Preventing election violence in West Africa
During 2018, elections will be held in 23 African states – at local, regional or national level. Democratic elections have become more common on the African continent. At the same time, an increase in electoral violence is reported, writes Emma Skeppström. According to a study by Stephanie M. Burchard, more than half of Africa’s states […]
Language lessons of the 2014 Ebola epidemic
August 2014 was a scary time in West Africa. Ebola was spreading rapidly and the international community was waking up to a disaster that ultimately killed more than 11,000 people, writes Aimee Ansari. In the midst of the epidemic, UNICEF and Catholic Relief Services published ominous survey results: In Sierra Leone, one of the hardest-hit […]
Djibouti faces dark days ahead
Djibouti has been landlocked Ethiopia’s only access to the sea and depends on port taxes paid by Ethiopia for most of its income and with the Eritrean ports of Massawa and Assab on the Red Sea about to open finds itself faced with losing most of the Ethiopian trade it has enjoyed a monopoly on […]
Liberia: Why the trials of perpetrators matter to me
Sometime in early 1989, I was visiting three of my childhood friends. I was working as a reporter with the Ministry of Information as the only female in the newsroom in Monrovia, Liberia. Together we decided to form an organization that would meet once a month and work with the less fortunate in the Liberian […]
The Liberian access to justice movement
When we first began working on documenting war crimes and representing victims in their quest for justice in 2012, my team and I stayed largely undercover. Nobody in Liberia knew what we were doing. We wanted to quietly document crimes and build case files without anybody knowing about our work and potentially trying to hinder […]
Prof. Gray: Africa cannot develop in isolation
China’s robust economic growth in the past decades of the country’s opening up based on principles and shared values, which has lifted hundreds of million of people out of extreme poverty, offers lessons for other regions, especially Africa to pay keen attention. China and Africa “have always belonged to a community of shared values and […]
Sweden speaks on peace and security in Africa
National statement delivered by Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden Margot Wallström on behalf of Sweden at the United Nations Security Council Briefing on Peace and Security in Africa, 10 July 2018, New York. Ladies and gentlemen, Yesterday morning, the Deputy Secretary-General, the African Union Special Envoy on Women, Peace and Security, and I arrived […]
Reflections from Stockholm forum on gender equality
The Stockholm Forum on Gender Equality was held on 15–17 April 2018 and gathered more than 700 participants from over 100 countries and a multitude of sectors and functions. The discussions covered a broad range of areas and focused on concrete methods and tools to enhance gender equality and the full enjoyment of rights, representation […]
Weah’s budget: Pro-poor or business as usual?
Liberians heaved a sigh of relief when President George Weah through his Minister of Finance and Development Planning (MFDP) Samuel D Tweah Jr. submitted the Draft National Budget for 2018/201; writes Seltue Robert Karweaye, Sr. The proposed Fiscal Year (FY) 2018/2019 budget envisages spending US$562.4M, an increase of about 5% from the 536.2M of the […]
Liberia: Is that Emmanuel Shaw, again?
Is that Emmanuel Shaw, again? That was my reaction to a picture in which the French President Emmanuel Macron and Emmanuel Shaw were standing side by side and smiling. Both appeared as if they were former schoolmates meeting at a class reunion gathering. But this was not at a class reunion gathering. It was at […]