Q-MHI Africa Weekly Brief ;

Hi Q-MHI Africa readers!

AFRICA IS A COUNTRY

For Africans, the long-running ‘Africa is a country’ trope is less of a post-colonial irony-laden punchline and more of a long-held aspiration. The founding leaders of various African countries spoke of a united continent and there was a belief that as more countries shed their colonial shackles they’d get on with the business of creating the biggest market of the most diverse people and cultures the world had ever seen.

It hasn’t quite worked out that way, in fact it’s been quite the opposite. Anyone who’s ever had their African passport disappear for an unpredictable length of time into South Africa or Nigeria’s visa labyrinths will attest to this. Yet, we know it is still easier for European and North American passport holders to move around Africa than the holders of most African countries’ passports.

The African Union’s plan to roll out an African passport is a laudable headline-grabbing ambition, but it will take many years to implement across 54 countries, not to mention the attendant costs. A more promising target is improving visa openness between African countries.

The African Development Bank says more African countries are helping to lead the way on improvements. The bank notes that in 2016 Africans didn’t need a visa to travel to 22% of other African countries, which was up from 20% in 2015. While 24% of Africans could get visas on arrival compared with 25% a year earlier. But ultimately, more than half of all Africans (54%) need visas to travel to other countries. That barely changed from 55% in 2015.

Thankfully, things are moving in the right direction, led in 2016 by Ghana, Senegal, Tunisia and Malawi. The hope is more countries will follow suit. Both Nigeria and South Africa, as Africa’s largest economies, are also stepping up to improve in general.

Unlike much needed long-term investments in infrastructure and technology for development, visa openness is one of those issues where a change in attitude by governments will bring much quicker changes and benefits than we might realize.

This push to open up borders to each other isn’t simply a romantic notion of African unity. For one thing, global commodity trade markets have reminded us over the last couple of years that African countries need to look closer to home for trade partners. As if to drive that point home, leading international trade partners including the United States and the United Kingdom, are looking more inward than ever before in recent history.

There probably hasn’t been a better time to focus on the freer movement of African people on the continent to help drive regional integration efforts and promote the development of human capital.

Yinka Adegoke, Q-MHI Africa editor

STORIES FROM THIS WEEK

The global, hipster-friendly cities that risk reviving spatial apartheid. The loft-style apartments, upmarket bars, and creative workspaces make Johannesburg’s Maboneng precinct a hipster-friendly neighborhood. But as Melissa Tandiwe Myambo writes, this type of gentrification risks recreating secluded cities that hark back to the apartheid era.

Zambia’s stable democracy is quietly drifting into authoritarian rule. The Conference of Catholic Bishops of Zambia recently criticized the government’s arrest of opposition leaders and the intimidation of civil society groups saying the country was “now all, except in designation, a dictatorship.” As Democracy professor Nic Cheeseman writes, that declaration should get us all talking about Zambia and president Edgar Lungu.

A transparency campaign reveals how much lawmakers are paid in Nigeria. The #OpenNASS campaign has for years called for transparency and accountability in Nigeria’s national assembly. But for the first time, analysis of the published budget by BudgIT reveals legislators cost in salaries and benefits almost 10,000 times the national minimum wage.

The “Silicon Valley” of Lagos faces questions about its future. The Yaba neighborhood in Lagos has always been considered the ground zero of start-ups and techies in Nigeria. But the exit of Zuckerberg-backed Andela and online retailer Konga from the neighborhood highlights the infrastructure and cohesion problems facing the local tech ecosystem, reports Yomi Kazeem.

The challenge of ride-sharing apps to keep drivers and riders happy in Africa. Uber’s Lagos drivers went on strike this month after a 40% reduction of fares. Reporting from Lagos, Paul Adepoju writes that the strike points to the difficulties of operating in an ultra-competitive market like Lagos with rivals like Taxify. Meanwhile in Kampala, Uber competes with motorcyle rideshare app, SafeBoda, but residents there ultimately prefer their imported used cars to navigate the congested and pothole-ridden roads, reports Lydia Namubiru.

CHART OF THE WEEK

The one major pitfall for African countries along China’s new Silk Road. China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative aims to spend as much as $3 trillion on roads, ports, and other updates to infrastructure in more than 60 countries. But as Lily Kuo explains, for China, the plan is also about gaining new markets in African countries—who are already flooded with Chinese products and are exporting far less to China than they are importing.

OTHER THINGS WE LIKED

The new bill threatening South Africa’s thriving private security industry. South Africa has around 490,000 private security officers—double the size of its police officers and military combined—working in guarding, cash-in-transit, and armed response. But as Shaun Swingler writes in the Daily Maverick, a new bill aimed at reining in the industry and limiting foreign ownership could end up jeopardizing it.

The Ethiopian town where three flags fly. Moyale is a town in southeastern Ethiopia where the flags of the Ethiopian federal state, the Borana Oromo, and the Garre Somalis flutter. Reporting for The Guardian, Tom Gardner documents how more than 20 years after ethnic federalism was introduced, tensions between the two sides are as fraught as ever.

KEEP AN EYE ON

Election of a new director-general for the World Health Organization (May 22). Member states will gather in Geneva to elect a new lead for the world’s top health agency. And for the first, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus from Ethiopia—who has faced accusations for covering cholera epidemics in his home country—could be the first African to lead the organization.

South Africa and Zambia release inflation data (May 24). Both South Africa and Zambia will release their inflation data next week. Zambia, whose economy has grown by 4% in 2017, is in talks with the IMF to help facilitate a loan to boost its foreign exchange reserves.

Ugandan activist Stella Nyanzi is due back in court (May 25). The Ugandan academic and activist who was jailed for insulting president Yoweri Museveni will return to court on May 25. She was released on bail on May 10, and the judge will now hear the case about her mental health before prosecution starts.

Q-MHI