the political unrest, refugee displacement, poor in resource-limited countries to and government instability. These suffer the most. A new, more efficient challenges contributed to their weak global governance structure is needed health infrastructure and a health that provides a framework for how sector that lacked functioning sys- these international threats can be tems; this hamstrung their ability and most equitably addressed. capacity to respond to the outbreak Unfortunately, there has been real of Ebola.10 The crisis was further resistance to restructuring the way complicated by a lethargic interna- development partners provide finan- tional response. If not for the proactive cial and technical support. I believe measures driven by the African Union that real progress in health must be and other international partners, the backed by a legal framework that epidemic would have been much, operationalizes investments in health much worse. The first report of Ebola across all sectors of human develop- emerged in September 2013. Yet, it ment. Good health is not something took over a year and a half for a global that is achieved in isolation. It is the response to occur. The Ebola outbreak product of education, gender equity, serves as a tragic reminder that weak peace, security, and economic growth. health systems and poor international The Sustainable Development Goals coordination are a global threat. can provide a strong framework for The failure of the WHO to lead the a global health undertaking because Ebola response effort in a timely man- they already incorporate the majority ner should give pause to its leadership of these social determinants of health. and motivate a deep reflection for an An effective global health response organization whose main purpose is to also requires a global legal frame- direct and coordinate health responses work that can hold big corporations for its member nations. The negli- accountable. We need a model that gence of the WHO cost thousands of regulates powerful industries to pre- lives and millions of dollars in eco- vent the pollution of essential public nomic loss for the countries affected. goods such as water, air, and soil. As we move into an ever-globalizing Global regulations are also required world, we are facing new international to mitigate the risks caused by health health threats as a result of massive industries that maximize profits by population movements and a rapidly keeping life-saving therapeutics out
6 Africa Policy Journal of reach for the poor. approximately $35 billion is moved In addition, we need to think cre- from Africa into tax havens around atively about how we can finance the world every year, removing pre- global health initiatives. The current cious resources that otherwise could system of earmarked funds and verti- be benefiting the continent. On the cal aid programs has unpredictable other hand, African governments funding streams that inhibit sustain- spend $21 billion on debt repay- ability. International institutions must ments annually. This demonstrates support the revision of how health that these loans perpetuate a cycle of aid is allocated and deployed so that indebtedness and systemic poverty in recipient countries can actually build Sub-Saharan Africa.13 Global health and develop their health systems with needs a financial system that works a longer-term vision. Moreover, since in place of fragmented charity efforts international aid comes from a few and predatory loans. major players, such as the Europe- To achieve a better structure for an Union and United States, it has global governance, we first need to be monumental consequences for how optimistic that such change is possible. funds from a few are used to influ- We also need to hold international ence national governance systems regulatory agencies accountable to for many.11 The same key players their mission and seek methods for influence multilateral organizations ensuring that current failures are not such as the WHO, the World Bank, perpetuated. The Universal Decla- and the United Nations (UN), as well ration of Human Rights, signed by as public-private partnerships like the almost all countries, recognizes health Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and The as a human right.14 Hence, develop- Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tubercu- ment partners in health should act losis and Malaria. This leaves far too as supporters of the real sustainable many developing countries voiceless development of the countries they because when they raise concerns, are supposed to support. Recipient they may be subject to sanctions if countries do not need charity – they their concerns are upsetting to these need partners for strengthening their few donors.12 health system. They need investors Broad participation and transparen- in their vision. We have seen both cy must also be at the root of any effec- the massive gains that can be made tive system. Increasing transparency is when these investments are made required to minimize any opportunity and equitable, responsive governance for corruption or abuse of financial structures are upheld, and the tragic resources. Sadly, it is estimated that losses when they are not. We must
Spring 2019 7 first imagine that it is possible and 2015-June 2016,” 2016, http://www.moh.gov. then implement a path forward with rw/fileadmin/templates/MOH-Reports/ Health_20Sector_20Annual_20Re- fairness and accountability. port_202015-2016_25082016.pdf. 9 Uzziel Ndagijimana, “Update Status & Key Messages: MDGs, EDPRS 2, Vision 2020,” Notes Government of Rwanda, Ministry of Finance 1 International Monetary Fund, “World Eco- and Economic Planning, 2015, http://www. nomic Outlook (October 2018) - Real GDP statistics.gov.rw/file/4433/download?token=a- Growth,” DataMapper, 2018, https://www.imf. 7VAE4j_; MDG Monitor, “Fact Sheet on org/external/datamapper/NGDP_RPCH@ Current MDG Progress of Rwanda (Africa),” WEO/WEOWORLD. 12 May 2015, http://www.mdgmonitor.org/ 2 IMF, “World Economic Outlook (October mdg-progress-rwanda-africa/. 2018) - Real GDP Growth.” 10 Barbara McPake et al., “Ebola in the Context of 3 World Bank Group, “World Development Conflict Affected States and Health Systems: Indicators,” 2018, http://databank.worldbank. Case Studies of Northern Uganda and Sierra org/data/reports.aspx?source=world-devel- Leone,” Conflict and Health 9, no. 23 (2015). opment-indicators; Agnes Binagwaho et al., 11 Robert Marten, Johanna Hanefeld, and “Rwanda 20 Years On: Investing in Life,” The Richard Smith, “Commission on Global Lancet 383 (2014): 1-5. Governance for Health: What About Power?” 4 Government of Rwanda, Ministry of Finance The Lancet 383, no. 9936 (2014). and Economic Planning, “Final Report - Inte- 12 Anthony J. McMichael, “Globalization, grated Household Living Conditions Survey in Climate Change, and Human Health,” New Rwanda (2000-2001)” (Kigali, Rwanda, 2002); England Journal of Medicine 368, no. 14 (2013): National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda 1335-43. “Rwanda Integrated Household Living 13 Mark Anderson, “Aid to Africa: Donations from Conditions Survey – 2013/14: Main Indicators West Mask ‘$60bn Looting’ of Continent,” Report” (Kigali, Rwanda, 2015). The Guardian, 15 July 2014, https://www. 5 USAID, “African Strategies for Health - theguardian.com/global-development/2014/ Health Insurance Profile: Rwanda,” 2016, jul/15/aid-africa-west-looting-continent. http://www.africanstrategies4health.org/ 14 United Nations General Assembly, Universal uploads/1/3/5/3/13538666/country_profile_-_ Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, 217 A (III), rwanda_-_us_letter.pdf. https://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Docu- 6 Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser, ments/UDHR_Translations/eng.pdf. “Financing Healthcare,” Our World in Data, 2019, https://ourworldindata.org/ financing-healthcare. 7 Government of Rwanda, Ministry of Health, “Annual Health Statistics Booklet - 2015,” 2015, http://www.moh.gov.rw/fileadmin/templates/ hmis_reports/2015_20Annual_20Statistical_ 20booklets_20V13_20Signed.pdf. 8 Government of Rwanda, Ministry of Health, “Health Sector Annual Report: July
8 Africa Policy Journal Feature
Turning the Lights On in Liberia Through Off-Grid Innovation
Lucy Shaw
Lucy Shaw is a joint degree student Rebuilding a country after conflict is at the Harvard Kennedy School and immensely challenging, and Liberia, Harvard Business School pursuing one of the poorest countries in the an MBA and a Master in Public world, is no exception. The West Administration in International African country of just 4.7 million Development. Lucy’s career to date has people has struggled through decades of turbulence, including multiple civil blended African rural development with wars and most recently the ravages of management consulting for businesses the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak. and governments. Lucy worked at In spite of this, over the last decade CrossBoundary to launch the first Liberia has pursued improvements Mini-Grid Innovation Lab for Africa, in state capacity, education, and testing business model ideas in the field healthcare while also investing in with mini-grid companies to support infrastructure to support much-needed investment. She also worked at the economic development. Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation However, making progress on Agency, leading projects to develop electricity infrastructure has been nationwide government programs challenging, and Liberia is on track and policies in mechanization, food to remain severely under-electrified security, rural finance, and inputs. Lucy by the year 2030, the year by which was previously a consultant at Boston the United Nations targets universal energy access globally.1 This need not Consulting Group, focusing on energy be the case for Liberia’s electricity and government. sector. The rise of off-grid business models across Africa and the new ways that
Spring 2019 9 the private sector can be engaged an affordable way. In particular, Liberia to achieve social objectives offer an could partially fund its electrification opportunity for Liberia and other small, journey through policies that position post-conflict countries to overcome Liberia as a hotbed of off-grid energy traditional energy access constraints in innovation in West Africa.
Figure 1: Mini-grid site in East Africa MW, respectively), with fewer than providing power to over 20 percent of the population able to 200 rural homes and businesses access an electricity connection.6 To put this in perspective, this is 100 times Liberia’s Electricity Sector Still less than the average installed capacity Has Not Recovered From Civil in the United States per person,7 and War Damage 20 percent of the African average.8 Liberia’s electricity infrastructure In terms of access, the average rate peaked before the onset of the two of electricity access in Sub-Saharan Liberian civil wars (1989-1997 and Africa is more than double, at 43 1999-2003) at 191 megawatts (MW) percent.9 of capacity.2 Despite 15 years of Improving access to electricity was post-conflict development, genera- one of former president Ellen Johnson tion capacity now stands at only 126 Sirleaf’s campaign platforms in the MW3 (in comparison, Nigeria4 and lead-up to the 2005 elections, and Kenya5 stand at 12,500 MW and 2,400 remained a priority during her two
10 Africa Policy Journal terms in office (2006-2018). Under post-conflict development of new elec- her Small Light Today, Big Light tricity capacity. However, they were Tomorrow initiative, the Johnson unable to develop their sites given Sirleaf government made significant disagreements with the government progress in increasing energy access over issues such as high tariffs relative from a low base of less than 1 percent to other electricity developments after the civil wars10 to 10 percent by in Africa, and the financial risks of 2014 and 20 percent by 2016.11 the proposed Power Purchase Agree- However, transmission and distri- ment.14 Ultimately, they sold their bution infrastructure remain limited, Liberia operations in 2013 without and is not yet large enough to deliv- building the power plant.15 er the existing installed electricity The Liberian Electricity Corpo- capacity.12 ration (LEC) itself has been under The electricity sector in Liberia private management since 2010, has been marred by controversy over recently changing hands to an Irish the last decade, which contribut- engineering firm. Even as recently as ed to its underdevelopment. One this year, the LEC has hit the news, pre-war power plant, the Mt. Coffee following reports that up to 60 percent hydroelectric facility, was first funded of power distributed in the system is for rehabilitation in 2012-2013, but stolen by people who are unable to additional funding was sought in 2015 legally obtain energy access through through the Millennium Challenge the LEC’s bureaucratic and slow Corporation after the tendering pro- system for connecting consumers. cess revealed higher costs than initial- Most Monrovians (residents of Li- ly anticipated. By 2016, the facility beria’s capital, Monrovia) use diesel commenced electricity generation generators for their electricity supply operations, but completion of the given the inability of the LEC to keep rehabilitation project was scheduled up with electricity demand, and the for the end of 2018, six years after frequency of blackouts.16 the first funding was received.13 This project will contribute significantly Off-Grid Energy Has the to the extension of the grid once Potential to Reverse This completed. Trend and Accelerate Liberia’s In another example, Buchanan Electrification Renewables, a locally incorporat- Leveraging off-grid electricity business ed foreign-backed company eager models from other parts of Africa to invest after the civil wars, was a could have a real impact, accelerating promising candidate to kick-start the electrification in Liberia, whose Rural
Spring 2019 11 and Renewable Energy Agency targets Liberia’s limited electricity distri- just 35-percent access for residents bution infrastructure and high tariffs outside of the capital by 2030.17 Solar are conducive to off-grid solutions. Al- home system companies have had though electricity generation capacity strong success in East Africa, with is still relatively low, the distribution millions of units sold across the region, and transmission infrastructure in and are breaking into Nigeria’s large Liberia is insufficient to absorb this off-grid market at record pace. Solar capacity and deliver it to customers.19 home systems provide households Once someone has a connection, with access to lighting and phone tariffs are also relatively high in Mon- charging at less than $200 per con- rovia, at $0.35/kilowatt-hour (kWh).20 nection,18 well below the cost of a Despite the fact that most utilities in grid connection. Mini-grid compa- Africa sell power at a loss, this is well nies, too, have emerged across the above tariffs charged in several other continent, promising power that can countries in Africa for low-consump- support local business activity and tion customers.21 use of standard appliances at more competitive connection costs than Figure 2: Residential tariffs in Sub-Saharan the traditional grid. Africa for select countries, 2012-2014, for users of 30 kWh per month on average
Source: World Bank Group, Power Africa, author’s analysis22
12 Africa Policy Journal Off-grid models have their own have a longer pay-back period of five self-contained distribution and gener- to 10 years. This is what a minority of ation, eliminating reliance on existing rural customers can afford in Kenya, grid infrastructure, and mini-grids a country whose GDP per capita is install distribution infrastructure that three times higher than Liberia’s.24 can be connected to the main grid’s The lack of economies of scale is power supply once it expands. In city also problematic. Solar home system environments where capacity to pay companies can de-risk investments is high and ability to connect is low, through a large customer base and mini-grids and solar home systems spread overhead costs over a large could be a viable alternative. As for number of customers in East Afri- the majority of Liberia’s population ca. Mini-grid companies require a who live outside of Monrovia, off-grid minimum density of customers to models could remove the immediate cost-effectively build distribution in- need for expensive transmission lines. frastructure (at least 400 people per The World Bank certainly thinks so, square kilometer in East Africa),25 but with a recent commitment to support almost half of Liberia’s population live the Liberian off-grid sector with $27 in areas with fewer than 100 people million in grants through 2021.23 per square kilometer.26 With smaller urban hubs and a fragmented West Despite the Potential, African market, off-grid electricity Affordability, Scale, and Lack companies will find it less attractive of Subsidies Limit the Entry of to enter Liberia compared with other Private Companies major opportunities in Nigeria and Despite the country’s obvious po- Ghana. tential, three problems with off-grid Lack of scale and ability to pay business models may hinder their is typically mitigated by providing a arrival in Liberia: affordability, scale, connections subsidy program. One and lack of subsidies. example, the UK Department for Rural income in Liberia is unlikely International Development’s (DFID) to be sufficient to sustain the current Green Mini-Grid Facility in Kenya, unit economics of solar home systems provides connection subsidies to pri- or mini-grids. In East Africa, customers vate companies to fund a portion of pay $15 per month for their solar home capital costs, enabling them to charge systems for an average of 12 months, lower connection fees and tariffs than after which the debt has been settled. if the mini-grid were privately fund- Five to 10 dollars per month is com- ed.28 In Liberia’s case, this option is mon for mini-grid connections, which severely limited by debt restrictions
Spring 2019 13 Figure 3: Population Density of Liberia, 2014 Note: the darkest sections represent above 50 people per square kilometer on average. Source: WorldPop population density data27 and downward price pressure on Further, this debt balance is divided exports. among all government investment Liberia is unable to fund subsidy projects, including schools, health- programs given significant restric- care, education, and roads, putting tions on debt. Liberia estimates that further pressure on funds available it needs approximately a further $1 for electricity connections. billion of investment to achieve its A compounding factor on debt con- planned 2030 electrification goals,29 straints is the recent decline in export which still falls short of electrifying revenue. To qualify for international every person in the country. However, development assistance, the IMF Liberia received significant debt relief recommends limiting Liberia’s debt through the World Bank and the IMF’s levels to 80 percent of total exports and Highly Indebted Countries Program,30 remittances, with any additional debt and the government is limited in approved on a case-by-case basis.32 Yet the amount of additional debt it can exports of critical commodities like hold while Liberia is receiving inter- iron ore and rubber have been in national development assistance.31 decline due to significant price reduc-
14 Africa Policy Journal tions. In 2013, iron ore had a value of have been in decline since 2011, and $418 million and rubber represented in the period from 2013 to 2018 they $194 million of exports. By 2016, these have declined by over 50 percent.34 had declined to $80 million and $101 Figure 4: Commodity Price Index for Rubber million, respectively.33 These prices and Iron Ore, 2009-2019
Source: IndexMundi, World Bank Commodities distributed generation projects from 35 database, author’s analysis organizations such as the World Bank and the African Development Bank, Incentivizing Off-Grid out of a total requirement of $290 Investment in Liberia’s million across all three phases.36 In Funding-Constrained aggregate, however, their $935 million Environment master rural electrification plan still Even with these constraints on purely lacks $750 million in funding across market-driven solutions, Liberia has generation, distribution, and transmis- a range of options at its disposal. The sion investments. Liberian Electricity Corporation is Liberia could accelerate access actively connecting new customers in to electricity by leveraging private the capital, while the newly established off-grid solutions, using approaches Rural and Renewable Energy Agency is requiring lower direct funding from working on the national electrification the Liberian government. These rec- planning in collaboration with the ommendations could also apply to Ministry of Energy and Mines and similar post-conflict countries facing the European Union. The agency significant funding constraints. has already secured $60 million of Firstly, Liberia has experience with funding for the first phase of works on using private management for public
Spring 2019 15 services, through its controversial but Secondly, Liberia could brand mostly effective schools program. After itself as an innovation hub for off- its one-year evaluation, test perfor- grid energy companies to perfect mance improved in privately operated their business models for expansion schools, with some unintended side into West Africa, similar to Rwanda’s effects that could be addressed through strategy as an entry point into East policy changes such as more robust Africa. The West African off-grid elec- contracts.37 Similarly, Liberia could tricity market has huge potential but use this approach to subsidize and test is relatively uncharted territory for the business models of several private East African players, given the lack mini-grid or solar home system players, of mobile money infrastructure and and scale up the program for compa- significantly higher penetration of nies that have the most cost-effective, the main electricity grid. Promoting reliable services. This approach would investment in Liberia as an energy be likely to attract donor funding given hub through existing investment tax the transparency of any learning and incentives, straightforward regulation the rigor of the pilot, and it also has on tariffs, licensing and grid connec- the potential to benefit other countries tion compensation, and transparent through data sharing. electrification master-plans could create a low-risk environment for Figure 5: Night-time businesses operating companies to build a West African in a rural East African village electrified by a solar mini-grid presence and expand to more lucrative
16 Africa Policy Journal markets, electrifying Liberian com- regulator in 2015 and provide for munities along the way. One tangible the licensing of private companies step towards this would be expanding in generation and distribution,42 but the 2015 Liberian Electricity Law to the Liberian Electricity Corporation include more detail for independent is still state-owned. Liberia could power producer and distributor reg- partially or fully privatize distribution ulations, and more certainty on the and generation, similar to examples regulations that apply to small-scale in Uganda, Nigeria, and Ghana, to operations. attract private financing into the sector A donor-funded subsidy program and reduce strain on government debt. alongside both these options would The new president, George Weah, also help, as this is a major driver has a significant task on his hands for companies to be economically to continue the work of Johnson viable. Given limited capacity for Sirleaf’s Small Light Today, Big Liberian government financing, a Light Tomorrow initiative. The vast donor program is needed to offer this majority of Liberians lack access to rather than World Bank debt, which electricity, including those in urban has been used to fund connection areas like Monrovia. Eighty percent programs in Kenya38 and Nigeria.39 of the current government’s rural One example in West Africa is DFID’s electrification plan remains unfund- partnership with the government of ed, and even this investment is not Sierra Leone to subsidize up to 10 sufficient to electrify 100 percent MW of off-grid power through a £35 of Liberians. A combination of the million ($45.3 million) connection proposals above would improve legal program.40 certainty for private-sector investors A further, more extreme option and attract funding from donors and could be to move Liberia towards private sources. Liberia’s significant privatized electricity generation and debt constraints mean that it needs distribution. Liberia has achieved to use every incentive at its disposal. some success in privatization in the Failure to do so could jeopardize telecommunications sector, with mul- every Liberian’s ability to simply turn tinationals such as MTN owning the lights on. stakes in domestic mobile phone service companies. By the year 2013, Notes these four companies had a 68-per- 1 United Nations, “#Envision2030 Goal 7: cent penetration rate in the Liberian Affordable and Clean Energy,” n.d., https:// www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/ mobile market.41 Liberia passed law to envision2030-goal7.html. establish an independent electricity
Spring 2019 17 2 World Bank Group, “Options for the gy_ESW_11-4-11web.pdf. Development of Liberia’s Energy Sector,” 11 World Bank Group, “Access to Electricity (% of October 2011, http://siteresources.worldbank. population).” org/EXTAFRREGTOPENERGY/Resourc- 12 USAID, “Liberia: Power Africa Fact Sheet.” es/717305-1266613906108/Liberia_Ener- 13 Mt. Coffee Hydropower Plant Rehabilitation: gy_ESW_11-4-11web.pdf. Project Implementation Unit, “Overview,” n.d., 3 USAID, “Liberia: Power Africa Fact Sheet,” accessed 8 January 2019, http://www.mtcoffeelibe- updated 8 November 2018, accessed 8 January ria.com/newsite/?page_id=96. 2019, https://www.usaid.gov/powerafrica/ 14 Tamara Heimur, “Buchanan Renewables: Bring- liberia. ing Power to Liberia,” Harvard Kennedy School, 4 USAID, “Nigeria: Power Africa Fact Sheet,” 18 December 2014, https://case.hks.harvard.edu/ updated 19 November 2018, accessed 8 Janu- buchanan-renewables-bringing-power-to-liberia/. ary 2019, https://www.usaid.gov/powerafrica/ 15 Ronnie Greene and Jonathan Paye- Nigeria. Layleh, “US loans fueled insider deal, 5 USAID, “Kenya: Power Africa Fact Sheet,” failed power plan in Liberia,” Associated updated 8 November 2018, accessed 8 January Press, 27 January 2015, https://apnews. 2019, https://www.usaid.gov/powerafrica/kenya. com/52cad7bc134d4057a76b6a8cf2263c1a. 6 World Bank Group, “Access to Electricity (% 16 “Liberia electricity crisis: ‘About 60% of power of population),” Sustainabile Energy for All stolen’,” BBC News, 5 December 2018, https:// (SE4ALL) database, n.d., accessed 8 January www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-46452326. 2019, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ 17 Rural and Renewable Energy Agency, “Rural EG.ELC.ACCS.ZS. Energy Strategy and Master Plan for Liberia,” n.d., 7 Central Intelligence Agency, “Electrici- accessed 8 January 2019, http://www.liberiarura- ty - Installed Generating Capacity,” n.d., lenergy.org/. accessed 8 January 2019, https://www.cia.gov/ 18 Global Off-Grid Lighting Association, “Global library/publications/the-world-factbook/ran- Off-Grid Solar Market Report,” October korder/2236rank.html. Figure calculated based 2018, https://www.gogla.org/sites/default/files/ on total installed capacity in the United States resource_docs/global_off-grid_solar_market_re- divided by the United States’ population. port_h1_2018-opt.pdf. 8 Africa Development Bank, “Development 19 USAID, “Liberia: Power Africa Fact Sheet.” Effectiveness Review 2017: Chapter 2 - Light 20 USAID, “Liberia: Power Africa Fact Sheet.” up and power Africa,” 2017, https://www.afdb. 21 Masami Kojima and Chris Trimble, “Making Pow- org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/ er Affordable for Africa and Viable for Its Utilities,” Development_Effectiveness_Review_2017/ World Bank Group, October 2016, https://www. ADER_2017__En__Ch._2.pdf. Figure researchgate.net/publication/316147737_Mak- calculated based on total installed capacity in ing_Power_Affordable_for_Africa_and_Via- Africa divided by Africa’s population. ble_for_Its_Utilities. 9 World Bank Group, “Access to Electricity 22 USAID, “Liberia: Power Africa Fact Sheet”; (% of population).” Kojima and Trimble, “Making Power Affordable 10 World Bank Group, “Options for the for Africa and Viable for Its Utilities,” World Bank Development of Liberia’s Energy Sector,” Group. October 2011, http://siteresources.worldbank. 23 World Bank Group, “Liberia Renewable Energy org/EXTAFRREGTOPENERGY/Resourc- Access Project,” n.d., http://projects.worldbank. es/717305-1266613906108/Liberia_Ener- org/P149683/?lang=en&tab=overview.
18 Africa Policy Journal 24 World Bank Group, “GDP per capita (current cid.harvard.edu/explore/?country=125&part- US$),” n.d., accessed 8 January 2019, https:// ner=undefined&product=undefined&product- data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP. Class=HS&startYear=undefined&target=Pro- CD. duct&year=2016. 25 Matthew Tilleard, Gabriel Davies, and Lucy 34 IndexMundi (citing World Bank data), “Iron Ore Shaw, “Minigrids Are the Cheapest Way to Monthly Price – US Dollars per Dry Metric Bring Electricity to 100 Million Africans Today,” Ton,” n.d., accessed 18 January 2019, https://www. Greentech Media, 20 April 2018, https://www. indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodi- greentechmedia.com/articles/read/minigrids- ty=iron-ore&months=240. are-the-cheapest-way-to-electrify-100-million- 35 IndexMundi (citing World Bank data), “Iron Ore africans-today. Monthly Price – US Dollars per Dry Metric 26 WorldPop, “Liberia 100m Population,” updated Ton.” January 2013, accessed 8 January 2019, 36 Rural and Renewable Energy Agency, “Rural http://www.worldpop.org.uk/data/summary/?- Energy Strategy and Master Plan for Liberia.” doi=10.5258/SOTON/WP00146; “Africa 1km 37 Mauricio Romero et al., “Can Outsourcing Population,” WorldPop, updated November Improve Liberia’s Schools?” Center for Global 2016, accessed 8 January 2019, http://www. Development Working Paper 462, September worldpop.org.uk/data/summary/?doi=10.5258/ 2017, https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/ SOTON/WP00004. partnership-schools-for-liberia.pdf. 27 WorldPop, “Liberia 100m Population.” 38 World Bank Group, “Electricity Expan- 28 Green Mini Grid Facility Kenya, “Grant sion,” n.d., accessed 18 January 2019, Information,” n.d., accessed 18 January 2019, http://projects.worldbank.org/P103037/ https://www.gmgfacilitykenya.org/index.php/ electricity-expansion?lang=en&tab=overview. grants. 39 Rural Electrification Agency Nigeria, “World 29 Rural and Renewable Energy Agency, “Rural Bank Approves $350m for REA Off Grid Energy Strategy and Master Plan for Liberia.” Projects,” 4 July 2018, http://rea.gov.ng/wbank- 30 World Bank Group, IDA Resource Mobiliza- approves-350m-for-reas-solar-power-projects-in- tion Department, “IDA’S Non-Concessional schools-others/. Borrowing Policy: Review and Update,” 29 40 Liberia Telecommunications Authority, “Rural October 2015, http://ida.worldbank.org/sites/ Electrification in Sierra Leone,” Department for default/files/pdfs/ncbpoct2015.pdf. International Development, United Kingdom, 31 International Monetary Fund, “List of updated 24 October 2018, https://devtracker.dfid. IDA-Only and PRGT-Eligible Countries gov.uk/projects/GB-GOV-1-300303. Subject to IMF/World Bank Group Debt 41 Liberia Telecommunications Authority, Annual Limits Conditionality,” updated 30 October Report 2013/2014, n.d., http://www.lta.gov.lr/doc/ 2018, https://www.imf.org/external/np/spr/2015/ LTA_Annual_Report_2013_2014.pdf. conc/jointDLC.xlsx. 42 Liberian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2015 Elec- 32 International Monetary Fund, “Liberia: Debt tricity Law of Liberia: An Act to Amend Chapters Sustainability Analysis,” IMF Country Report 85 of the 1973 Public Authority Law Creating the No. 18/172, 24 May 2018. Liberia Electricity Corporation and Amendment 33 Atlas of Economic Complexity, Center Thereto, to Establish the 2015 Electricity Law of for International Development at Harvard Liberia, 26 October 2015, https://www.rrealiberia. University, “What Did Liberia Export in 2016?” org/forest/doc_download/2015%20Electrici- n.d., accessed 17 January 2019, http://atlas. ty%20Law%20of%20Liberia.pdf.
Spring 2019 19 Feature
How Africa Can Adopt a Pan-African Migration and Development Agenda
Robtel Neajai Pailey
Robtel Neajai Pailey is a Liberian Abstract academic, activist and author of Although most African migration is the anti-corruption children’s books voluntary, safe, orderly, and regular, Gbagba and Jaadeh! An earlier draft policymakers tend to pander to popu- of this article was written when she lar narratives of an irregular “swarm” served as Ibrahim Leadership Fellow of African nationals invading the West. African migration occurs primarily at the African Development Bank within the continent, representing Group (AfDB) in Abidjan, Côte broader processes of political, eco- d’Ivoire, from 2017 to 2018. Visit nomic, and social development by www.robtelneajaipailey.com for contributing to growth rates, pro- more information. moting regional economic integra- tion, and fostering trade, investment, commerce, knowledge transfer, and human contact. If harnessed properly, migration could further enhance pro- ductivity in agriculture, construction, mining, and services within the con- tinent. Despite its potential, however,
20 Africa Policy Journal intra-Africa migration is hampered tural transformation in destination by restrictive immigration policies countries.”2 If harnessed properly, including tight controls around visa it could enhance productivity in a access, rights of residency, employ- variety of sectors by improving the ment, and citizenship for foreign supply of skilled labor, facilitating African nationals. This article presents knowledge transfer and leveraging the evidence-based scholarly research and comparative advantage of domestic policymaking on drivers, patterns and markets.3 Thus, there is a symbiotic trends in African mobility, and makes relationship between development concrete suggestions for how policy- and migration in Africa: development makers in the continent can design facilitates migration and migration and implement pan-African migration facilitates development. policies that foster development. Conventional perceptions of Af- rican migration tend to focus on the Introduction: Why Should so-called “migration crisis” in the Policymakers Develop a Mediterranean, where sub-Saharan Pan-African Migration and African migrants accounted for 42 Development Agenda? percent of the 1,500 migrant fatalities Migration is a critical driver of socio- in 2015.4 This has prompted donors economic development in Africa. A to concentrate almost exclusively on study by the Organisation for Eco- stemming the flow of irregular African nomic Cooperation and Develop- migration to Europe, even though ment (OECD) and the International most African migration occurs within Labour Organization (ILO) in 2018 the continent. For example, of the 34 found that migrant contributions to million African migrants reported in GDP amounted to 19 percent in Côte 2015, approximately 18 million (52 d’Ivoire in 2008, 9 percent in South percent) were intra-African migrants; Africa in 2011, and 13 percent in this figure swells to 70 percent in Rwanda in 2012. Current projections sub-Saharan Africa.5 Some estimates indicate that global migration could indicate that the share of African increase Africa’s GDP per capita from migrants within Africa is 53 percent US$2,008.00 in 2016 to US$3,249 in (19.7 million).6 Others show that 2030, assuming an annual growth rate intra-African migration accounts for of 3.5 percent.1 Beyond contributing a little over 80 percent of all African to growth rates, migration is a conduit migration.7 Given the restrictions on for promoting regional economic intra-African migration imposed by integration. Intra-Africa migration, in African states, policymakers in the particular, “positively impacts struc- continent should seek to enhance
Spring 2019 21 the contributions of African migrants Rural-to-urban migration, labor mi- to continental growth and socioeco- gration, irregular migration, migration nomic development by facilitating of youth under age 30, women mi- freedom of movement. grants, asylum seekers, and internally After 18 months and six rounds of displaced persons (IDPs) have all intergovernmental negotiations, the increased dramatically.9 In 2015, out final draft of the Global Compact on of 244 million international migrants Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration worldwide, 34 million or 14 percent (GCM) was adopted widely in July were born in Africa, with a near-even 2018. It is expected that United Na- split by gender. By 2017, there were tions (UN) member states – including approximately 258 million interna- those in Africa – will implement this tional migrants globally, representing global, non-legally-binding agree- 3.4 percent of the world population, ment. Regional pan-African institu- with African migrants accounting for tions such as the African Union (AU) only 10 percent of the total migrant and the UN Economic Commission population.10 Pre-colonial, colonial, for Africa (ECA) have already taken and post-independence migratory the lead on setting the agenda for routes continue to shape patterns of enabling safe, orderly, and regular movement today, with migrants from African migration, in keeping with Africa attracted to countries with the adoption of the GCM.8 This ar- historical, geo-political, linguistic, ticle argues that Africa should focus and cultural ties. intently on “maximizing the benefits Historically, the top destinations of migration” through a pan-African for African migrants have included migration and development agenda South Africa, Côte d’Ivoire, Nige- rather than “obsessing over minimiz- ria, Kenya, and Ethiopia. Intra-Af- ing risks” largely projected onto the rican migration corridors include continent by outsiders, as notably Burkina Faso-Côte d’Ivoire, South articulated by UN Secretary-General Sudan-Uganda, Mozambique-South António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres. Africa, Sudan-South Sudan, and Côte d’Ivoire-Burkina Faso. These African Migration by the routes link not only major commer- Numbers cial agriculture and mining activi- ties and informal trade routes, but Migration Through, To and also irregular and forced migration From Africa channels.11 The top five sources of African migration has mushroomed African migrants are Egypt, Morocco, and diversified in the last two decades. Somalia, Sudan, and Algeria.12
22 Africa Policy Journal Figure 1: Top Ten Sending and Receiving Countries in Africa, by Number of Migrants, 2015
Source: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs13
Figure 2: Number of African Migrants by Area of Destination in 2005 and 2015
Source: Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs14
Outside Africa, Europe accounts nations for African migrants in Europe for approximately 9.2 million African in 2017. Outside of Europe, Saudi migrants, representing 28 percent of Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the total African migrant population and the United States attracted the worldwide.15 France, Spain, Italy, and largest number of African migrants.16 the UK were the most popular desti- Inversely, Africa is becoming a top
Spring 2019 23 destination for European retirees and the majority of regular migration out Asian entrepreneurs. of Africa.19 Additionally, in lower- to Although fragility and conflict lower-middle-income countries in are major drivers of irregular and Africa, development actually facili- forced African migration, refugees tates emigration by making migration constitute a relatively small share costs more affordable and increasing of the migrant population from the incentives to migrate.20 That the poor- continent. For example, when news est of the poor rarely migrate calls about a Mediterranean “migration into question the tendency to focus crisis” dominated headlines in 2016, policymaking on poverty-induced, irregular boat crossings of refugees irregular migration. and labor migrants from Africa were Furthermore, Africans’ motivations approximately 100,000, about one-sev- for migrating are varied and nuanced; enth of the estimated total regular they range from extreme cases, such as migration to OECD countries.17 the need to flee persecution, violence, Moreover, unauthorized overland and environmental disasters to more and maritime crossings represent a mundane motivations, such as a desire minority of all migratory flows within to avoid boredom and professional and from the continent. stagnation. Close to 70 percent of Many exogenous migration-relat- African migrants are young and pro- ed initiatives, such as the European ductive, between the ages of 20 and Union (EU) Emergency Trust Fund 64. According to the Gallup World for Africa (2015), worth €3.4 billion Poll of 2015, the share of people who ($3.9 billion), endeavor to manage want to migrate is greatest in Africa: irregular migration from Africa by North Africa (24 percent), West Africa addressing root causes such as poverty, (39 percent), the rest of sub-Saharan inequality, conflict, unemployment, Africa (29 percent).21 Therefore, the and underemployment. However, challenge for African policymakers is some scholars have argued that efforts to make Africa a desirable destination to contain migration by addressing for African migrants. To achieve this these drivers are ineffective because goal, policymakers should focus not socio-economic development neither only on “creating jobs, raising stan- curbs citizens’ desire to migrate, nor dards of living, and eliminating repres- decreases migration rates.18 Moreover, sion and violent conflict” but also on African countries with higher levels “nurturing foundations of hope” and of socioeconomic development, such creating viable “prospects for social as those in the Maghreb, coastal West mobility and social change.”22 Africa, and South Africa, account for According to scholars of migra-
24 Africa Policy Journal tion, the focus of policymaking on development; this could have unin- African migration should be enabling tended consequences for development Africans to remain in Africa because assistance targeting them.25 For these they want to, not because they are reasons, policymakers must pay par- blocked from migrating elsewhere.23 ticular attention to this demographic. Although recent migration work has been framed within the context of How Should African fragility and conflict, African poli- Policymakers Design cymakers should address not only Migration Policies? crisis-induced (forced) or irregular African policymakers should cater migration (due to political, environ- to the needs of the four categories of mental, or ecological factors), but also actual and potential African migrants non-crisis-induced labor or regular by supporting and financing their migration. They should adopt dif- mobility, particularly within Africa. ferent strategies to address migration by engaging with four categories of 1. Research Funding and actual and potential African migrants: Capacity Building in Migration 1. Those who have the resources Data Analysis to migrate and already have (i.e. Evidence must be the bedrock of diasporas); meaningful migration and devel- 2. Those who have the resources opment interventions. Therefore, and have not already migrated; African policymakers should fund 3. Those who do not have the re- national statistical offices as well sources and still migrate (whether as regional centers for research to they fail or succeed); facilitate data collection. By gather- 4. Those who do not have the re- ing robust baseline data on African sources and do not migrate, but migrants, disaggregating them by have the desire to migrate – what gender, age, country of origin, edu- Carling describes as “involuntary cational background, socio-economic immobility.”24 status, etc., policymakers can better With respect to this final catego- address their needs. In turn, this data ry of potential migrants, evidence should be shared across national, suggests that the inability to migrate regional, and continental platforms, may encourage them to pursue other as well as inform the International alternatives, such as joining extremist Organization for Migration (IOM) movements. The involuntarily im- Global Migration Data Portal, the mobile are also less likely to invest World Bank Migration Knowledge in skills enhancement or livelihoods Partnership on Migration and Devel-
Spring 2019 25 opment, and the recently established ipated in or signed onto international Multilateral Development Banks’ agreements27 and platforms related to Platform on Economic Migration migration.28 Furthermore, the AU has and Forced Displacement. spearheaded initiatives of its own.29 Policymakers on the continent While these agreements are relevant must also work with the AU and and important for Africa, there is a lack ECA to fund the establishment and of political will and limited capacity operationalization of an African to enforce them in the continent. In Migration Research and Policy Net- a few unfortunate cases, African gov- work,26 comprising African migration ernments have signed agreements with scholars and leading policymakers non-African institutions that explicitly on African migration. The proposed contravene regional free movement of Network should collate scholarly and persons protocols. Nevertheless, the policy-focused writing on African adoption in 2018 of the Protocol to migration for reference across the the Treaty Establishing the African continent. Additionally, the Network Economic Community Relating to should build a database of African Free Movement of Persons, Right of migration scholars and policymakers Residence and Right of Establish- who could provide ad-hoc research ment30 by 32 RMCs of the AU, as well and policy support on topics as varied as the Continental Free Trade Area as diaspora bonds and the gendered Agreement (AfCFTA)31 by 49 out of implications of migration. Given that 55 RMCs, signaled Africa’s renewed migration creates promising economic commitment to facilitate intra-Africa opportunities for African women, trade, investment, and mobility. policymakers in particular should Although many RMCs have yet consider commissioning specific to fully ratify and implement the studies to inform targeted policies Protocol on Free Movement and and programs in regional member the AfCFTA, they remain important countries (RMCs) on the gendered instruments for advocacy and financ- dimensions of African migration. For ing. African policymakers should example, policymakers could establish assist the AU by ensuring funding to a special fund to provide micro-credit implement migration agreements and insurance premiums for women and platforms instituted from 2015 cross-border traders. onwards, specifically the AU-ILO- IOM-ECA Joint Labor Migration 2. Implementing Africa-Centric Program for Development and In- Migration Frameworks tegration (2015), Migration Policy Over the last century, Africa has partic- Framework for Africa and 12-Year
26 Africa Policy Journal Action Plan (2017), Protocol on Free African nationals; that number has Movement (2018), AfCFTA (2018), now increased to 11.33 For example, and Single African Air Transport Benin34 and Seychelles allow visa-free Market (2018). travel for all Africans. Senegal now African policymakers should do- has visa-free access for 42 African mesticate AU migration policies by countries.35 After protracted negotia- devising relevant migration strategies tions of more than a decade, in 2017 of their own, which could include: the Central African Economic and the protection of migrant nationals Monetary Community (CEMAC), abroad (including labor and human comprising Cameroon, Central Af- rights, evacuation, resettlement and rican Republic, Chad, Equatorial reintegration in times of crisis, etc.); Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the return and reintegration of mi- Congo, agreed to visa-free movement grants fleeing crises in regional and of their citizens.36 Similarly, South non-regional destinations;32 the estab- Africa and Angola agreed to visa-free lishment of offices of diaspora affairs reciprocal arrangements for each in ministries of foreign affairs; the other’s nationals. Ghana, Ethiopia, establishment of knowledge transfer Kenya, Namibia, and Nigeria were programs that would facilitate the slightly more cautious in vowing to return of African nationals with skills permit visa-on-arrival for all African suited to fill gaps in the labor market. nationals. Although African countries are 3 Improving the Flagship Africa increasingly adopting visa-on-arrival or Visa Openness Index (AVOI) visa-free travel access to other nation- Widely referenced in the media for its als from the continent, prompted in foresight, the African Development part by the AVOI, hurdles to achieving Bank Group’s Africa Visa Openness a borderless Africa persist. Despite Index (AVOI) measures the openness free movement of persons, labor, and of African states to nationals of other services protocols adopted by regional countries in the continent. Although blocs, Africa remains one of the least it is difficult to prove causation, there economically integrated regions of is very likely a correlation between the world and extremely restrictive the inaugural issue of the AVOI in for intra-African mobility. The AVOI 2016 and subsequent policy shifts could be leveraged more meaningfully on visa-free intra-African move- to champion the abolishment of visa ment. Nearly four years ago, only requirements altogether (as enshrined five countries in the continent had in the 2018 Protocol on Free Move- adopted liberal visa policies for all ment), thereby enabling the rights of
Spring 2019 27 entry, residence, and establishment the continent, regardless of their coun- for African nationals in any RMC. To tries of origin. An early version of this this end, resources allocated for the database has already proven success- AVOI could be increased significantly ful: ECOWAS’ job-matching plat- to introduce more robust measures, form links jobseekers in Benin, Cape such as a comprehensive examination Verde, Ghana, Mali, Mauritania, and of procedural impediments to free Senegal to national and continental movement and statistical evidence employment opportunities.37 on how security has been affected by Skills enhancement and portability visa liberalization. An expanded AVOI would effectively turn “brain drain”38 must also include recommendations into “brain circulation” within Afri- for how countries can improve their ca, minimize the youth bulge, and rankings in subsequent iterations, enable young Africans to gain new at least until RMCs can ratify and skills through education and labor implement fully the Protocol on Free mobility. Moreover, African policy- Movement. makers should target migrant youth in skills development and enhancement 4 Funding Skills Enhancement thereby assisting them in obtaining and Portability internationally recognized workers’ African policymakers can assist the credentials, skills, and qualifications. AU and ECA to advocate for in- This would complement the AU’s creasing skills portability, matching proposed African Accreditation Agen- skills developed in one country to cy for developing and monitoring job opportunities in another. This educational quality standards while would conform to the AU’s region- expanding student and academic al skills-pooling efforts, including mobility across the continent. Further- the Joint Labor Migration Program more, African policymakers should (2015) and the Revised Convention fund temporary transfer of knowledge on the Recognition of Studies, Certif- programs, similar to the United Na- icates, Diplomas, Degrees and Other tions Development Program Transfer Academic Qualifications in Higher of Knowledge Through Expatriate Education in African States (2014). Nationals (TOKTEN), by bringing Skills portability could be achieved back to the continent African diasporas by mapping the core competencies with specialized skills. of African migrants and depositing this information in a database to help 5 Funding Remittances RMCs identify individuals who could Platforms meet critical labor market needs across African migrants contribute mean-
28 Africa Policy Journal ingfully to household incomes in measures. For example, they could the continent with their remittances, secure and expand highly effective, which also serve as an important home-grown remittance facilities source of foreign currency reserves.39 such as dahabshil, which faces serious Remittances to Africa currently ac- regulatory challenges from anti-money count for 51 percent of all private laundering and counter-terrorism capital to the continent, up from 42 financing laws. Alternatively, African percent in 2010.40 In 2015, officially governments could subsidize trans- recorded remittances to Africa – from action costs by entering into formal outside and within the continent – partnerships with international money amounted to US$66 billion, surpass- transfer companies such as Western ing overseas development assistance Union and Moneygram, making re- and, arguably, serving as a more stable mittances more impactful in African form of financing than foreign direct countries of origin and less expensive investment.41 for African migrants. Nigeria is the top recipient of re- In addition, African policymakers mittances overall in Africa, gaining could also fund research on remit- approximately US$20.8 billion in tance corridors by supporting the work 2015 alone.42 Liberia holds the top of the African Institute for Remittances spot for remittances as a percentage (AIR),45 established as a Specialized of GDP, which accounted for 24.6 Technical Office of the AU in 2015. percent of GDP during the height of While the EU has committed US$5 the Ebola outbreak in 2014.43 Despite million over five years to the Institute, the significance of remittances to Afri- African governments could do more to ca, they are limited as a development support its three main goals: reducing tool. First, the poorest households the cost of remittances, improving sta- do not receive remittances as they tistical knowledge around services, and are unlikely to have relatives living better leveraging monetary transfers. abroad. Second, transaction costs for transfers to Africa are higher than for 6 Expanding Access to Travel most other regions of the world, and Documents far above the Sustainable Develop- Securing adequate identity documents ment Goals target of 3 percent.44 is a major hurdle for African migrants. Given that many African migrants African policymakers can help to send transfers through non-formal address this by reducing the cost of channels with low to no transaction biometric national identity documents costs, African policymakers should (such as passports) and civil registry help to formalize these alternative documents (including birth, mar-
Spring 2019 29 riage, and death certificates). These the promotion and financing of in- documents are critical in facilitating clusive growth, job creation, climate access to public goods and key ser- change mitigation, etc. – thereby vices such as healthcare, education, placing African migrants and their banking, remittance platforms, and wellbeing at the very center of policy emergency assistance. Improving interventions. Policymakers in Africa access to travel documents would also must also recognize Africans on the provide supplementary benefits by move – be they regular or irregular, reducing statelessness, contributing forced or labor migrants – as resource- to census data collection, and shaping ful and agentic rather than passive sustainable development planning. victims of circumstance.
7 Supporting Refugee-Hosting Nations Notes Finally, policymakers should support 1 United Nations, Conference on Trade and African countries that host the lion’s Development (UNCTAD), Economic Development in Africa Report 2018: Migration share of the continent’s forced mi- for Structural Transformation (New York and grants by establishing a special fund Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations, 2018). to augment the national budgets of 2 UNCTAD, Economic Development in Africa Uganda, Kenya, Chad, Cameroon, Report 2018, 102. South Sudan, and Sudan. Given the 3 UNCTAD, Economic Development in Africa AU’s designation of 2019 as “The Report 2018, 102. 4 International Organization for Migration Year of Refugees, Returnees and (IOM), Fatal Journeys: Improving Data on Internally Displaced Persons,” this Missing Migrants (Geneva, Switzerland: Inter- would invariably integrate refugees, national Organization for Migration, 2017). enhance their employability, and 5 United Nations, Department of Economic enable them to secure land for agri- and Social Affairs (UNDESA), Trends in cultural productivity. International Migrant Stock: The 2015 Revision (United Nations database, POP/DB/MIG/ Stock/Rev.2015). Conclusion 6 UNCTAD, Economic Development in Africa As continental and regional integra- Report 2018. tion deepen and expand, so too will 7 African Union, Evaluation Report of the AU the movement of African peoples.46 Migration Policy Framework (Addis Ababa, To that end, African policymakers Ethiopia: African Union, 2016). 8 While the AUC has spearheaded a series of mi- should channel most, if not all, of their gration-centric initiatives and its Agenda 2063 energies on creating an enabling en- advocates for the free movement of persons as vironment for and facilitating regular part of a continental integration agenda, the intra-African migration – including ECA established in 2016 the High-Level Panel
30 Africa Policy Journal on International Migration in Africa (HLPM) Regular Migration, eds. Marie McAuliffe and to influence evidence-based policymaking on Michelle Klein Solomon (conveners) (Geneva, African migration. Switzerland: International Organization for 9 African Union, Revised Migration Policy Migration, 2017), 91-96. Framework for Africa and Plan of Action (2018- 21 Gallup, “Gallup World Poll,” n.d., https://www. 2027) (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: African Union, gallup.com/services/170945/worldpoll.aspx. n.d.). 22 Carling, “How Does Migration Arise?” 10 United Nations, Department of Economic and 23 Carling, “How Does Migration Arise?” Social Affairs (UNDESA), Trends in Interna- 24 Jørgen Carling, “Migration in the Age of Invol- tional Migrant Stock: The 2015 Revision (United untary Immobility: Theoretical Reflections and Nations database, POP/DB/MIG/Stock/ Cape Verdean Experiences,” Journal of Ethnic Rev.2017). and Migration Studies 28, no. 1 (2002): 5-42. 11 UNCTAD, Economic Development in Africa 25 Carling, “How Does Migration Arise?” Report 2018; UNDESA, Trends in International 26 This network would ideally complement and Migrant Stock: The 2015 Revision. support the previously established Network 12 UNDESA, Trends in International Migrant of Migration Research on Africa, coordinated Stock: The 2015 Revision. by leading African migration scholar Professor 13 UNDESA, Trends in International Migrant Aderanti Adepoju. Stock: The 2015 Revision. 27 International conventions that attempt to protect 14 UNDESA, Trends in International Migrant the rights of migrant workers have had minimal Stock: The 2015 Revision. success because the majority of high-income 15 African Union, Revised Migration Policy Frame- countries have not ratified and/or implemented work for Africa and Plan of Action (2018-2027). them. 16 UNCTAD, Economic Development in Africa 28 These include the ILO Migration for Employ- Report 2018. ment Convention (1949); ILO Migrant Workers 17 Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), (Supplementary Provisions) Convention (1975); briefing notes for the High Level Panel on UN Convention against Transnational Organized International Migration in Africa, 2018. Crime including the Protocol to Prevent, Sup- 18 Jørgen Carling, “How Does Migration Arise?” in press and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Migration Research Leaders’ Syndicate: Ideas Women and Children, and the Protocol Against to Inform Cooperation on Safe, Orderly and the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air Regular Migration, eds. Marie McAuliffe and (2003); UN Convention on the Protection of the Michele Klein Solomon (conveners) (Geneva, Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Switzerland: International Organization for Their Families (2003); UN High-Level Dialogues Migration, 2017), 19-26. on International Migration and Development 19 The reverse trend is true for countries that obtain (2006, 2013); Global Forum on Migration and middle-income or upper-middle-income status, Development (launched in 2007); the New York in which emigration decreases with increasing Declaration on Migrants and Refugees (2016); levels of immigration. Guidelines to Protect Migrants in Countries Ex- 20 Linguère Mbaye, “Supporting Communities periencing Conflict or Natural Disaster (MICIC Under Migration Pressure: The Role of Oppor- Guidelines) (2016); and the IFAD Global Forum tunities, Information and Resilience to Shocks,” on Remittances, Investment and Development in Migration Research Leaders’ Syndicate: Ideas (2017). to Inform Cooperation on Safe, Orderly and 29 These include the African Common Position on
Spring 2019 31 Migration and Development (2006); Migration 34 Benin was the top reformer in the 2018 AVOI. Policy Framework for Africa (2006); Ouaga- 35 Kerry Dimmer, “A Visa-Free Africa Still dougou Action Plan to Combat Trafficking Facing Hurdles,” Africa Renewal (December in Human Beings, Especially Women and 2017-March 2018). Children (2006); Joint AU-EU Declaration on 36 Dimmer, “A Visa-Free Africa Still Facing Migration and Development (2006); [Kampala] Hurdles.” Convention for the Protection and Assistance 37 UNCTAD, Economic Development in Africa of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa Report 2018, 158. (2009); Pan-African Forum on Migration (2015); 38 An estimated 70,000 skilled African professionals AU-ILO-IOM-ECA Joint Labor Migration emigrate from the continent each year. African Program for Development and Integration Union, Revised Migration Policy Framework for (2015); Declaration on Migration (2015); the Africa and Plan of Action (2018-2027). African Union Passport (2016); Migration Policy 39 Robtel Neajai Pailey, “Silver Lining, Silver Framework for Africa and 12-Year Action Plan Bullet or Neither? Post-War Opportunities and (2017); Common African Position on the Global Challenges for Liberian Diasporas in Develop- Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migra- ment,” in Liberian Development Conference tion (2017); Protocol to the Treaty Establishing Anthology: Engendering Collective Action for the African Economic Community Relating to Advancing Liberia’s Development (Monrovia, Free Movement of Persons, Right of Residence Liberia: USAID/Liberia, Embassy of Sweden, and Right of Establishment (2018); African and University of Liberia, 2017), 213-230. Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (2018); 40 UNCTAD, Economic Development in Africa Single African Air Transport Market (2018), etc. Report 2018. 30 Sub-regional groups have previously adopted 41 African Union, Revised Migration Policy Frame- free movement of persons protocols, including work for Africa and Plan of Action (2018-2027); the ECOWAS Protocol on Free Movement of UNCTAD, Economic Development in Africa Persons (1979); COMESA Protocol on the Free Report 2018. Movement of Persons, especially Labor Ser- 42 World Bank. 2016. Migration and remittances vices, the Right of Establishment and Residence factbook 2016. Washington, D.C.: World Bank (1994); and SADC Protocol on the Facilitation Group. of Movement of Persons (1997), amongst others. 43 World Bank. 2016. Migration and remittances 31 To date, Kenya, Ghana, Niger, Rwanda, Chad, factbook 2016. Washington, D.C.: World Bank eSwatini (formerly Swaziland), South Africa, Group; Pailey, Robtel Neajai. 2017a. Liberia, Eb- Guinea, Uganda, Mauritania, and Sierra Leone ola and the pitfalls of statebuilding: Reimagining have ratified the Agreement. domestic and diasporic public authority.” African 32 Robtel Neajai Pailey, “Long-Term Socio-Eco- Affairs 116 (465): 648–670. nomic Implications of ‘Crisis-Induced’ Return 44 UNCTAD, Economic Development in Africa Migration on Countries of Origin,” research Report 2018. brief, Migrants in Countries in Crisis Initiative 45 The AIR is currently collaborating with six (Vienna, Austria: International Centre for Migra- countries – Democratic Republic of Congo, tion Policy Development (ICMPD), 2016). Ghana, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritania, 33 African Development Bank and African Union and Zimbabwe – to devise new policies for Commission, Africa Visa Openness Report 2018 minimizing remittance transfer fees. (Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire: African Development 46 UNCTAD, Economic Development in Africa Bank Group, 2018). Report 2018.
32 Africa Policy Journal Feature
The Quest for Hydro Hegemony and the Changing Power Relation in the Eastern Nile Basin
Gashaw Ayferam Endaylalu
Gashaw Ayferam Endaylalu is a lecturer Abstract and researcher at the Department of This paper examines the incessant Civics and Ethical Studies at Debre hydro hegemonic power configuration Berehan University, Ethiopia. His primary and the changing power relations in research interests include contemporary the Eastern Nile basin. It argues that global and regional issues related to though Egypt has used “smart power,” a combination of hard and soft power, hydro-politics, water governance, and in establishing, maintaining, and foreign policy. Gashaw’s earlier published consolidating its preferred state of research has focused on the Syrian affairs, its incessant hydro hegemony context, the influence of competing is being challenged and contested foreign powers in the Horn of Africa, and by non-hegemonic riparians, largely partnerships between China and African stemming from drastic changes in countries. He holds a Master’s degree in the prevailing domestic, regional, International Relations and Diplomacy and international geopolitics since from Addis Ababa University. E-mail: the 1990s. In this vein, a new geo- [email protected]. political order is emerging along the Nile’s riparian social, political, and ecological systems, following Egypt’s attempts to establish norms that fit its goals and compel other Nile states like Ethiopia and Sudan to follow suit. In order to effectively challenge Egypt’s path to hydro hegemony over the Nile, other Nile powers need to
Spring 2019 33 embrace a “decolonizing mindset” through a suite of power-related tactics to show that “Egypt is not the scared and strategies such as resource cap- husband of the Nile”;1 rather, the Nile ture, integration and containment.”3 binds 11 African states politically and Using the indicators of popula- geographically. Further, there should tion size and Gross National Product emerge a “historic non-hegemonic (GNP) as starting points, Egypt is a bloc” to bring a consistent, unified up- clear hegemon.4 The major assump- stream position to effectively counter tion of this view is that by exploiting Egypt. Failing to do so would mean the existing power imbalance (the compliance with the status quo at the first dimension of power, such as expense of a common resource: the military might, economic strength, waters of the Nile. technological advancement, expert Keywords: Eastern Nile, hydro hege- power, and international political mony, counter hydro hegemony, power and financial support; and the second face of power, such as bargaining Introduction power and ideational power), Egypt The Eastern Nile basin is character- has established negative/dominant ized by a number of asymmetries, hydro hegemony in the Nile river ranging from water endowment to basin, largely through the interlocking exploitation and geopolitical power.2 systems of water resource control, re- The Eastern Nile river basin guides source capture, and the establishment the formation of national strategies of political norms governing strategic surrounding water resource entitle- engagement in the region.5 In terms ment and regional collaboration; of bargaining power, Egypt is also however, these national interests in the strongest, as it has successfully the Nile may contribute to instability influenced the hydropolitical agenda when the use of Nile water resources of the Nile for a century: its potential differ. These potential geopolitical to define the red lines of negotiations, clashes have led to the emergence framing and reframing of cooperative of “water war” and “water peace” platforms, and setting the agenda.6 narratives to describe the geopolitical Finally, Egypt is also the strongest in character of the region. This piece en- ideational power, as it has attempted courages further complexity. Viewing to sanction a particular discourse, such hydropolitics as allocative politics of as Egypt’s absolute dependency on “who gets how much water, how, and the Nile, the discourse of alternative why,” hydro hegemony scholars assert sources, historic rights, and water as a that “control over water resources is national security issue. Egypt has used not achieved through water wars but its power advantage to consolidate
34 Africa Policy Journal and maintain its hydro hegemonic upstream countries, notably Ethiopia, position.7 view the most sustainable solution as Since hydro hegemony is often being a “New Deal” that nullifies the established by a more powerful ri- status quo and thereby establishes a parian through a mix of coercion new transboundary Nile governance and consent,8 Egypt has followed a regime based on the principles of strategy of establishing and maintain- equity and justice.11 Nevertheless, ing a malign hydro hegemonic water post-1990s developments have created arrangement system. Throughout the an enabling environment for upstream hydropolitical history of the Nile, countries to challenge, even trans- Egypt’s solution has been at odds form, the existing inequitable water with upstream countries. Egypt’s Nile arrangement system. The following solution can be best explained as a section, therefore, discusses various hegemonic solution aimed at estab- political developments that have taken lishing the de jure acquiescence of place in the 21st century and their all countries to an existing bilateral implications in foreshadowing a new treaty regime, if not “de facto nonde- emergent order. fection.”9 The other Egypt solution is technical cooperation; however, as Challenging Egypt’s Hydro Anthony Turton notes, “Egypt only Hegemony and the Changing wants technical cooperation where it Power Relation in the Eastern can insert its own people into the third Nile Basin country to monitor that country.”10 “The current regime cannot be Egypt has pursued a policy ranging sustained. It’s being sustained from military expansion and destabi- because of the diplomatic clout lization aimed at making Ethiopia of Egypt. There will come a time “a state of anarchy” (the stick), to when the people of East Africa cooperative diplomacy (the carrot) and Ethiopia will become too aimed at hegemonized cooperation. desperate to care about these dip- Nevertheless, Egypt’s hydro hegemony lomatic niceties. Then, they are is always contestable by upstream going to act.” - Late Ethiopian countries. From this it can be con- Prime Minister Meles Zenawi12 cluded that the kind of hegemony is a There are several reasons explain- “contested malign” hydro hegemony. ing the inability of non-hegemonic Through this, Egypt has established riparian states to challenge the status an inequitable status quo, which quo: colonial rule, political instabil- has now become an impediment to ity, internal and external conflict, ongoing cooperative efforts. The Nile’s economic underdevelopment, lack
Spring 2019 35 of external financial support, lack institutions to secure financial funds of technical expertise, absence of have all contributed to the underdevel- strong national research-based water opment of Ethiopia’s Nile resources.13 institutions, and weak geopolitical Despite these constraints, Ethiopian clout. Until recent decades, the wa- leaders have expressed their aspiration ter resources of the Nile’s upstream to develop the Nile for hydropower were severely underutilized. How- and irrigation, which has emerged ever, the 21st century has witnessed as an “element of continuity” and unprecedented changes to the po- top agenda priority of the past three litical balance of power across the successive Ethiopian regimes.14 region, both domestically, regionally, However, with the coming to pow- and internationally, which largely er of the Ethiopian People’s Revolu- changes the balance of power of the tionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) in Nile region. This section, therefore, 1991, the country has made nothing identifies the changing power relations short of major politico-economic in the Eastern Nile basin and moves transformations. Yet, key challenges on to analyzing how these factors remain, such as food insecurity, sus- influenced and shaped the political tainable development, and economic relations between hegemonic and growth.15 Among the several strategies non-hegemonic Nile River powers. through which food security is en- hanced, the new regime preferred a Ethiopia: A Move from “big project” approach: large water Challenger to Changer of the storage and hydro power generation Status Quo projects. This strategy can be labelled Despite being home to 85 percent as a “hydro-agricultural state-building of the Nile’s water resources, Ethi- strategy.” Such a strategy has appeared opia has not significantly utilized to disrupt the hydropolitical context its resources, evident by the lack of pervading the Nile River. Thus, using extensive water control infrastructure. its geographical power combined The lack of financial resources of its with its relatively growing material own and external sources, protracted and bargaining power, Ethiopia has internal and external conflict, weak begun the long journey of eroding national research-based water insti- the hydropolitical status quo, which tutions, absence of well-organized is legally established by the 1929 and water technocracy, discontinuity of 1959 agreements with the intent of water experts as a result of political making the Nile an Egyptian river. instability, and the inability to pene- Based on the three dimensions of trate or enter international financial power, the following section critically
36 Africa Policy Journal examines Ethiopia’s growing pow- negotiation. However, in recent er, which challenges Egypt’s hydro years, Ethiopia has been exerting hegemony. more agency in these negotiations. First, the Ethiopian economy has Using its bargaining power, Ethio- become one of the fastest-growing pia, for the first time in the hydropolit- economies in the world, with an aver- ical history of the Nile, won the “war age growth rate of 10.5 percent since of ideas” at the third meeting of the 2005.16 Such relative changes, coupled Technical Cooperation Committee with Ethiopians’ enduring aspiration for the Promotion of the Develop- of utilizing the Nile’s water to end pov- ment and Environmental Protection erty, have influenced the new regime of the Nile Basin (TECCONILE) to proceed with the development of in Arusha, Tanzania in 1995. This the water resources. Thus, the country meeting may arguably be framed as has built a better position for itself to a “battle of ideas” between the Nile’s finance hydraulic infrastructures on its hydro hegemon, Egypt, and Ethiopia. own and to bring alternative funding Both countries devised and presented from the emergent world economies. different frameworks for transnation- However, this does not mean that al cooperation across the Nile river Ethiopia is more powerful among basin. Egyptian delegates focused on Nile riparians. Rather, it means that promoting technical cooperation and in the 21st century, swift political and assisting upstream countries in the economic changes across Ethiopia search of alternative uses for water provide the state a stronger capacity resources other than the main Nile to challenge the hydropolitical status river systems.18 quo, which favors Egypt. In contrast, Ethiopia called for Second, Ethiopia has been exploit- the necessity of a comprehensive ing its bargaining power. Bargaining legal and institutional framework, power refers to the capacity to control which must be the first task before any and influence the agenda and the red proposed action plan. The Ethiopian lines of negotiations,17 and this may position, as explained by Waterbury, manifest through the riparian capa- is that “action can be taken only after bilities in setting diplomatic agendas, we have agreed on a users’ code, as well as framing and reframing preferably based on principles of eq- the norms guiding transboundary uitable use.”19 To realize its proposed cooperation. solution, Ethiopia has called for the Egypt, through discursive pow- formation of a panel of experts, the er, has proven itself willing and D3 project, to design the framework able to determine the red lines of of agreement. Out of several Nile
Spring 2019 37 proposals at different times, it was for GERD and to analyze the pos- this proposal that was unanimously sible benefits and costs of GERD adopted by all participant riparians at to downstream countries, so as to the Arusha TECCONILE meeting.20 build confidence among the three Thus, Ethiopia won the “war of ideas” riparians.22 This showed the Ethiopian through skilful use of its bargaining government and people’s altruism, power. good will, and good faith. Ethiopia The increasing Ethiopian bargain- is using soft power, specifically the ing power is also manifested in the power of persuasion and attraction. negotiation process of the Nile River And of particular note, Ethiopia has Basin Cooperative Framework (CFA), accepted most if not all of the rec- along with the CFA’s finalization, sign- ommendations made by the IPoE’s ing, and ratification. Ethiopia success- final report. fully influenced the negotiation pro- Finally, it is becoming more evi- cess of the legal framework. “Ethiopia dent that Ethiopia’s ideational power had convinced the six equatorial Nile has strengthened relative to a decade riparians to vote unanimously in fa- earlier. For clarity, ideational power vour of a draft document that endors- may be considered as the capacity of a es the principle of ‘equitable utili- country to broadcast, impose, and le- zation’ and downplays the past gitimize its knowledge and narratives. Nile water agreements.”21 The mobi- Historically, Egypt has successfully lization of upstream countries to form relied upon its own discourse such a unified front against downstream as its absolute dependency on Nile, countries was arguably the first of its historic rights, and water as a security kind in the modern hydropolitical issue, to shape the Nile River basin’s history of the Nile, suggesting that political agenda. In contrast, Ethiopia Egypt’s role as the Nile’s hydro he- and other upstream countries hold gemon may be eroding. an alternative discourse of “equitable Another notable manifestation and reasonable utilization” of the of Ethiopian bargaining power is shared water resources. With regard the establishment of the tripartite to GERD, Ethiopia also sought to International Panel of Experts (IPoE). assure that “no significant harm” to The government of Ethiopia invited, downstream countries would result in good faith, Sudan and Egypt to set due to the construction of GERD. up the International Panel of Experts Rather, GERD is a beneficiary project on the Ethiopian Grand Ethiopian for all. This is also confirmed by the Renaissance Dam (GERD), to review IPoE final report. the overarching design documents Ethiopia is also leveraging its
38 Africa Policy Journal awe-striking economic growth to form parians, including Egypt’s ally Sudan, alternative arrangements with external have gained China as an alternative powers to finance hydropower projects source of finance. These factors work within its borders. Simultaneously, concomitantly to severely disrupt these financing arrangements show- the hydropolitical status quo, which case to the rest of the Nile river basin arguably favors Egypt’s hegemony Ethiopia’s willingness and initiative over the region’s Nile policy, and to advance water-based development Ethiopia continues to emerge as a priorities. Ethiopia has relied on bona fide political force guiding the China as an alternative source of flow of the Nile’s future. finance.23 Additionally, Ethiopia is poised to receive financing from the Changing Geopolitics Along World Bank. Thus, on the one hand the Nile Between Source and Ethiopia is increasingly involved in Delta Countries Like Ethiopia ongoing hydropolitical cooperation, and Egypt and on the other hand it continues the On 9 January 2011, the people of unilateral construction of hydraulic South Sudan exercised their right of projects. This has its own implications self-determination and voted to secede for the Nile region. from the mother country Sudan, Ethiopia’s recent hydro project establishing their own independent unilateralism carries a potentially state: the Republic of South Sudan.24 salient message to Nile powers like The independence of South Sudan, Egypt. Ethiopia’s economic and po- which brought the number of Nile litical power growth permit the state river states to 11, has its own reper- to pursue its own hydraulic infrastruc- cussions in the hydropolitics of the ture and water utilization priorities, Nile. Hydrographically, South Sudan with or without the backing of other has relative geographic power. South regional powers. Second, Egypt may Sudan contains the region where the have lost its de facto “veto power” in most tributaries of the White Nile blocking external financial sources for converge. This is a region where planned upstream hydraulic projects. nearly half of the White Nile waters Historically, Egypt has successfully are lost, largely due to evaporation prevented traditional Western do- and the presence of large-scale swamp nors from funding upstream hydro ecosystems in which the Nile waters projects, such as the World Bank, stop flowing. which requires the consent of down- As a result, Sudan and Egypt stream countries for a project to be fi- agreed to initiate several canal projects nanced. Thus, Ethiopia and other ri- like Jonglei I and II, to better secure
Spring 2019 39 water resources that flow through a geographical bridge between the precarious riparian ecosystems in contributors of the water and the main South Sudan. Local South Sudanese consumer of it, Egypt.29 The other have characterized these projects as advantage is its potential for irrigated “a new wave of Egyptian invasion of agriculture, as Sudan is the largest South Sudan,”25 while others viewed it Nile riparian in terms of potentially as “twin crimes against humanity and irrigable land.30 However, civil war, nature” simply to benefit politicians political instability, lack of financial in Cairo and Khartoum.26 sources including external financial Securing Nile water resources in support, and weak institutions make South Sudan has emerged as a vital the development of water resources strategic priority for Egypt. Given the minimal.31 Historically, Sudan has size of the White Nile, the heavy loss aligned with Egypt, and it plays a of water in swamps, and the possibility crucial role in shielding Egypt’s hydro of the development of hydro power hegemony. However, recent shifts and irrigation projects, an indepen- in geopolitical power threaten the dent South Sudan might make the fidelity of this relationship. already contentious hydropolitical di- In Sudan, tremendous changes lemma of the Nile more hostile. It may have taken place in the water sector, even be argued that South Sudanese which raises serious concerns for secession is not in the best interest Egypt. According to Cascão, three of Cairo. According to information major changes have taken place in leaked by Wikileaks, “Egypt urged the Sudanese water sector: “unilateral the United States to help postpone construction and planning of hydrau- a referendum on independence for lic infrastructure [with assistance South Sudan.”27 Dinar noted that the from China], the establishment of reason was the secession of South Su- powerful new water institutions, and dan, which could potentially threaten the expansion of irrigation schemes.”32 Egypt’s interests and its access to the Second, Sudan has increased its Nile River.28 expert and structural power, which is manifested through the establishment Flowing North: Sudan in a of a new national institution, the Hydropolitical Dilemma Dams Implementation Unit (DIU). Sudan enjoys twin advantages. Hydro- Established in 2005 to follow up and graphically, all tributaries of the Nile manage the Merowe dam, DIU’s (White Nile, Abbay-Blue Nile, and the mandate was later extended to ini- Tekeze-Atbara) flow through Sudanese tiate, develop, and utilize the water territory into Egypt. Thus, Sudan is resources of Sudan and to manage
40 Africa Policy Journal future planned projects.33 Ultimately, traditionally imposed by Western-led powers like Sudan and Ethiopia are international financial institutions. In exerting knowledge power and human this way, China has helped carve out capital to advance their own hydro new opportunities for Nile powers strategic priorities, with or without like Ethiopia and Sudan to exert engagement from other key regional agency over the trajectory of their powers.34 water resource strategies. China’s guiding foreign policy principles The China Factor: Shifting of non-interference and non-inter- the Power Balance in the Nile vention may ultimately expedite the Region implementation of these strategies. As mentioned above, an emerging With the “rise of China,” tradition- challenge to the Nile basin’s geopo- al international financial institutions litical status quo is the rise of China and donors are no longer the only as a key infrastructure financier across actors and partners, particularly in the African continent. This is an “em- the area of hydraulic infrastructure blematic shift” in the hydro politics of and power projects in the Nile region. the Nile, in terms of access to external This meant that Egypt has lost its financial resources, opportunities “veto power” over external finan- from construction contracts, technical cial sources for upstream hydraulic expertise, skills, and political backing, projects. For a long period of time, which was markedly absent before Egypt had used its geopolitical sig- the 1990s.35 nificance and substantial diplomatic Since the 1990s, the investment clout, along with its economic and landscape across the Horn of Africa military power, to prevent financing has dramatically changed. A 2014 of dam construction in Ethiopia.37 white paper issued by China’s Infor- The late Ethiopian Prime Minister mation Office of the State Council Meles Zenawi predicted the coming claims that China has “carried out of a new “playing field” in favor of the technical cooperation with countries helpless upstream countries: “The like Ethiopia, Burundi and Sudan, current regime cannot be sustained and helped these countries improve … There will come a time when the their utilization and management people of East Africa and Ethiopia of hydro power and other clean en- will become too desperate to care ergy.”36 In the Eastern Nile basin, about these diplomatic niceties. Then, China provides financial resources they are going to act.”38 Thus, the and technical skills for Sudan and emergence of China as an alternative Ethiopia, without the preconditions source of funding is a game-changer,
Spring 2019 41 and will be another challenge to the like sustainable water utilization and hydro hegemonic status quo of the transboundary security. Ethiopia and Nile River. other regional stakeholders are reach- ing a critical window of opportunity A Way Forward to shape the future of the Nile, and In brief terms, Egypt’s hydro hege- potentially provide templates for co- mony is being challenged in two operation for other international river ways: influence, through a declin- ecosystems. ing capacity to shape transboundary cooperation across the Nile basin Concluding Remark like the CFA; and geography, as the The study examines the hydro he- flow of the Nile is changing through gemonic power configuration of the massive infrastructure projects like vast Nile River Basin, which spans the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance 11 North and East African states. Dam (GERD). Both mechanisms The study focuses on the swift polit- ultimately serve counter-hegemonic ical and economic changes taking aims by disrupting Egypt’s capacity place in countries along the Nile’s to unilaterally shape the geopolitical upstream region as sites where this environment guiding the Nile River. Egypt-centric power structure may be This multipolar environment, though, destabilized by the likes of Ethiopia, does create heightened political risk South Sudan, and Sudan. Ethiopia, and tension in what is arguably among for instance, has emerged as among the world’s most unstable relations. the fastest-growing economies on To mitigate political tensions, the the planet, providing the capacity creation of a knowledge-based com- to realize its own strategic water re- munity of technical experts might source priorities – on its own terms, facilitate a wider scope of cooperation and without engagement with other across the Nile Basin states. Beyond Nile Basin powers. South Sudan’s brokering trust, this community might recent independence may destabilize share findings and expertise on how water security for countries further to tackle emergent challenges to the downstream like Sudan and Egypt. ecological fidelity of the Nile, partic- Sudan is also developing technical ularly those stemming from climate expertise to advance its own water change. management industry, which may It is paramount that emergent Nile not necessarily align with Egyptian powers like Ethiopia clarify their inter- interests. Finally, the rise of China as nal- and external-facing Nile policies, a key water infrastructure financier so that they may advance priorities in the region provides several states
42 Africa Policy Journal with new capacity to pursue their own Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2002), 33. priorities and potentially act within 10 Email correspondence with Professor Anthony Turton, Centre for Environmental Manage- their own self-interest. Moreover, ment, University of Free State, 4 February 2017. these factors operate concomitantly 11 Waterbury, The Nile Basin, 33. to destabilize the hydro hegemonic 12 Mike Thomson, “Nile Restrictions Anger Ethi- political structure of the Nile River opia,” BBC News, 3 February 2005, accessed Basin, which previously favoured 14 February 2017, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ Egypt, in favor of upstream countries africa/4232107.stm. 13 Abate, 1994 as quoted in Cascão, “Changing across East Africa. Power Relations in the Nile River Basin”; Waterbury, The Nile Basin, 72; Yacob Arsano, Notes “Institutional Development and Water Man- 1 Wuhibegezer Ferede, Demystifying the History agement in the Ethiopian Nile Basin,” in The of the Nile River (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Mega River Nile in the Post-Colonial Age Conflict Publishing Enterprise, 2016). and Cooperation Among the Nile Basin 2 Ana Elisa Cascão, “Changing Power Relations Countries, ed. Terje Tvedt (London: I.B. Tauris in the Nile River Basin: Unilateralism vs. Coop- & Co., 2010), 161-79. eration?” Water Alternatives 2, no. 2 (2009): 14 Waterbury, The Nile Basin, 126. 248. 15 Harry Verhoeven, “The Politics of African 3 Jeroen Warner and Mark Zeitoun, “Hy- Energy Development: Ethiopia’s Hydro- dro-Hegemony – A Framework For Analysis of Agricultural State-Building Strategy and Trans-Boundary Water Conflicts,” Water Policy Clashing Paradigms of Water Security,” 8, no. 5 (2006): 436. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 4 Dale Whittington, “Visions of Nile Basin A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Development,” Water Policy 6, no. 1 (2004): 12. Sciences, 13 November 2013, 5; Waterbury, 5 Warner and Zeitoun, “Hydro-Hegemony”; The Nile Basin, 91. Ana Elisa Cascão and Mark Zeitoun, “Power, 16 Admit Wondifraw Zerihun et al., “Ethiopia Hegemony and Critical Hydropolitics,” in 2016,” African Economic Outlook, 2016, 2; Transboundary Water Management: Principles Yared Seid et al., “Ethiopia – An Agrarian and Practice, eds. Anton Earle, Anders Jagersk- Economy in Transition,” Brookings Institution, og, and Joachim Ojendal (London: Earthscan, 2016, 1. 2010). 17 Cascão and Zeitoun, “Power, Hegemony 6 Cascão, “Changing Power Relations in the and Critical Hydropolitics,” 31; Warner and Nile River Basin,” 248. Zeitoun, “Hydro-Hegemony,” 442. 7 E-mail correspondence with Rebecca L. 18 Waterbury, The Nile Basin. Farnum, King’s College London, 5 February 19 Waterbury, The Nile Basin, 79. 2017. 20 Alemu, as quoted in Waterbury, The Nile 8 Mark Zeitoun, Power and Water in the Middle Basin, 79. East: The Hidden Politics of the Palestinian-Is- 21 Cascão, “Changing Power Relations in the raeli Water Conflict (London: I.B. Tauris & Nile River Basin,” 256. Co., 2008), 31. 22 International Panel of Experts on Grand 9 John Waterbury, The Nile Basin: National De- Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Project: Final terminants of Collective Action (New Haven, Report,” 31 May 2013, https://www.interna-
Spring 2019 43 tionalrivers.org/sites/default/files/attached-files/ Council, “China’s Foreign Aid,” July 2014, international_panel_of_experts_for_ethiopi- accessed 30 January 2019, http://english.gov. an_renaissance_dam-_final_report_1.pdf. cn/archive/white_paper/2014/08/23/con- 23 Fantahun H. Michael, “Africa-China Relations: tent_281474982986592.htm. Neo-Colonialism Or Strategic Partnership? 37 Institute of Development Studies, “Churning Ethiopia as a Case Analysis,” Ph.D. disserta- Waters: Strategic Shifts in the Nile Basin,” Rap- tion, Atlantic International University, 2013, 91. id Response Briefing, Issue 4, 2013, accessed 16 24 Salman M.A. Salman, “The Hydro-Challenges February 2017, of the New State of South Sudan in the Nile https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/bitstream/ Basin,” International Water Law Project Blog, handle/123456789/2907/Nile%20Basin%20 6 May 2011, https://www.internationalwaterlaw. RRBpdf;jsessionid=AD7FF021D73155FC- org/blog/2011/05/06/the-hydro-challenges-of- 2CF5EF8A15E803C5?sequence=1. the-new-state-of-south-sudan-in-the-nile-ba- 38 Thomson, “Nile Restrictions Anger Ethiopia.” sin/. 25 Biong Kuol Deng, “Cooperation Between Egypt and Sudan Over the Nile River Waters: The Challenges of Duality,” African Sociologi- cal Review 11, no. 1 (2007): 52. 26 Okbazghi Yohannes, Water Resources and Inter-Riparian Relations in the Nile Basin: The Search for an Integrative Discourse (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 2008), 71. 27 Ross, 2010 as quoted in Shlomi Dinar, “The Geographical Dimensions of Hydro-politics: International Freshwater in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia,” Eurasian Geography and Economics 53, no. 1 (2012): 126. 28 Dinar, “The Geographical Dimensions of Hydro-politics,” 126. 29 Yohannes, Water Resources and Inter-Riparian Relations in the Nile Basin, 57. 30 Waterbury, The Nile Basin, 128. 31 Cascão, “Changing Power Relations in the Nile River Basin,” 257. 32 Cascão, “Changing Power Relations in the Nile River Basin,” 257. 33 Cascão, “Changing Power Relations in the Nile River Basin,” 259. 34 Waterbury, The Nile Basin, 71. 35 Cascao, “Changing Power Relations in the Nile River Basin,” 260. 36 China’s Information Office of the State
44 Africa Policy Journal Feature
A Discourse on the Legacy of Colonialism for Women in Africa
Dr. Christopher Zambakari
Christopher Zambakari is Founder Introduction & CEO of The Zambakari The ideology of the struggle for wom- Advisory. He is a Doctor of Law en in the West has failed to take into and Policy, Professor at Cambridge account the distinctive socio-historical Graduate University International, context of women’s role and their Assistant Editor of The Sudan place in African societies. Thus, with this paper, I aim to shed light on Studies Association Bulletin, and a the issue by analyzing two dueling Hartley B. and Ruth B. Barker perspectives on women in Africa: a Endowed Rotary Peace Fellow. He Western perspective and an African is based at the School of Political perspective. Particularly, the paper Science and International Studies focuses on a discussion of the role at the University of Queensland, and place of women and how it was Australia. His area of research and framed under colonial governance, expertise is policy development and the implications that these trans- that ensures political stability formations had on how we make sense and socioeconomic development, of the place of women in society today. and his interests include modern This paper begins with a discussion political and legal thought, and review of literature on the impact governance and democracy, the rule of colonialism in Africa. The next of law, postcolonial violence, and section dives into a critique of feminist theory in the West, and then provides nation-building projects in Africa. an alternative discourse on the study His work has been published in of women in the African context. law, economic, and public policy journals.
Spring 2019 45 Colonial Encounter and the that gave men leverage and social Impact on Women status, which later shaped and defined The institutional legacy of colonialism customs related to all aspects of social and the impact it had on women lives: land acquisition, marriage, di- in Africa has been well studied.1 In vorce, and economic activities. her book, Shona Women in Zimba- The encounter with the European bwe, 1870-1939, Schmidt shows that colonial nations of Britain, France, while women were central to the Germany, Belgium, and Portugal formation of African peasantries in was decisive in the reconfiguration Rhodesia, their status under colonial of gender relations and the place of rule declined throughout the period women in many African societies. of conquest. With the introduction Hunter provides one example of of cash crops, women lost political women’s rural labor with the South power and economic autonomy. The African Pondo. Their encounter with effects were exclusion from the global Europeans disrupted economic activ- marketplace.2 ities and altered social organization In colonial Kenya, Tabitha Kanogo in Southern Africa, and women lost demonstrates how both male elders ground economically.4 In East and and the colonial administration used West Africa, political power was often political and sociocultural structures diffused; there were multiple centers and practices to shape and control of power, and women had member- women’s lives.3 Schmidt and Kano- ship in associations that held the final go, working in Rhodesia and Kenya, say in everything from disputes to arrive at a similar conclusion. Name- market relations. With the advent of ly, colonialism brought far-reaching colonialism, these institutions were changes to African societies, including dismantled. gender differentiation; and according Colonial administrators, who were to Kanogo, African elders sometimes most often men, ignored social and collaborated with colonial admin- political institutions, and erected in istrators to implement changes. In their place institutions with strong places with heavy cash crops, land patriarchal tendencies. Martin Ch- reform led to women losing their anock, Professor of Law at La Trobe inheritances, access to land, and social University, wrote that, “The colonial status. Women’s legal rights were sub- state brought immensely far-reaching ordinated to their male counterparts, changes to colonized peoples which leaving women in a disadvantageous undermined their structures of au- position. Customary laws were usually thority; their relationships to land; established based on male testimony their relationships to other peoples;
46 Africa Policy Journal gender and generational relationships way gender is understood in West in their communities; and usually and East Africa as follows: completely changed the economic The distinction between gender world within which they lived.”5 The and biological sex has come as institutionalization of customary law, something of a revelation to west- carried out by native authorities,6 rei- ern scholars, and yet the abundant fied and entrenched gender difference literature on initiation makes in the name of upholding tradition. clear that Africans have known Customary law contained elements all along that gender is socially, of African practices, but as time went not biologically, created and that on, it became less representative of it evolves over the life cycle.10 the past because it was transformed Iris Berger echoes what many through the colonial experience.7 Co- others have concluded, that Euro- lonial administrators were ambitious pean rule “undermined pre-colonial in what they wanted to accomplish: institutions and ideologies that had first to define, then to remake the underpinned key political and eco- subjectivity of the ruled, and then nomic roles for women.”11 divide in order to effectively rule.8 The development of African wom- Western Discourse on Women en’s history developed in an entirely The foreword to Feminist Legal Theo- different context than in Europe and ry: A Primer by Levit and Verchick is the United States. Ester Boserup’s offered by Martha Minow.12 It claims book, Woman’s Role in Economic that the book “is a comprehensive Development,9 was among the first to survey of a broader array of feminist investigate what happened to wom- legal theories” and it covers issues of en in developing countries during “equal treatment cultural feminism, the process of economic and social dominance theory, anti-essentialist growth. Boserup was concerned with theories, ecofeminism, pragmatic fem- what happens to women when coun- inism and postmodern feminism.”13 tries start modernizing their agricul- Yet, the vast literature on women in tural sector and urban life. Two core Africa is ignored and the scattered themes were identified: colonialism references revolve around three cases and imperialism, which led to the of which the focus on Africa is cen- decline in women’s status, and women tered on the problem of female genital farmers were major stakeholders and cutting. One is left with the feeling contributors to economic develop- that when it comes to feminist legal ment prior to the arrival of Europeans. theory, Africa’s contribution is non- Eugenia Herbert summarized the existent. However, when discussing
Spring 2019 47 obstacles facing women, customs in In The Philosophy of History, Hegel Africa, like female genital cutting, is dismissed Carthage and Egypt as front and center. geographical anomalies.16 According The question, then, is where is to Hegel, Africa “is no historical part Africa’s scholarly contribution to the of the world; it has no movement study of feminist theories? In the next or development to exhibit. Histori- section, I discuss the historical context cal movements in it – that is in its of colonialism and the impact it had northern part – belong to the Asiatic on women in the African context. The or European World.”17 In this sense, carryover legacy of the transforma- Africa had no history of its own and tions that were imposed on African had no part to play in world civiliza- women is reflected in discourses on tion. In Southern Africa, Jan Smuts the subject, and omissions of key called for Africans to be moved for- seminal contributions to the global ward from regressive to progressive scholarship on women’s history and societies, while making the case for contributions, especially in the African the institutionalization of apartheid context. in Southern Africa.18 Nevertheless, scholars have been Intellectual Legacy of challenging the Eurocentric nature of Colonialism discourse on Africa and trying to dispel One of the most enduring legacies the myths perpetuated in the West in Africa is the effect of colonialism about Africa.19 In The Invention Of on the production of knowledge. Women (1997), Oyeronke Oyewùmi’s Colonialism sought to define not historical and epistemological account only the public sphere but also the of African culture offers a new way private sphere.14 It sought to con- of seeing and understanding Yoruban tain the African in totality: socially, and Western cultures.20 Oyewùmi’s politically, economically, and more critique, like that of Amadiume, is importantly, intellectually. European directed at Western discourse and the powers sought at all costs to remove ideology of biological determinism, and extinguish African historiography which assumes biology is destiny and and literature, and systematically uses biology to provide the rationale replace them with a more Eurocentric for organizing the social world.21 She scholarship. Inherent in that body goes on to show that “gender con- of knowledge is the distortion of the structs are not in themselves biological history of Africa and acute racism – they are culturally derived, and their towards African society and knowledge maintenance is a function of cultural produced across the continent.15 systems. Consequently, using Western
48 Africa Policy Journal gender theories to interpret other from implementing and enforcing societies without recourse to their ideals of subordinating women.25 own world-sense imposes a Western In the pursuit of establishing a model.”22 field to challenge male dominance, In her critique of American sociol- Western feminists presumed a uni- ogy, Oyewùmi takes on a deeply held versal female subordination based and troubling problem with knowl- on the dichotomy that is found in the edge produced about Africa outside of West: domestic/public, or private and Africa by Western scholars. She writes public, and a standardized devaluation that “American sociology is unaware of motherhood, marriage, and family.26 of Africa. In the dark ages, Africa was By following a formulaic notion of ceded over to anthropology as ‘the what affected women in the West, front lawn’ of the discipline.”23 The most scholars used ethnocentricity idea and concept of the “woman” that and culture to generate a universal is central to Western-gender discourse theory to unite women everywhere was completely absent from Yoruba in the struggle against subordination society, and the body was not the and patriarchy. basis of social roles. This fundamental According to Amadiume, this grew assumption in Western feminist theory out of the necessity to “justify conquest about “women” then produced a new and the subjugation of indigenous understanding of gender, namely people and their cultures to foreign that gender is socially constructed rules.”27 It has also led to the perpet- and thus challenged the notion that uation of inaccuracy in facts, and the subordination of women was universal omission of historical truth in the fact. In Yoruba society, the organizing study of women in Africa. criteria were not gender. The basis of Amadiume claims that one of the social organization was determined problems in understanding the role of by relative age and not by biological women in Africa lies with European differences.24 anthropology, which imported the Further, Semley found that, in division between public and private Bénin, contrary to the assumption of seen in European societies into Africa. universal subordination prominent in This later blinded them from seeing Western literature, women featured in the immense power women enjoyed prominent roles including treasurers, in African societies prior to conquest. advisors, and ritual specialists, in ad- Amadiume presents case studies from dition to other roles such as queens, her home country, Nigeria, to support wives, and sisters. These women re- her argument that the role of women sisted French colonial administrators in Africa was different from the role
Spring 2019 49 of women in Europe. She argues that title system. Amadiume shows that where decentralization was a mode of unlike the rigid system found in the governance, power was diffuse. There West, which is categorical, women were multiple centers of power and in Africa were not as subordinated the ruler did not rule autocratically by to male dominance as women in the himself. Amadiume thus exposes the West. Women in Africa could play dominant “ethnocentrism of Western roles considered male, be classified as social anthropology and the imperial “males” in terms of power and author- arrogance of Western feminism im- ity over others, and had the ability to plicit in studies of the condition of accumulate wives, and organize into women in Africa.”28 councils and assemblies that had the Male-female relationships and power to veto and effectively check gender systems were flexible. This flex- the ruling of chiefs, kings, and sultans. ibility enabled both sexes to assume In 1987, Amadiume published similar roles and status in society. her now-groundbreaking book which Amadiume calls this “male daughters, challenged deeply held assumptions female husbands” in showing the about sex and gender. A year later, flexibility of Igbo gender categories.29 historian Joan Scott published her She develops the paradoxical notion seminal text leveraging a critique of “male daughters” and “female of the distinction between sex and husbands,” referring to “women who gender.31 Today, both scholars are have been accorded male status in understood differently: Scott is seen the absence of a son,” and “female as a foundational figure in the field, husbands, who were wealthy women while Amadiume’s work is often pre- who acquired ‘wives’ to assist them sented as an interesting case study, in their economic pursuits”30 to show worthy of a tantalizing sentence or a the flexibility of the gender system in footnote about “female husbands.”32 Africa prior to colonial encounters. Both Americanist and Europe- Both men and women could accu- anist feminist scholars downplay the mulate wealth, power, and wives. significance of her work, relegating it Women dominated the marketplace in to the category of other cultures and West Africa, and used their economic ignoring her profound theoretical power to acquire political power and intervention, which 30 years ago noted effectively check against male domi- that the gender construct was distinct nance of society. from biological sex.33 Amadiume built The wealth generated from the her arguments around certain founda- marketplace enabled women to par- tional claims using the Igbo society, ticipate in an achievement-based highlighting examples where biolog-
50 Africa Policy Journal ical women adopted male identities native institutions were a male-dom- as men, acting as son and husband inated system that excluded women figures to extended families. The fluid from participating in governance. nature of gender roles and boundaries, The authority of these chiefs did not whereby women could transgress depend on other complementary norms to acquire wealth and dominate systems of governance or checks and the marketplace, showed how “social balances or accountability towards the and cultural ideologies and practices governed. The chief had the backing had built-in possibilities for change.”34 of the imperial power when nec- This stands in sharp contrast to essary. In other words, these native what colonial writers wrote about chiefs were “an integral part of the African political systems and the role machinery of the administration.”37 of women in that system.35 The role of In order for the system to function women was reduced to subservience efficiently, duties of the chiefs and and their participation in public life those of British officials were never to prohibited. Lord Lugard, one of the overlap and had to be kept separate. leading colonial administrators in Ni- The native was governed under the geria, wrote about the political system auspices of his own native authority. and the role of chiefs in administering African colonies. It was necessary, Fusion of Power according to Lugard, that the British Mamdani has demonstrated that the harness the power of chiefs in order hallmark of despotic tribal power was to effectively rule over the mass of the fusion of legislative, judicial, and peasantry. Lugard noted: executive power in one chief, who The Native Authority is thus de passed by-laws, enforced those by-laws, facto and de jure ruler over his own and managed the judicial system all people. He exercises the power of at once.38 The chief governed and allocation of lands, and with the aid oversaw land tenure of subjects within of the native courts, of adjudication a tribal homeland. The authority was in land disputes and expropriation defined to be masculine and excluded for offences against the community.36 females. In this regard, women could To this end the native authority, the not act as chiefs, could not rise to agency that governed the native popu- important positions, and could not lation, was to remain exclusively native wield power, neither political nor in character and composition, and any economic. mixture with foreigners or aliens was According to General J.C. Smuts, to be resisted since it weakened the the South African politician who power of the native authority. These advocated for a segregated South
Spring 2019 51 Africa, “For thousands of years they effectively put an end to this process [Africans] have been accustomed and reduced the sociopolitical status to domination by their chiefs, and of women to objects, thus preventing therefore they readily accept the firm them from achieving social and eco- handling, the lead, and the mastery of nomic mobility within society. the white employer.”39 The outcome Amadiume and Oyewùmi have was a native authority, organized, challenged Western anthropologists framed, and made to rule despotically to recognize their own complicity in without checks in the name of custom producing a historical scholarship and tradition. that does not take into consideration the reality of African society prior Conclusion to the arrival of European colonial I began this article by differentiating powers. Colonial anthropologists did between discourses in the West and little more than legitimize conquest the emerging scholarship on feminism through discourse that consciously in Africa. I argued that African social overlooked historical gender relations anthropology as presented by Western in Africa, and instead reproduced Eu- anthropologists failed to account for ropean anthropology with its reliance the reality of African society prior on class-based, patriarchal distinctions to the arrival of Europeans on the in an African context. continent. Rather than historicizing The seminal contribution by gender relations, showing the facts Amadiume and Oyewùmi is a dis- as they were on the ground, anthro- tinctively African social anthropology pologists have misconstrued African that takes as a starting point the real, societies and reproduced their version not just the invented, condition of of European gender relations in an an African society. This historical African context. context showed that African societ- Feminist scholars have tried to ies recognized the rights of women universalize the struggle of women in political and economic matters by assuming the global subordina- long before the arrival of Europeans tion of women in a male-dominated on the continent. Oyewùmi showed structure. They have failed to see that the category of “women” did that in African society, women were not exist in precolonial Yorubaland. not always subordinated to men, but Both scholars showed that gender gender relations were actually flexi- categories and seniority within the ble and women could perform male lineage were important in Igbo and functions, achieve powerful positions, Yoruba societies. Biological differenc- and inherit property. Colonialism es were not the definitive criteria for
52 Africa Policy Journal social differentiation: Africans have University of Pretoria, South Africa. For long known that gender was a social more information on the institutional legacy of colonialism in shaping customary law in construct, not biologically created, Africa under British colonialism, and the social and that it evolves over the life cycle. experience of law under colonial rule in Africa, The power structure enabled women see Martin Chanock, Law, Custom, and Social to achieve higher positions in society, Order: The Colonial Experience in Malawi adopt male status, and perform in and Zambia (New York: Cambridge University functions that in Europe were only Press, 1985). 6 Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: reserved for men. Contrary to the Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late scholarship that dominates in the Colonialism (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton West, the roles of women were neither University Press, 1996). rigidly masculinized nor feminized 7 Chanock, “Constitutionalism and the in Africa; they were fluid, flexible, ‘Customary’,” 3. and transparent. 8 Mahmood Mamdani, Define and Rule: Native as Political Identity (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2012). 9 Ester Boserup, Woman’s Role in Economic Notes Development (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1970). 1 Helen Bradford, “Women, Gender and 10 Eugenia W. Herbert, Iron, Gender, and Power: Colonialism: Rethinking the History of the Rituals of Transformation in African Societies British Cape Colony and Its Frontier Zones, c. (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University 1806–70,” The Journal of African History 37, Press, 1993), 19. no. 3 (2009); Ifi Amadiume, Male Daughters, 11 Berger, “African Women’s History.” Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an 12 Nancy Levit and Robert R.M. Verchick, African Society (London: Zed Books, 1987); Feminist Legal Theory: A Primer (New York: Iris Berger, “African Women’s History: Themes NYU Press, 2006). and Perspectives,” Journal of Colonialism and 13 Levit and Verchick, Feminist Legal Theory, Colonial History 4, no. 1 (2003); Elizabeth xiv-xv. Schmidt, Peasants, Traders, and Wives: Shona 14 Mamdani, Define and Rule. Women in the History of Zimbabwe, 1870-1939 15 Siba N. Grovogui, Beyond Eurocentrism and (Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heinemann, Anarchy: Memories of International Order and 1992). Institutions (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2 Schmidt, Peasants, Traders, and Wives. 2006); Samir Amin, Eurocentrism, trans. 3 Tabitha M. Kanogo, African Womanhood in Russell Moore (New York: Monthly Review Colonial Kenya, 1900-50 (Athens, Ohio: Ohio Press, 1989). University Press, 2005). 16 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philoso- 4 Monica Hunter, “The Effects of Contact with phy of History (New York: Dover Publications, Europeans on the Status of Pondo Women,” Inc., 1956). Africa 6, no. 3 (2012). 17 Hegel, The Philosophy of History, 99. 5 Martin Chanock, “Constitutionalism and 18 Jan Christiaan Smuts, Africa and Some World the ‘Customary’” unpublished work, n.d., Problems: Including the Rhodes Memorial
Spring 2019 53 Lectures Delivered in Michaelmas Term, 1929 33 Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female (Oxford, United Kingdom: The Clarendon Husbands. Press, 1930). 34 Semley, Mother is Gold, Father is Glass, 118. 19 Oyèrónké Oyewùmi, The Invention of 35 F.D. Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Women: Making an African Sense of Western Tropical Africa (Edinburgh & London: William Gender Discourses (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Blackwood & Sons Ltd., 1929); Smuts, Africa University of Minnesota Press, 1997); Lorelle and Some World Problems; M. Hailey, The Semley, “When We Discovered Gender: Future of Colonial Peoples: By Lord Hailey A Retrospective on Ifi Amadiume’s Male (London: Oxford University Press (printed by Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and the Camelot Press), 1944); Edward Evan Ev- Sex in an African Society,” Journal of West ans-Pritchard, The Nuer: A Description of the African History 3, no. 2 (2017); Marnia Lazreg, Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions The Eloquence of Silence: Algerian Women in of a Nilotic People (Oxford, United Kingdom: Question (New York: Routledge, 1994); Ama- At the Clarendon Press, 1940). diume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands; 36 Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Oyewùmi, “Conceptualizing Gender: The Africa, 203. Eurocentric Foundations of Feminist Concepts 37 Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical and the Challenge of African Epistemologies,” Africa, 203. JENdA: A Journal of Culture and African 38 Mamdani, Citizen and Subject. Women Studies 2, no. 1 (2002). 39 Smuts, Africa and Some World Problems, 48. 20 Oyewùmi, The Invention of Women, 1. 21 Oyewùmi, The Invention of Women, 1. 22 Oyewùmi, The Invention of Women, 78. 23 Oyewùmi, The Invention of Women, xix. 24 Oyewùmi, The Invention of Women, 31. 25 Lorelle D. Semley, Mother Is Gold, Father Is Glass: Gender and Colonialism in a Yoruba Town (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana Univer- sity Press, 2010). 26 Lucy Hannan, “Review: [Untitled],” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 58, no. 4 (1988). 27 Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands, 1. 28 Obioma Nnaemeka, “Review: [Untitled],” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 16, no. 3 (1991): 610. 29 Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands. 30 Berger, “African Women’s History.” 31 Joan Wallach Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988). 32 Semley, Mother is Gold, Father is Glass, 117.
54 Africa Policy Journal Feature
Situational Analysis of Revenge Pornography in Kenya
Evelyne Wanjiku
Evelyne Wanjiku is a PhD student of Abstract Gender and Development at Kenyatta This article is not intended to provide University in Kenya. Her main area of empirical evidence or a fully formed focus is Gender and ICT, the internet, theoretical understanding of revenge and social media. She focuses on how pornography. Rather, it is aimed at these tools can be enhanced to reduce providing a selected literature review, offering initial thoughts on why the inequalities and promote development. vice continues to be perpetrated, She is also an alumnus of the African and providing a set of directions for School on Internet Governance and a understanding the dynamics of this 2019 Mozilla Open Leader. phenomenon. It also looks at the chal- lenges of addressing non-consensual pornography, especially where the law is indistinct and attitudes towards the vice are dismissive of the harm caused to the victims.
Introduction and Terminology “Revenge pornography, “cyber rape,” or “non-consensual pornography” is a global phenomenon that affects women disproportionately, both in
Spring 2019 55 terms of the number of women affect- that occurs when someone on the ed and the amount of social stigma internet releases a large number of attached.1 This phenomenon involves nude/semi-nude pictures of famous a privacy violation where a person’s people.3 “Fappening” brings in a per- nude image or video is posted online spective of body politics that shows by a third party.2 society’s contradictory perspectives These images or photos are usually regarding female nudity. On one posted alongside the subject’s individ- hand, a consumer economy, which ually identifiable information, such encourages erotic pleasure, praises as their home and work addresses women who consent to circulating or social media profiles. The perpe- their nude images online for their trator may also intentionally exploit personal or financial gain. On the search engine algorithms so that the other hand, many people in society subject’s employers, friends, and new frown upon this trend. This may be acquaintances will see the offensive why some women who take nude content first when they search for the and sexualized photos of themselves subject’s name. still prefer to keep them private and Revenge porn can take many within the context of their intimate forms, including “sexualized pho- relationships. toshopping,” “morphing,” sexual The latter, a rising phenomenon extortion (often labelled as “sextor- in Kenya, have come to be referred tion”), “upskirting,” and “deep fakes.” to as “socialites,” who demonstrate Upskirting involves taking images that it may be possible for women to of women’s private parts using tiny express their sexuality independent of hidden cameras that can be hidden patriarchal and societal control. Their in shoes, belts, and other convenient expression of sexuality asserts female places. “Deep fakes” are pornographic desire in a culture where female sexu- videos made to look real by using ality is expected to be passive – useful artificial intelligence. Various types only for procreation and not for libid- of voyeurism also fall in this category. inous pleasures. They defy a culture that expects women to submit to the “Fappening” and Society’s prevailing patriarchal surveillance, Perspectives on Female objectification, and commodification, Sexuality while devaluing their own freedom to In most places around the world, in- express their sexuality. Furthermore, cluding Kenya, revenge pornography it is a culture that is contradictory has been dismissed as “fappening.” in that it both socializes women to “Fappening” is slang for an event equate their self-worth to their sexual
56 Africa Policy Journal desirability and inculcates the belief socialites have in shaping behavior, that women who enjoy and express and the pressure exerted on girls and their sexuality, or who seek out sex women to conform to the hyper-sex- and sexual partners, are dirty and ualized view of what is attractive in slutty. In such a context, socialites online spaces, it is not surprising that emerge as a disruption in a society many women engage in digitally that conditions women to think that mediated sexual practices and produce their goal should be to satisfy men’s nude, sexualized images of themselves sexual desires, while suppressing their that are shared with intimate partners own sexual desire because it is dirty, and for the aspiring socialites, posted polluted, and morally unacceptable. online. For the socialites, the sexu- Mukhongo is a pioneer in study- alized images become a currency to ing the Kenyan socialite trend.4 She gain popularity on online platforms, looks at how young women in Kenya which are shaped by masculinized are constructing their own gendered sexual desires. For those who share the narratives online and opines that the photos with their partners, it is simply young women, perhaps inspired by a form of intimate sexual expression world-renowned socialites like Kim that they hope will remain within Kardashian and Paris Hilton, have the context of the relationship. For posted their naked photos online in this group, taking nude photos for a bid to gain popularity or what she their sex partners becomes a tool for calls “social capital.” She questions satisfying male sexual desire, but at whether the posting of nude photos the same time exposes women to the by women is a bid to feed into a threat of revenge pornography. culture dominated by patriarchy and which exploits the female body, or a The Devastating Effects of method to exploit that very patriar- Revenge Pornography chal culture that draws its life from Dismissing revenge pornography visuals that exploit the female body. as “fappening” encourages revenge With the erotic being seen as raw pornography to be seen as a source material for the consumer culture, of entertainment, and ignores the she contends that the latter is used likely emotional and mental anguish as “social capital,” and mentions the that it brings upon the victims. These case of a Kenyan socialite, Huddah harms include: subjecting women to Monroe, who claims to have been intimidation and control by men, re- able to utilize her huge social media inforcing societal notions of patriarchy following for financial gain. and male dominance over women, Considering the influence that subjecting women to ridicule by a
Spring 2019 57 global audience, depriving women of her sexual expression, or for denying the right to have agency over their on- them sex. Therefore, with both tradi- line identity, and potentially causing tional and cyber rape, men position them to suffer from mental illnesses, themselves as having authority to such as PTSD. punish women who deviate from Traditional rape can be seen as “a the sexual norm, because they feel conscious process of intimidation by that they are the only ones allowed which all men keep all women in a to express themselves sexually and state of fear.”5 Similarly, cyber rape that they are the “moral police” of can be used as a tool of intimidation the female body. by anyone with a technological device Given the motivations of tradi- capable of taking photos and sending tional and cyber rapists, both rape messages. As technology advances, the and revenge pornography reinforce owners of such devices become po- patriarchy and male dominance over tential perpetrators, and every woman women. Society’s reactions to victims becomes a potential victim. of revenge pornography further rein- Like traditional rapists, cyber rap- force patriarchy and male dominance ists are motivated by a need to ob- by victim-blaming, asserting that vic- tain power or control another person tims wished it upon themselves or through intimidation. Obtaining a that they could have done something naked or semi-naked picture of anoth- to avoid it.9 These reactions show er person gives a person power over that society helps to give revenge that person.6 The ultimate power that pornography power. men feel that they hold over women Feminist scholars have long is the power to drag them from the argued that the female body is both category of “good women” – those who socially shaped and colonized. As are never openly sexual and who are such, it carries negative bodily as- respectful to men – to the category of sociations when viewed under the “bad women,” those who express their influence of Western culture and sexuality openly.7 The Internet makes religion. In Christianity and Islam, it easier for them to wield the power to women represent the temptations castigate women for any sexual agency of the flesh and the source of man’s and for having “allowed” their images moral downfall.10 In these religions, a to be taken, or for having taken the woman’s nudity is sacred and exposing images themselves.8 it is frowned upon. Both traditional and cyber rapists The social construction of female are also motivated by a desire to get nudity in post-colonial and post-mis- revenge on or to punish a woman for sionary Kenya is heavily influenced
58 Africa Policy Journal by Western culture, Christianity, and son for the way you are abusing me.”12 Islam. These influences clash with the The female body is thus shrouded in African notion of nudity in the pre-co- beliefs, sacredness, and shame, which lonial and pre-missionary era.11 In the makes stripping women, leaking pre-colonial and pre-missionary era, their private photos, and other forms most women in Kenyan communities of non-consensual pornography walked around nude and semi-nude, powerful tools for shaming and pun- and this was not in any way associated ishing women. with eroticism and morality (this is Revenge pornography subjects still the case in some communities, women to repeated and almost perma- e.g. the Turkana found in northern nent shaming. Women are accosted Kenya). In these times, being naked each time their intimate image is or half-naked was simply a way of life. subjected to someone else’s gaze and This changed with Westernization commentary against their consent. and the introduction of Christianity Once a photo has been posted online, and Islam. Women were taught that it can remain there forever.13 Even their bodies were to be covered up if a victim is successful in getting as female nudity had the potential the photos to be taken down from to corrupt society. Female nudity a website, the photo may have been thus became an act of immorality picked up by other websites or stored deserving of shame, public humilia- on people’s computers. It is therefore tion, and punishment. In fact, female difficult for a victim to permanently nudity came to be associated with delete the photos from the internet. curses, a very strong aspect of Afri- As a result, revenge pornography can culture that largely influences does not grant the victim the right to acceptable behavior. be forgotten.14 To demonstrate how powerful Posting revenge pornography female nudity is, it has been used as online amplifies its effects because a potent tool of public protest due to unlike offline violence, which is the shame associated with it. As an limited in audience, revenge porn example, during the one-party regime invites a global audience to participate in Kenya, women led by the famous in humiliating the victim.15 Anyone Nobel Peace Prize winner, professor who has a connection to the inter- Wangari Maathai, protested for the net can view the images, download release of political prisoners by strip- them, store them, and use them as ping naked. Maathai explained this they wish. Thus, once an image has action saying, “By showing you my been posted online, the victim may nakedness, I curse you as I would my be ridiculed by those who know her
Spring 2019 59 as well as those who do not. Unlike J***, her career was almost damaged victims of offline crimes, victims of after her nude photos were leaked in revenge pornography cannot relocate an incident she claims was a case of or change jobs to avoid this ridicule “morphing.” Consequently, she says because the photos can follow them that corporate brands did not want to anywhere in the world. No matter associate with her. where they are, victims may live in fear Furthermore, revenge pornog- and shame because anyone may have raphy hinders a woman’s ability to seen the photos, and those who have create her own online existence and not seen the photos can easily obtain identity.18 Women who have been them through search engines because victims of non-consensual pornogra- most perpetrators attach identifying phy are likely to change their online information to the images. behavior or withdraw from the online The repeated and permanent na- community because of the damaging ture of revenge pornography offers information released, robbing them of perpetrators a free and permanent the opportunity to establish an online weapon to continuously harass and presence. Withdrawing from the on- exercise power over their victim.16 line community isolates these women For example, those who possess their and prevents them from establishing private photos demand money to rewarding social connections, person- not post the photos, or, if they have al contacts, friendships, and dating already been posted, to pull them opportunities.19 Victims of revenge down. Those who have these images porn may also find themselves limited may also blackmail and “sextort” in their career options, especially in victims if they do not submit to the fields where an online presence is perpetrators’ demands. necessary to acquire a job. In some instances, perpetrators Victims of revenge pornography have caused victims of revenge por- are likely to suffer mental health nography to lose their jobs and titles issues, such as anxiety, night terrors, due to bad publicity that results from alcoholism, depression, post-traumatic revenge porn. In the case of Roshanara stress disorder (PTSD), and suicidal Ebrahim v. Ashleys Kenya Limited & thoughts.20 In several cases, victims 3 others (2016), Ms. Roshanara, who acted upon those suicidal thoughts. was the reigning Miss Kenya 2016, For example, on 12 September 2015, was stripped of her title by Ashleys Ms. Mercy Bundi, a 19-year-old Ken- Kenya Ltd after a former boyfriend yan woman, committed suicide after leaked her nude photos online.17 In a man she had met through Facebook the case of Kenyan singer and actress threatened to post her nude pictures
60 Africa Policy Journal online. She left a suicide note with speech. This use of broad terms in details of the torture that the threats law has previously been challenged had caused her.21 in the Kenyan courts, as in the case of Geoffrey Andare v. Attorney General Legal Effects of Revenge & 2 others (2016), where the judge Pornography ruled that the use of words like “in- Dismissing revenge pornography as decent” and “obscene” in a law are “fappening” also causes perpetrators broad and vague, and their definition to continue engaging in it and ignores and meaning is left to the subjective the legal issues involved, including interpretation of the Court. He further the issue of consent. The current legal added that “the principle of law with framework is quickly being outpaced regard to legislation limiting funda- by the fast changes in technology and mental rights is that the law must be how it is being used and applied. clear and precise enough to enable The Sexual Offence Act (2006) and individuals to conform their conduct the proposed Computer Misuse and to its dictates.”23 Cybercrimes Act of 2018, as currently As currently laid out, it may be seen constituted, appear to be lamenta- to be criminalizing even intimate con- bly ill-equipped to address revenge sensual filming or photography among pornography. consenting adults, and is subject to As currently constituted, Section question for ways in which it may 37 of the Computer Misuse and Cy- affect acceptable forms of artistic ex- bercrimes Act (2018) states that “A pression such as boudoir photography, person who transfers, publishes, or glamour photography, and nude art. disseminates including making digital It also fails in its consideration of the depiction available for distribution or prevailing consensual intimate image downloading through a telecommu- exchange driven by pop culture, as nications hardware or through any discussed earlier in this paper. other means of transferring data on The bill also appears to be over- a computer, the intimate or obscene whelmed by social and technologi- images of another person commits an cal change and needs to focus more offence and is liable, on conviction to on well-defined, specific problems a fine not exceeding 200,000ksh or posed by sexually explicit materials imprisonment for a term not exceeding that can be plausibly subject to legal 2 years or both.”22 regulation. In this regard, a clear As it is, the bill is deficient in that definition of the offense of revenge it uses broad terms that may have pornography that the bill intends larger implications for freedom of to capture is important so as not to infringe on freedom of speech. As pornography can be said to be a form Cecil points out, most perpetrators of of torturing women. online aggressions usually hide behind In Kenya, revenge pornography the powerful and constitutional right is often addressed through civil law, to free speech, even as they work specifically the law of tort, where a to suppress the sexual expression of woman sues a perpetrator for damages. women both online and offline.24 In the law of tort, one key question Citron contends that while freedom is whether a woman consented to of speech is a fundamental human have her nude images shared via right, it cannot be absolute when it social media and other forms of digital oppresses the ability of one section technology.28 Consent is determined of society – in this case, women – to by context. Some women who share express itself.25 She goes on to add that their nude images with their partners women’s rights are also human rights, do so with the expectation that they and outlawing online expression that will be used solely in the context of subjects women to defamation, threats the relationship. Several Kenyan court of physical harm, misogynistic expres- rulings, such as Rukia Idris Barri v. sions, and intentional infliction of Mada Hotels Ltd (2013) and Alfred emotional distress is thus not in any Ombudo K’ombudo v Jane W. Odewale way denying anyone their just right & another (2014), have determined to freedom of speech. that consent in one context does not Currently, in the absence of a confer consent in a different context.29 clear law, the remedies available to Besides violating a woman’s right a victim can be said to be a patch- to consent, perpetrators of revenge work of both criminal and civil laws. pornography also violate a woman’s The lack of a clear law dealing with right to privacy. In one of the more revenge pornography specifically is publicized revenge porn cases, Ro- unacceptable given Article 29 of the shanara Ebrahim v Ashleys Kenya Kenyan constitution, which protects Limited & 3 others (2016), modest Kenyan citizens from being “subjected damages were awarded. The court to torture in any manner, whether held that “…In taking selfie nude physical or psychological.”26 Further- pictures using a mobile phone or other more, Article 28 provides that “every communication gadget, a person does person has inherent dignity and the not thereby waive her right to privacy, right to have that dignity respected and she only exposes herself to the risk protected.”27 Given the emotional and and danger of the photographs being mental harm that victims of revenge transmitted to and viewed by other pornography experience, revenge persons through the communication networks by unauthorised access and are told things such as: “Suck it up. publication, or by authorised access Grow a thick skin.” “Ignore it and it but unauthorised publication…”30 will go away.” “Don’t feed the trolls.”33 Despite such court rulings, vic- They are also told to “toughen up or go tims of revenge pornography face offline” and advised that they should the following hurdles in bringing not expect anything different if they a civil suit against the perpetrators: want to make a name for themselves.34 difficulties of identifying the real Statements and advice like these perpetrators, secondary victimization, place the blame on women for being victim blaming, the cost of filing a “too easily offended,” and not on the lawsuit, and the failure of lawsuits to perpetrators of revenge pornography. fully compensate them for the harms Furthermore, the cost of hiring a that they experienced. lawyer and filing a suit may prevent Women may not even be able to women from filing a lawsuit.35 Even if file a lawsuit in the first place because they can afford to hire a lawyer and file an anonymity-enabled digital world a suit, it may not be worth their while makes it difficult for them to identify to do so because the damages awarded the real perpetrators.31 Most perpe- are not enough to fully compensate trators use aliases and other means them for the harms that they suffered. to hide their identity and location. The damages awarded to them may Women cannot always do the tech- not be enough to cover the cost of their nological detective work required to suit. Additionally, even if sufficient positively identify the perpetrators. damages are awarded, the photos Even if they can identify the perpe- may still remain in circulation. First, trator, women may not want to file a it is difficult to seek damages against suit or police report because they run the hosting websites that continue the risk of secondary victimization. hosting the images even after a suit They may have to show the offensive has been won. For example, website images to prove that they were vic- owners in some foreign countries tims of revenge pornography. More such as the United States, where a specifically, filing a suit or a police lot of Kenyan websites are hosted, report increases publicity around the are granted immunity for content that offensive images and creates an op- they did not generate themselves.36 portunity for more people to ridicule Second, even if a victim manages to the victim.32 get images removed from one website, Victim-blaming also discourages the images may be on other websites women from filing suits or police or downloaded on people’s devices.37 reports because when they do so, they The current law does not account
Spring 2019 63 for the repetitive damage that occurs The self-censorship that is pro- from having the photos remain online moted to women as a means to avoid forever.38 becoming victims of “revenge porn” Given these challenges, perpetra- restricts their willingness or ability to tors are aware that they may never exercise their rights to sexual autono- be punished because it is hard to get my and expression.40 Penny observes caught. Even if they are caught, they how women who respond or react to will have achieved their objective. harassment online are called “crazy, Thus, the current legal system does hysterical overreacting bitches, cen- not deter perpetrators from commit- sors, no better than Nazis, probably ting revenge pornography. just desperate for a ‘real man’ to f*** While the law of torts continues us, a ‘real man’ like the men who lurk to provide one avenue of remedy, it in comment threads threatening to cannot be said to be adequate in ad- rip our heads off and masturbate into dressing this phenomenon. It should the stumps.”41 Citron equally observes not be the major tool. It could how- how victims are called “whiny girls” ever have a residual and secondary who are reacting to a few test messag- usefulness in the fringes of a properly es.”42 Citron further explains that the constituted, well-defined law that perpetrators are dismissed as “juvenile addresses aggressions conducted in pranksters,” and victims as “overly online spaces. This has over time sensitive complainers.”43 In the face of been hindered by critics who feel such dismissive attitudes, the gendered that the law of tort provides adequate nature of nonconsensual pornography remedy, trivialize the effects of revenge and its profound consequences are porn, and ignore the heavily gendered dismissed as trivial matters that the nature of revenge porn. The whole law should not be concerned about. incident is reduced to a consequence This makes legislative action harder of naivete that could have been avoid- to attain and the offending behavior ed if the woman had been wiser or harder to address. more careful. Cooper observes that In determining whether a law is the simple response given to revenge adequate to address non-consensual porn is usually “don’t take nude photos pornography, a test of individualism or videos.”39 This is a response that versus social justice should apply. ignores the reality that these images Citron, who argues for criminaliza- are being taken and will continue to tion of nonconsensual pornography, be, and also ignores the gendered contends that the relevant question nature of the problem as well as the should be whether nonconsensual severity of the consequences. pornography causes harm only to
64 Africa Policy Journal an individual or whether it harms of technology. both individuals and society.44 Franks There is a need for law enforc- explains that the continued legal ers, legislators, and judicial officers permissiveness of revenge porn harms to acknowledge the seriousness of not only the individual but the society nonconsensual pornography and all at large, because it imposes expressive forms of aggressions against women harms that send a message that the mediated by the internet, and put it sexual exploitation of women is an on the agenda. To do so, they would acceptable form of entertainment.45 require training on matters of tech- Franks further adds that revenge nology and ways in which they can porn, on top of harming the in- be exploited to harm women. This dividual, violates legal and social calls for an investment on the part of commitments to gender equality.46 the Ministry of Internal Security and If revenge porn is seen as harming that of Information Communication only an individual, then the law of Technology (ICT) to improve internet tort would be deemed to be adequate. and social media literacy among its However, as discussed in this paper, personnel. nonconsensual pornography has the Equally, addressing this injustice potential to disenfranchise and harm calls for the drafting of distinct laws an already marginalized section of that clearly define nonconsensual society – women, who happen to pornography in all possible forms. be the majority of victims – and this Criminalization and tougher pen- therefore warrants criminal penalties. alties would help lower incidences While technology continues to of nonconsensual pornography, as a change every day, the training of criminal record has more potential lawyers, law enforcers and judges of instilling fear in the would-be per- has not kept up. The technologi- petrators than a civil offense record cally advanced public is therefore does. In addition, Isenberg observes normally way ahead of those charged that laws cannot work in isolation with ensuring that technology is not and proposes that a combination of abused. Victims are thus left with the legal, economic, and educational burden of dealing with law enforcers approaches are needed.47 who are still deeply rooted in analog ways, and are more inclined to deal Conclusion with conventional “tangible” crimes For the perpetrators, Kenyan law that they are used to, rather than currently does not provide adequate the emerging “intangible crimes” incentive to refrain from revenge perpetrated through the digital tools pornography. This is probably why the
Spring 2019 65 trend of nonconsensual pornographic com/2016/05/gem-anonymity-campaign-brief- content is still on the rise. The conse- ing-online.pdf. 9 Citron, Hate Crimes in Cyberspace. quences of engaging in revenge porn 10 Susan Bordo, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, are minimal for the perpetrator while Western Culture, and the Body (Berkeley: at the same time being resounding for University of California Press, 2004). the victim. This is improper given that 11 Mûkûyû, “The Politics of African ‘Moral’ nonconsensual pornography, which Dress,” Gikûyû Centre for Cultural Studies, profoundly harms, devalues, demeans, 21 November 2014, accessed 2 January 2018, https://mukuyu.wordpress.com/2014/11/21/ and subjugates a section of society as african-dress/. sexual objects, thus diminishing their 12 Wangari Maathai, Unbowed (New York: Knopf, dignity, continues to be inadequately 2006). addressed by the law. 13 Jillian Roffer, “Nonconsensual Pornography: An Old Crime Updates Its Software,” Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Notes Entertainment Journal 27, no. 4 (2017); Mary Anne Franks, “Unwilling Avatars: Idealism and 1 Danielle Keats Citron, Hate Crimes in Cyber- Discrimination in Cyberspace,” Columbia space (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Journal of Gender and Law 20, no. 2 (2011). University Press, 2016); Peter W. Cooper, “The 14 Cooper, “The Right to Be Virtually Clothed.” Right to Be Virtually Clothed,” Washington 15 Franks, “Unwilling Avatars.” Law Review 91, no. 2 (2016). 16 Ari Ezra Waldman, “Images of Harassment: 2 Cooper, “The Right to Be Virtually Clothed.” Copyright Law and Revenge Porn,” Federal 3 Mairead Eastin Moloney and Tony P. Love, Bar Council Quarterly 15 (2015). “#TheFappening: Virtual Manhood Acts in 17 Roshanara Ebrahim v. Ashleys Kenya Limited (Homo)Social Media,” Men and Masculinities & 3 others, Petition No. 361 of 2016 (2016), 21, no. 5 (2017). eKLR. 4 Lusike Lynete Mukhongo, “Reconstructing 18 Sarah Bloom, “No Vengeance for ‘Revenge Gendered Narratives Online: Nudity for Porn’ Victims: Unraveling Why This Latest Popularity on Digital Platforms,” Ada: A Journal Female-Centric, Intimate-Partner Offense is of Gender, New Media, and Technology 5 Still Legal, and Why We Should Criminalize (2014). It,” Fordham Urban Law Journal 42, no. 1 5 Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, (2016). Women, and Rape (New York: Bantam Books, 19 Amanda L. Cecil, “Taking Back the Internet: 1975). Imposing Civil Liability on Interactive 6 Laurie Penny, Cybersexism: Sex, Gender and Computer Services in an Attempt to Provide Power on the Internet (London: Bloomsbury, an Adequate Remedy to Victims of Noncon- 2013). sensual Pornography,” Washington and Lee 7 Penny, Cybersexism. Law Review 71, no. 4 (2014). 8 Clare McGlynn, “Anonymity for Victims 20 Samantha Bates, “Revenge Porn and Mental of Image-Based Sexual Abuse (including Health: A Qualitative Analysis of the Mental ‘Revenge Porn’),” 2016, accessed 20 November Health Effects of Revenge Porn on Female 2018, https://claremcglynn.files.wordpress. Survivors,” Feminist Criminology 12, no. 1
66 Africa Policy Journal (2017). 41 Penny, Cybersexism. 21 Angira Zadock, “Girl Tormented by Her 42 Citron, Hate Crimes in Cyberspace. Facebook ‘Lover’ Kills Self,” Daily Nation, 28 43 Citron, “Law’s Expressive Value in Combating September 2015, https://www.nation.co.ke/ Cyber Gender Harassment.” news/Girl-kills-self-over-Facebook-tormen- 44 Citron, Hate Crimes in Cyberspace. tor/1056-2889578-m2ns74/index.html. 45 Mary Anne Franks, “’Revenge Porn’ Reform: 22 Government of Kenya, The Computer Misuse A View from the Front Lines,” Florida Law and Cybercrimes Act of 2018, Section 37. Review 69, no. 5 (2017). 23 Geoffrey Andare v. Attorney General & 2 46 Franks, “Combating Non-Consensual others, Petition No. 149 of 2015 (2016), eKLR. Pornography.” 24 Cecil, “Taking Back the Internet.” 47 Isenberg, The GigaLaw Guide to Internet 25 Danielle Keats Citron, “Law’s Expressive Value Law. in Combating Cyber Gender Harassment,” Michigan Law Review 108, no. 3 (2009). 26 Constitution of Kenya, 2010, Article 29. 27 Constitution of Kenya, 2010, Article 28. 28 Amy Adele Hasinoff, Sexting Panic: Rethinking Criminalization, Privacy, and Consent (Urba- na, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2015). 29 Rukia Idris Barri v. Mada Hotels Ltd, Civil Case No. 65 of 2012 (2013), eKLR; Alfred Ombudo K’ombudo v Jane W. Odewale & another, Civil Appeal No. 85 of 2014 (2014), eKLR. 30 Roshanara Ebrahim v. Ashleys Kenya Limited & 3 others. 31 Cecil, “Taking Back the Internet”; Doug Isenberg, The GigaLaw Guide to Internet Law (New York: Random House, 2002). 32 Cecil, “Taking Back the Internet.” 33 Penny, Cybersexism. 34 Citron, Hate Crimes in Cyberspace. 35 Mary Anne Franks, “Combating Non-Con- sensual Pornography: A Working Paper,” 2014, accessed 1 March 2014, https://ssrn.com/ abstract=2336537. 36 Cecil, “Taking Back the Internet.” 37 Franks, “Unwilling Avatars”; Cecil, “Taking Back the Internet.” 38 Cooper, “The Right to Be Virtually Clothed.” 39 Cooper, “The Right to Be Virtually Clothed.” 40 McGlynn, “Anonymity for Victims of Im- age-Based Sexual Abuse (Including ‘Revenge Porn’).”
Spring 2019 67 Interview
Interview with Oby Ezekwesili
The Harvard Kennedy School’s Africa APJ: Today we are sitting down with Caucus celebrated African Women Madam Oby Ezekwesili, who has Leadership in conversation with Oby previously served as Minister of Edu- Ezekwesili. Ezekwesili is the former cation and Minister of Solid Minerals Minister of Education and Minister of within the Nigerian government. Solid Minerals (Mines and Steel), the Madam Ezekwesili, you spent several years in the World Bank and you are, former Vice President of the World Bank’s of course, a Harvard Kennedy School Africa Division, and Convener of the alumni, giving you a particular con- #BringBackOurGirls Movement. nection to the journal. Today we’re just going to ask a few brief questions. Africa Policy Journal Interview Editor We’ll focus on your past performance Ameze Belo-Osagie sat down with [within government], your opinions Ezekwesili during her visit to discuss on the current administration, and her experiences in government, and on the upcoming elections, in which her candidacy in the 2019 Nigerian you’ve decided to run for President. presidential elections. The following is an As Minister of Solid Minerals, edited version of the interview. For more what would you rate as your most of our interviews, please visit http://apj. important achievement and your hkspublications.org/category/interviews/. most significant failure? Ezekwesili: As Minister of Solid Minerals, the key was getting the data out on the endowments that we have in the minerals sector. So we did a totally airborne geo-
68 Africa Policy Journal physical survey of the country. Our work was to prepare the sector It was on the basis of that that [for privatization], so we did a lot we now have data showing that of sectoral-level policy reforms and there are 34 classes of minerals we brought back technical capa- in Nigeria, and they are located bilities to the sector. By the time in`430 sites across our country. we got to the sector, 82 percent of In that position also, we worked the workers in the ministry and its on business-friendly legislation allied agencies had no idea of the and removed all the powers of technical imperatives of the sector. discretion, especially the power to That changed because we then award licenses that was deposited restructured the ministry and the in the minister, and led to abuse in skillset of the industry. We ended the sector. So when we [created] up with 40 percent [of staff in] whole new legislation, which is admin-related roles and 60 per- the legislation that covers mining cent [in] technical [roles], people today, it brought into existence a with background in geophysics global system for transparent allo- and geography, people with the cation of licensing, and it’s called knowledge of the sector. It was the mining cadastral system. We the admin people that overran the innovated on it and built it into a place initially. But by restructur- world-class institution. The same ing it, we brought into full focus thing happened with the Geologi- the kinds of skills that the sector cal Survey Agency of Nigeria. We needed. As a matter of fact, we put law behind it so [that] it has implemented 107 reforms in the autonomy from the ministry, as a sector, but at the time that I was [separate] and very important part minister, I did 97 of them. There of the mineral sector. Without were 10 left before I was sent to data, no mining sector [institution] Ministry of Education. functions well. The private sector APJ: And in education? needs basic data in order to form Ezekwesili: In education, we the basis to make decisions as to engaged with the diagnostics of whether to dig further and seek the sector to discover what the opportunities in the sector. underlying issues were – because We also prepared the sector [according to the] key indicators for full privatization. The coal that we needed to enable us to corporation and the mining cor- evaluate the sector, [such as] the poration had been corporations learning outcomes which you that struggled for many decades. could use as a proxy, the pass-rate
Spring 2019 69 of children in the academic exam- look at what effective remuneration inations, both international as well for a teacher would be. We also fo- as West African examinations, etc., cused on housing for rural teachers, we weren’t doing well at all. The because when teachers know that diagnostics enabled us to see some the single most important matter of the clear reasons. First, and most of housing is taken care of, it frees importantly, is teacher adequacy, or them to give their full dedication to teachers’ qualification and [related] the teaching profession. So teacher issues. We had a dearth of teachers quality is huge, because more than with the right skillset and the right 55 percent of the determinants of mental preparation to teach in our learning outcomes among children classrooms across the country. So is the quality of the teacher in the we instituted a number of reforms classroom. that addressed the issue of teacher And then we did a reform of our quality. We designed programs that curriculum at the different levels of were swift, programs to upgrade education. We had basic education the skills and the certification of curriculum reforms that brought teachers. We handled a reform of in critical thinking as well as civic the profession by working on a new education, as well as restored the bill that was [intended] to empower history that had been taken off the Teachers Regulatory Council the curriculum before I got to the (TRC) with the power to reward Ministry of Education. We did the and sanction, and to lay down the same thing for secondary education standards of the teaching profes- and added entrepreneurship and sion. So we wanted teaching to get leadership as part of the programs back to being a noble profession. for secondary education. We then And then we had a program for top did that of tertiary education by candidates among teachers, so that bringing in the private sector as teaching would be a profession that part of the National Universities not the lower segment of academic Commission, [specifically in] achievers came into, but rather the the accreditation team to evalu- top achievers would enter into. ate programs and to help make Part of what we tried to do with curriculum changes. And at the that was to improve the working tertiary level we added a general environment, as well as the remu- studies program for students that neration package for the teaching was entrepreneurship based, so profession. We’ve worked with the that people could develop the skills wages and salaries commission to and the basic knowledge of how
70 Africa Policy Journal to be entrepreneurs should they and private sector? We looked at choose that path later on, in life that because for basic and second- post-graduation. Then we worked ary education, it was very clear on technology in education. I from our model [in] financ[ing] was minister at the time, when education that government needed Twitter was barely in existence, to be the key player. More than 70 but we could already see where percent of people in the basic [el- technology was taking the world, ementary-level] schools were chil- so we entered into partnership with dren of the poor. And more than groups like Microsoft, Oracle, and 60 percent of secondary school Cisco. All of them were going to students are similarly situated. set up academies in the country So that data mirrors the poverty [centered] on the use of computers cluster in the country. So if we both by teachers and students, to needed to do anything about our upgrade the quality and relevance poverty profile, we needed to do of the learning. something about public schools. The fourth most important Then we looked at innova- thing we did was to look at how tion enterprise institutions and education and the labor market vocational enterprise institutions were connected. [The goal was to] for skills development. [We re- ensur[e] that the training that stu- alized] that certification in the dents get is appropriate for the jobs university was attractive, but it was that are available. It’s about em- meaningless without income. And ployability, but also about [direct- therefore, we needed to have skills ing students towards] the sectors development to enable people to where employment is available. quickly adapt to having skills in Then we looked at the operation of sectors of progress. Telecommu- the school system and the physical nication was coming onboard at infrastructure. We worked with the that time, fintech is growing very society of engineers and surveyors quickly, even the [traditionally to get a comprehensive evaluation strong] oil and gas sector [had of the state of infrastructure for opportunities available]. [So we education. We looked at the issue partnered with] private-sector insti- of funding education and asked, tutions who would set up learning How do you fund education with centers and have us accredit them. the right distribution of responsi- We then designed a certification bility between government and the arrangement to create a national di- students, parents, the community ploma in innovation and a national
Spring 2019 71 diploma in vocational enterprise. had no recommendation to give. Then another key thing that we did The reason they asked me [was] was quality assurance in education. to observe. So there’s nothing. If you didn’t measure or demand They agreed and created an MOU for accountability, you couldn’t [memorandum of understanding]. know how well education was Any one of them who gives the faring. [That system] had broken impression that I was somehow part down; we reinstituted it. of PACT is up to some mischief. APJ: I just want to switch gears, APJ: Winning the presidency because this will be our last ques- under the Nigerian Constitution tion as we’re coming to the end requires that you win at least 50 of our time. I want to give you an percent of the vote overall, and opportunity to answer a common at least 25 percent of the vote in criticism of your current presiden- two-thirds of the states. Could tial campaign. You were involved you outline the electoral strategy in the PACT agreement, which for targeting that broad swathe of was trying to develop a consensus states – are there particular places candidate outside of the two major you are looking at? What is your parties, PDP and APC. [It tried] media strategy? to have a third-party candidate Ezekwesili: Our strategy is running. The consensus agreement focused on unlocking the bloc seemed to break down, and since of voters that have since moved then there have been several sep- away from our democracy – the arate candidates: Fela Durotoye, ones who made up the nearly 40 yourself, etc., who have decided million that did not show up for to run on their own. Could you the 2015 elections, even though discuss the process of trying to they registered to vote. The near form that consensus? 14 million who have joined the Ezekwesili: Well, there’s noth- voters register [since then]. And ing to discuss … because I was not then to focus on the young ones part of PACT. That’s where the amongst this segment of the pop- question is faulty. You asked the ulation. They are interested and question on the basis of information there is a strong appetite on their that is false. What happened with part in something different in the PACT was [that] people asking governance of the country. We me as an independent Nigerian to have a vision for what they see come and monitor what they were of Nigeria. And by engaging in doing. I was not part of PACT; I targeted engagement with them,
72 Africa Policy Journal the message is reaching, and a where we place citizens first. As number of them are signing onto a matter of fact, the way we see it what is actually a movement. This is that this is a project to rescue is a citizens’ movement, this is Nigeria. not some political run for office APJ: Thank you very much for that is individual-driven. This is your time. about a massive movement of the citizens saying we’ve had enough of poor governance; it is time to build a different country. So with the citizens’ movement, there is a groundswell of convergence of that basic interest to take a new direction in the country. That helps a lot with the messaging. The mes- sage becomes the message of the collective, and that enormously is helping us reduce the kind of cost that we would have in the cost of campaigning. APJ: With that interest in youth, are you partnering with younger candidates that are being developed by the “Not Too Young to Run” Bill? What efforts have you made to support younger entrants into politics? Ezekwesili: Yes, I mean for us every young person that wants a different Nigeria is immediately a collaborator in the Hope 2019 drive. [Hope 2019 is her campaign slogan.] What we’ve seen is that I am not running alone; we’re all running. We’re all running. All Nigerians that want a different country are running along with me because this will be a government
Spring 2019 73 Submit Your Work to the APJ for Publication
Please email submissions to: [email protected] Deadline for the 2020 Africa Policy Journal: December 1, 2019 The Africa Policy Journal (APJ) at the Harvard Kennedy School invites established and emerging writers, including policymakers, businesspeople, lawyers, journalists, artists, researchers, academics, and others to submit their work for APJ’s 14th edition publication. The APJ publishes op-eds, long-form commentary, academic articles, and artwork on both our online platform and our annual print edition. We accept submissions for the online blog on a rolling basis. To be considered for print publication, please submit by December 1, 2019 at the latest. All submissions must be the author’s original work and previously unpublished. Articles and op-eds should explore how policy relates to the political, economic, or social climate of African countries today.For example, they may assess the impact of an existing or proposed policy, discuss new policy developments, or recommend policy changes. Artwork should reflect a celebration or critique of African cultures and/or the development of African communities.
Submission Guidelines Review Process • All submissions must adhere to the Chicago Manual of The Africa Policy Journal strives to maintain the quality Style formatting guidelines. and integrity of our publication through a submission review • Academic Articles: 1,000–5,000 words, and must process that is fair and transparent. To this end, all works will include an abstract of no more than 250 words. be anonymously reviewed and scored along a common rubric • Long-form Commentaries: 750–2,000 words, and by multiple staff members. include references where appropriate. • Artwork/Film: Submit high-reswolution files (300+dpi, Submissions should strive to be: JPEG or MP4 format). Each submission must • Relevant: addressing issues of governance, economics, include artwork title, artist name, medium, and year politics and society on the African continent. of creation. • Timely: covering opportunities and challenges facing • Op-Eds/Commentaries/Blog posts: 300–800 words. African nations/peoples today. • Thought-provoking: taking part in public discourse How to Submit on a topic area. Format all articles/op-ed/book/film reviews as • Accessible: readable and pertinent to the interest Microsoft Word documents. of a broad audience. Format all images as JPEG files. • Rigorous: informed and analytically sound. For all citations, use endnotes with a web link for • Fresh: conducting novel analysis, taking unique fact-checking. perspectives, or bringing forth new or underemphasized All submissions must include a cover letter with: (1) the information into the public discourse. author’s name; (2) mailing address; (3) e-mail address; (4) phone number; (5) a biography of no more than 300 words; About (6) a headshot. The Africa Policy Journal is the only student-run scholarly journal in the United States dedicated to African policy. Our Please email your submissions to africa_journal@hks. mission is to promote a rigorous, informed, and influential harvard.edu. Submissions for our website are considered policy dialogue that is relevant to current and future issues of on a rolling basis. All submissions received by December 1, governance, economics, politics, and society on the African 2019 will be considered for print publication. continent. We publish thought-provoking content that provides fresh insights into the most significant opportunities APJ’s Editorial Board will notify all applicants by January 29, and challenges facing African nations. 2020. Selected authors may be asked to perform additional fact-checking or editing before publication; compliance Questions? with these procedures is required for publication. Contact us via e-mail at [email protected].