Analysis – Page 5 – AfricaMidEastNgin

January 25, 2025

Mpox in the DRC: residents of the slum at the centre of Kinshasa’s epidemic have little chance of avoiding this major health crisis

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Yap Boum, Professor in the faculty of Medicine, Mbarara University of Science and Technology

Walking through the crowded streets of the Pakadjuma neighbourhood in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, I am struck by the vibrant atmosphere around me.

Children play happily in puddles, surrounded by piles of plastic bags and open ditches of sewage. Shacks patched together from pieces of corrugated iron crowd the settlement. Loud rumba music blasts through the air as young people enjoy themselves in open bars, waiting for grilled pork or chicken to be served. Sex workers sit outside tin shacks in narrow alleyways, calling for customers.

Nearby a Médecins Sans Frontières triage centre is the only reminder that this slum area is the epicentre of the mpox epidemic in Kinshasa. There are no posters, no pamphlets or banners warning residents of the dangers of this viral disease that was declared a continental and global emergency in August last year.

At the clinic, patients suspected to have mpox are sent to one of three dedicated mpox centres in the city. Common symptoms include fever, headache, muscle ache, chills, exhaustion, swollen lymph nodes and lesions. With symptomatic care most patients get better in 7 to 35 days, depending on the severity of the case.

As an epidemiologist co-leading the response to mpox for Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, I visited Pakadjuma to get a better sense of the situation on the ground.

Mpox has historically been a rural disease in the DRC. This microcosm of Kinshasa sheds light on the complex challenges of managing the outbreak in a city.

Fighting on two fronts

With a population of more than 17 million, Kinshasa is Africa’s biggest megacity. Pakadjuma is one of the city’s many overcrowded areas where people live in extreme poverty.

Kinshasa, often called “Kin la Belle”, faces a unique crisis in the fight against mpox. Both strains of the virus, clade Ia and clade Ib, are circulating in the city simultaneously. This is first time this has happened.

Clade Ia, which is primarily transmitted from animal to human and then within households through touch, has been endemic to Africa for decades.

Clade Ib is a new strain and contracted predominantly through sexual contact. It is the strain that has spread rapidly across 21 African countries during the current epidemic in east and central Africa.

Grilled meat for customers.

This dual transmission makes the fight against mpox even more complicated: how does one tackle a public health crisis rooted in both intimate human connections and structural inequities such as living in overcrowded areas?

Although the strains are treated similarly clinically, their spread and transmission differ.

Clade Ia is mainly associated with zoonotic transmission (from animals to humans) in rural areas. Animal surveillance and community education are required to control spillovers.

Clade Ib, with higher human-to-human transmissibility, necessitates intensified contact tracing, vaccination, and preventive measures in urban and peri-urban areas.

Tailoring strategies to these differences is key to containing the outbreak.

When condoms don’t work

Pakadjuma, in the north-east of the city, is known for poverty and high crime rates. For many girls and young women the sex trade is their only option if they want to survive.

One of the most pressing challenges to combat the virus in the area is curbing sexual transmission.

Unlike HIV, where condoms can significantly reduce the risk of spread, mpox poses a different challenge: because the virus is spread by touch there is no practical preventive measure for sexual transmission apart from complete abstinence.

Mpox lesions start in the groin, making any movement excruciating. For these sex workers, though, abstinence is not an option. It would mean losing their livelihood and the ability to feed their children.

For their clients, who come from all over the city, it would require altering a core aspect of their lives for a disease they perceive as less lethal than Ebola. There are no easy answers to this dilemma.

Patients are tested for mpox at this Médecins Sans Frontières triage centre

Tracing the spread

Contact tracing, a cornerstone of outbreak control, is another hurdle.

Identifying and tracing the contacts of sex workers is complex. As a result only a fraction of mpox cases are confirmed with laboratory analysis.

On average, each mpox case has about 20 contacts, yet tracing clients in a highly confidential sexual network is next to impossible.

Without effective contact tracing, infected individuals remain in the community, often seeking treatment only when their condition worsens. From discussions with Médecins Sans Frontières staff in the triage zone, it emerges that suspected mpox cases usually arrive in advanced stages of the disease, when symptoms are clearly visible. Many patients first attempt other remedies such as traditional healing methods, before seeking medical care.

Fortunately Kinshasa benefits from a strong laboratory network led by the Institut National de la Recherche Biomédicale and test results are available within 48 to 72 hours. This state-of-the-art institute was pioneered by Dr Jean Jacques Muyembe, the microbiologist who first discovered Ebola.

In the first week of January 2025 there were 1,155 confirmed cases and 27 deaths in the city, according to the DRC Ministry of Health.

Even for those who seek care at the dedicated mpox centres, navigating the chaotic, congested roads is a nightmare. Yellow minibuses – ominously known locally as the “Spirit of Death” – are crammed and it can take hours to get to a destination.

With increasing patient numbers, mpox centres in the city are overwhelmed.

Pakadjuma, one of the poorest districts in the city.

A goods train passing through.

The fight on all fronts

Addressing the mpox outbreak in Kinshasa requires a multifaceted approach which includes:

Vaccination: Blanket vaccination drives offer the strongest hope for controlling the outbreak in hotspots such as Pakadjuma where contact tracing is almost impossible. In these cases the whole community needs to be vaccinated.

This could break transmission chains while allowing individuals at risk, such as sex workers, to continue plying their trades.

Prevention and control: Home care is essential, particularly in informal settlements like Pakadjuma. Providing food and material support to patients and their families and encouraging the isolation of infected relatives will help to limit the spread of the disease.

These measures require new thinking, however, when people are trying to survive from day to day.

Talking to the community: This is difficult because of the stigma around the disease, but it must be at the heart of the response.

Amplifying the message: The media, local leaders and trusted community members need to be engaged to spread the word loud and clear.

This all needs to happen immediately or the epidemic will be almost impossible to contain in this vast, sprawling city. The consequences would be dire.

– Mpox in the DRC: residents of the slum at the centre of Kinshasa’s epidemic have little chance of avoiding this major health crisis
– https://theconversation.com/mpox-in-the-drc-residents-of-the-slum-at-the-centre-of-kinshasas-epidemic-have-little-chance-of-avoiding-this-major-health-crisis-247809

January 25, 2025

Political assassinations, police violence and lack of press freedom: 3 barriers to peace in Mozambique

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Corinna Jentzsch, Assistant Professor of International Relations, Leiden University

Mozambique’s parliament and its new president, Daniel Chapo, were sworn in in mid-January 2025 after a tumultuous post-election period of protests, barricades and police violence.

The 9 October 2024 elections prompted countless reports of fraud, leading the European Union election observer mission to note

irregularities during counting of votes and unjustified alteration of election results.

Based on this, and other accounts of fraud, the opposition candidate Venâncio Mondlane claimed to have won the elections and coordinated several weeks of protests across the country.

These were met with a harsh police response. Over 4,200 people were reportedly arrested, 730 shot and 300 killed with live ammunition between 21 October 2024 and 16 January 2025.

After spending several weeks abroad, Mondlane returned to Mozambique on 9 January to join ongoing political talks between the government and opposition parties.

How can Mozambique move forward?

To get out of its political crisis will not be easy. It will require the party in power, Frelimo, to fundamentally change how it deals with disagreement and discontent. Buying off political opposition elites, as has been done in the past, will not calm this political storm.

Based on my research into political violence, I suggest that the cycles of violence in the country can only be broken if the new president addresses three issues related to state repression. He needs to do this in dialogue with opposition forces to earn trust and public support for the new government.

The three issues are:

putting an end to violence perpetrated by the police and army
ending political assassinations and ensuring accountability for the ones that have taken place
protecting media freedom and ending violence against journalists.

No more blind eye to police (and army) violence

Human rights experts urged the government in November 2024 to end the post-election violence and allow thorough investigations. Experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council expressed concerns about

violations of the right to life, including of a child, deliberate killings of unarmed protesters and the excessive use of force by the police deployed to disperse peaceful protests.

Such extensive repression has been a common response by the Mozambican security forces over the past years, with severe consequences for the evolution of conflict. For example, state repression has been a major contributor to armed conflict in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, where an Islamist insurgency has been raging since 2017. Victims of violence by security forces are an important source of recruits for the insurgency.

Accountability for political assassinations

Mozambique has suffered from targeted killings of political opposition figures. The most recent, high-profile political assassinations took place after the elections in October. Elvino Dias, Mondlane’s lawyer, and Paulo Guambe, an official of Podemos, the political party that supported Mondlane’s run for president, were shot dead in Maputo by unknown gunmen.

Dias was preparing a court case challenging the election results.

Mozambique has a long history of such political assassinations. These have rarely been investigated and no one has been held accountable. The government and police regularly deny any involvement, and people have come to speak of “death squads” seeking to intimidate the political opposition and civil society.

Freedom of the press and civil society

The ability of the press in Mozambique to hold people accountable for their actions has been severely constrained. Its ability to report and investigate those involved in state-sanctioned violence has been a challenge for a long time.

In its annual report for 2023 the Media Institute of Southern Africa documented the extent to which journalists had been intimidated and attacked. It reported that such incidents increased during election periods.

This was indeed the case in the 2024 pre-election period. Journalists faced arrests when, for example, reporting on police trying to disrupt opposition parties’ events.

Mozambique enjoys a diverse media landscape, including multiple private and local media outlets. Nevertheless, press freedom has been curtailed. An example has been the treatment of journalists investigating the armed conflict in Cabo Delgado. Soon after the conflict began in October 2017, the government barred journalists from visiting the province, and many of those reporting nevertheless were detained and held for extended periods or arrested for unsubstantiated charges.

The case of Amade Abubacar made headlines in 2019 when he was detained and held for 13 days in military barracks without access to a lawyer. He was then charged with “violation of state secrets” and “public instigation to crime”.

What Abubacar did was report on the insurgency. Since then, the situation has got worse for the media. Last year, the Cabo Delgado governor Valige Tauabo accused unnamed journalists of colluding with the insurgents.

As I was writing this, news reached me that Arlindo Chissale, a journalist and political activist from Nacala, had been arrested, tortured and killed by the “death squads” mentioned earlier on 7 January 2025. Arlindo worked with me on researching the conflict in Cabo Delgado.

Freedom of the press is important to hold the new government accountable for the promises it has made to the Mozambican people.

The way forward

Chapo delivered a well-crafted inauguration address on 15 January. It was well crafted because, as some analysts commented, he incorporated many of the policies being advocated by Mondlane.

He said in his speech that he had heard what the protesters were telling him during the demonstrations. And he promised to promote unity, human rights and political dialogue to (re-)create social and political stability.

Chapo is also aware of the waves being made by Mondlane, who has recognised the political power of mobilising people around the issue of police violence. On his return to Mozambique, Mondlane presented the government with a list of demands to be implemented in the first 100 days of the new government. The first was that steps needed to be taken to stop the violence against the population.

Since his return he has also met victims of violence at the hands of the police and army.

The challenge is that Chapo’s party, Frelimo, which has been in power since independence in 1975, is strong and can severely curtail the president’s ability to introduce relevant reforms.

It’s therefore far from clear whether Chapo can pursue any of his suggested policy goals.

Dialogue with Mondlane is necessary. But if this leads to another “elite bargain” that might get him a cabinet position but does not benefit the common people, Mozambicans will not calm down. Any agreement must address the lack of accountability for police violence, stop political assassinations, and allow journalists to investigate political violence.

– Political assassinations, police violence and lack of press freedom: 3 barriers to peace in Mozambique
– https://theconversation.com/political-assassinations-police-violence-and-lack-of-press-freedom-3-barriers-to-peace-in-mozambique-248153

January 24, 2025

Industrial scale farming is flawed: what ecologically-friendly farming practices could look like in Africa

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Rachel Wynberg, Professor and DST/NRF Bio-economy Research Chair, University of Cape Town

African Perspectives on Agroecology is a new book with 33 contributions from academics, non-governmental organisations, farmer organisations and policy makers. It is free to download, and reviewers have described it as a “must read for all who care about the future of Africa and its people”. The book outlines how agroecology, which brings ecological principles into farming practices and food systems, can solve food shortages and environmental damage caused by mass, commercial farming. We asked the book’s editor and the South African Research Chair on Environmental and Social Dimensions of the Bio-economy, Rachel Wynberg, to set out why this book is so important.

What’s wrong with the current system of food production?

The dominant model of modern agriculture in the world is based on monoculture, where one crop is grown across large areas using chemical fertilisers and pesticides. It relies on seeds that are owned by big corporations and are often subsidised by governments at a high cost.

The book outlines how this approach to growing food is flawed. Firstly, it carries major costs. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s State of Food and Agriculture 2024 report, the costs of diet-related disease, hunger and malnutrition and other costs amount to about US$8 trillion a year. Countries in the global south carry much of the burden.

Secondly, the current approach is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. This happens through deforestation and land degradation, livestock and fertiliser emissions, energy use, and the globalised nature of agriculture. Food is often produced far from where it is consumed.

Huge farmlands also wipe out biodiversity and degrade one third of all soils, globally. Industrial agriculture has many negative impacts on ecosystem health, livestock and human wellbeing.

What’s the alternative?

Agroecology is a good alternative. It uses natural processes such as fixing nitrogen in the soil by planting legumes, and conserving natural habitat to encourage beneficial predators that keep pests in check. It includes planting a diversity of crops, rather than just one, to prevent pest outbreaks, and avoiding synthetic pesticides and herbicides.

Agroecology places importance on building natural, local, economically viable and socially just food systems. It aims to support farmers and rural communities.

As a result, it fosters more equal social relations and improves food and nutritional security.

Agroecology also recognises local ways of knowing and doing things, and respects the rights of Indigenous people to seeds and plants that they have planted for many generations. Transforming research and education are an important part of agroecology.

What are the advantages?

Agroecology increases the capacity of farming systems to adapt to climate change. Studies show how agroecology increases crop yields, regulates water and nutrients, increases agricultural diversity and reduces pests.

It gives farmers more choice about what to grow and eat. This enables them to produce a wider variety of healthy food.

Can agroecology grow enough food for everyone?

Agroecology can be scaled up through:

farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchanges
creating professional networks of agroecology practitioners
local seed-saving networks or groups that share different seeds that are adapted to local conditions

solidarity networks: community-based groups or movements that aim to support each other, cooperate and take collective action.
the revival and use of indigenous and under-utilised crops and livestock breeds such as pearl and finger millet, sorghum and Nguni cattle
linking producers with consumers and markets.

What needs to be done?

Urgent actions are needed, especially in the climate “hotspot” of sub-Saharan Africa. Agroecology needs supportive policies and funding. South Africa has had a draft agroecology strategy for more than 10 years but this has not yet been adopted.

Development aid for farmers often undermines agroecology. It typically promotes a “new” African Green Revolution that uses hybrid seeds, agrochemicals, new technologies, and links to markets. However, hybrid seed, especially genetically modified seed, can contaminate local seed systems that are better adapted to local conditions.

The book illustrates what can go wrong. Maize is said to have “modernised” development and promoted foreign investment in Africa. But it has displaced indigenous crops such as sorghum and millet which are more nutritious and drought-resistant.

Subsidy programmes and state support for hybrid maize also back multinational agrochemical and seed companies.

Governments, industry and those funding research, innovation and consumer marketing must actively move away from a maize culture and invest in a bigger range of crops.

For millions of smallholder African farmers, there is a deep understanding of how animals, plants, soil, people and weather patterns are connected to and affect one another. Agricultural development programmes, chemical fertilisers, pesticides, and herbicides, and genetically modified seeds disrupt these relationships. They can devalue local knowledge and skills in favour of “expert”-led innovations. This means that farmers lose their capacity to understand their environment and their ability to react appropriately.

Lastly, agriculture research and training needs to be rethought. Research and development is now mostly shaped by market-led approaches that favour crops grown by large-scale commercial farmers. A public sector research and development agenda for agroecology needs to be developed. It should be based both on scientific knowledge as well as traditional and local knowledge.

What would help?

Agricultural research should be co-created by everyone involved. Farmer-led research and innovation can support food system transformations.

New ways of seeing and doing research are evolving. Western scientific and traditional knowledges are mixing in ways that can transform farming. Our book points out that social movements are emerging as a powerful force for change.

We hope to support these efforts through a new, four year, European Union supported initiative to establish a research and training network: the Research for Agroecology Network in Southern Africa. New agroecology knowledge networks in South Africa and Zimbabwe have also been started to coordinate research and develop curricula.

– Industrial scale farming is flawed: what ecologically-friendly farming practices could look like in Africa
– https://theconversation.com/industrial-scale-farming-is-flawed-what-ecologically-friendly-farming-practices-could-look-like-in-africa-245579

January 24, 2025

Discovery in South Africa holds oldest evidence of mixing ingredients to make arrow poison

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Justin Bradfield, Associate professor, University of Johannesburg

In 1983 archaeologists excavating a cave in South Africa discovered an unusual femur bone. It belonged to an unspecified antelope and was found to be 7,000 years old. X-rays revealed that three modified bone arrowheads had been placed into the marrow cavity.

At the conclusion of the 1983 excavation the bone, together with other artefacts recovered from the cave, was placed in the University of the Witwatersrand’s Archaeology Department storerooms. It lay there until 2022. That’s when new archaeological investigations began at the site where the femur had been discovered: Kruger Cave, in the western Magaliesberg mountains, about 1.5 hours’ drive from Johannesburg. This renewed interest prompted scientists to take a fresh look at Kruger Cave’s treasures.

I am an archaeologist who’s interested in the organic materials preserved at Kruger Cave and in protecting the site for future generations. Along with other scientists from the University of Johannesburg, I suspected that the femur contained more than just sediment and degraded marrow. We had worked together to publish the chemical constituents of a 500-year-old medicine container discovered in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, and decided to conduct a similar investigation into the chemistry of the matrix surrounding the arrowheads inside the femur.

Our research has revealed that the femur’s contents are arguably the oldest multi-component arrow poison in the world. It’s a complex recipe combining at least two toxic plant ingredients. There’s also evidence of a third toxin.

This is by no means the oldest use of poison for hunting. The application of poison to hunting weapons is thought to have originated about 60,000 to 70,000 years ago, along with the invention of projectile technology in Africa. But evidence for poison at that period is tentative at best and yet to be verified chemically.

Our discovery is the oldest confirmed use of a mixture of two or more plant toxins specifically applied to arrowheads. The ability to mix together complex recipes, whether for poison, adhesive or medicinal purposes, speaks directly to their makers’ cognitive capacities and traditional pharmacological knowledge.

This study also highlights the potential contribution of archaeobotany (the study of ancient plant remains) and organic chemistry to our understanding of the past. It also shows how these two disciplines can work together to tell the story of our past.

Studying the femur

The X-ray images taken in the 1980s were of relatively poor quality. So we decided to re-image the femur using micro-CT. This process essentially uses thousands of X-rays to reconstruct artefacts in three dimensions, at very high resolution. Our results revealed that the sediment-like matrix filling the marrow cavity into which the arrowheads had been placed was not regular archaeological sediment. It was clearly foreign matter.

A small sample of the material was taken and its chemical constituents were analysed. The chemistry results revealed the presence of two toxic cardiac glycosides (which disrupt the functioning of the heart muscle): digitoxin and strophanthidin. Both are known to have been used historically in some poisons associated with bow hunting. We also found ricinoleic acid, which can occur as a result of the oxidative breakdown of the toxic lectin ricin. These organic compounds, and others we identified, do not occur in the same plants. This indicates that several plant ingredients must have been combined to create a poisonous recipe.

None of the plant species that contain digitoxin and strophanthadin occur naturally in the vicinity of Kruger Cave. The remains of these plants have also not been detected in archaeobotanical studies of the excavated material. This would suggest that either people were travelling long distances to acquire their ingredients or that there was an established trade in these floral commodities.

Researchers know that long-distance transport of sea shells, as ornaments and later as currency, had been happening throughout Africa long before 7,000 years ago. But the long-distance movement of non-domestic plants at so early a date is something we had not expected. The fact that people knew which plants to acquire, where to find them and how to use them effectively speaks volumes about the antiquity of traditional pharmacological knowledge systems.

In southern Africa, adhesives made with conifer resin, as well as ochre and fat mixtures, date back at least 60,000 years. Documented knowledge of plants’ medicinal properties in the region dates back to around the same period. However the oldest confirmed medicine that combines more than one ingredient – which, as mentioned earlier, we identified from a discovery in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province – is only 500 years old.

Poison and weapons

The application of poison to weapons signals an evolutionary advancement in the development of hunting technology.

Historical records demonstrate that in most parts of the world hunters relied on toxic compounds derived from plants and animals to make their weapons more effective. In southern Africa, a great variety of plants and animals are known to have been used by different groups of hunters to tip their arrows. These poisons were often combined in complex recipes using a variety of preparatory procedures.

The earliest molecular evidence for poison in southern Africa comes from a 24,000-year-old wooden spatula at Border Cave in the Lebombo Mountains on the border between Swaziland and South Africa, where traces of ricinoleic acid were found. Ricinoleic acid is one of the by-products (a smaller constituent molecule of a larger organic compound) of the potent toxin ricin, which is found in the castor bean plant. The Border Cave example is, however, probably a single-component poison and not a complex recipe.

What’s assumed to be arrow poison has been found on bone arrowheads at Kuumbi Cave, Zanzibar, from 13,000-year-old deposits. No chemical or other scientific tests were undertaken to verify this interpretation.

Finally, another team recently analysed poison from a 1,000-year-old arrow from Kruger Cave. Although the oxidative by-products of cardiac glycosides were positively identified, this specimen was significantly more degraded than that from the older femur container. We think the femur container helped to protect the poison from the worst effects of biological degradation.

– Discovery in South Africa holds oldest evidence of mixing ingredients to make arrow poison
– https://theconversation.com/discovery-in-south-africa-holds-oldest-evidence-of-mixing-ingredients-to-make-arrow-poison-247250

January 24, 2025

Five artists, five nations: taking to the road to find southern Africa’s hidden stories

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Research Associate, University of Oxford

Zimbabwean art historian Barnabas Ticha Muvhuti travelled by road to five southern African countries – Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Namibia, Mozambique and Zambia – in pursuit of hidden stories. His mission was to visit artists in their studios to learn about the environments in which they work and what inspires them.

Arak Collection

The opportunity to do the road trip arose from a writing fellowship with the Arak Collection, one of the largest contemporary African art collections in the Middle East.

The result is a new book called Chronicles of the Road: Five Nations, Five Artists that documents Muvhuti’s experiences. At the same time it maps and gathers voices that are not often encountered in academic studies, or even on bookstore shelves.

As a scholar of southern African literary cultures and intellectual histories, I interviewed Muvhuti about his project.

Tinashe Mushakavanhu: Your new book visits places that are very diverse in terms of language, colonial histories, cultures. What did you learn from the trip and from the works of the artists you chose to profile?

Barnabas Ticha Muvhuti: I intentionally opted to travel by road. I wanted to talk to fellow passengers on buses and public taxis. I wanted to appreciate the landscapes, the rugged terrains and the sacred sites, as well as gain insight into the people’s daily rituals, joys and struggles. I wanted to experience the vibe of the African market scene, and to chat with Yango (ride-hailing service) drivers.

Importantly, I wanted to gain an appreciation of the art scenes the selected artists work and operate in. I wanted to hear from other cultural workers working with the artists. I’ll admit that an exercise like this one needed more time than I had.

When Visiting Cape Town by Rudolph Seibeb. Arak Collection/Rudolph Seibeb

These artists are inspired by different elements of their cultures and everyday practices, which makes the region’s art output so multifaceted, rich and complex. But the key lesson was that we share a lot in common, despite the colonial demarcations separating us, and the ethnic differences.

Tinashe Mushakavanhu: Exploring southern Africa through cartography, or mapmaking, can help our understanding of the region’s interconnected histories. Was mapping part of your objective?

Barnabas Ticha Muvhuti: Central to my project was the idea that the selected artists draw much from their surroundings. So I wanted to find out if there are transnational connections in their practices.

Le Combattant/Freedom is not free by Zemba Luzamba. Arak Collection/Zemba Luzamba

You will be amazed to hear of the impact of #RhodesMustFall (a South African student protest movement calling for decolonisation) on the work of Botswana’s Thebe Phetogo. He was a student at the University of Cape Town when the fallist movement emerged.

An anecdote which excited me is the impact a 1990s visit to Zimbabwe had on Namibian artist Rudolf Seibeb’s thinking, making him explore other media. He’d visited the Batapata Workshop.

The Congolese artist Zemba Luzamba credits their South African mentor, woodcut artist Boyi Molefe, for the mixed-media collaging technique he uses. Their connection is a fruitful result of Luzamba’s migration to South Africa – despite it being a nation keen on driving out African migrants.

Even though southern Africa’s original inhabitants, the Khoisan, are rare in Zambia, their paintings inform Zambian artist Kalinosi Mutale’s abstract “Kalidrawings”.

Abase by Kalinosi Mutale. Arak Collection/Kalinosi Mutale

Mozambican artist Nelly Guambe’s story of turning to the creative process as a form of catharsis has a universal appeal and resonates with the Mexican surrealist painter Frida Kahlo’s practice. Like Kahlo, who took up painting while confined to her bed after a life-threatening accident, Guambe used art to help her recover after an accident in Maputo.

Tinashe Mushakavanhu: You write that the research employs a biographical approach. The artists in the book were born between 1964 and 1993. Do they represent different generations, movements, or turns in the art history of the region?

Barnabas Ticha Muvhuti: Their ages seem to suggest intergenerational connections, yet they are all contemporary artists, working today.

Seibeb has been practising for a long time, though his work started being noticed only recently, thanks to spaces like The Project Room and the Cape Town Art Fair.

Memories by Nelly Guambe. Arak Collection/Nelly Guambe

Mutale, who was very active up to the 1990s, had taken a hiatus from public art exhibitions because he felt his conceptual practice was misunderstood and unappreciated by the Zambian audience.

Zemba has lived in at least three countries, and migration stories inform his work.

Phetogo and Guambe are young artists whose careers and practices resonate with the work of other young artists in the region.

Tinashe Mushakavanhu: What is the Arak Collection’s significance to African art?

Barnabas Ticha Muvhuti: Arak is a Doha-based independent private collection of African art amassed over the past decade. Unlike the typical western collectors of African art that we are most used to, Arak is “committed to fostering critical dialogue around contemporary art practices, with a focus on African art through exhibitions, publications, research and educational programs”. It offers emerging writers and curators from the continent fellowships and opportunities that include workshops across Africa.

hill female hill by Lowe Male. Arak Collection/Lowe Male

Tinashe Mushakavanhu: Finally, what is your sense of the state of art writing in southern Africa?

Barnabas Ticha Muvhuti: It is not very encouraging. Only South Africa has a regular and robust art writing practice. This is not surprising because South Africa has universities and art institutions which teach art history, curatorial studies and art criticism. It also has multiple platforms to publish the work.

The same cannot be said of nations like Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia or Zimbabwe, which are yet to introduce such programmes. The few art writers in these countries either learned the skill on their own or have been trained in South Africa or elsewhere.

A lot more needs to be done to encourage art writing to complement the work the artists are doing. Some of these nations are producing some of the region’s most exciting artists whose work is not well covered or not noticed due to lack of art writing.

– Five artists, five nations: taking to the road to find southern Africa’s hidden stories
– https://theconversation.com/five-artists-five-nations-taking-to-the-road-to-find-southern-africas-hidden-stories-245767

January 24, 2025

9 million Ethiopian children have been forced out of school: what the government must do

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Tebeje Molla, Senior Lecturer, School of Education, Deakin University

More than nine million Ethiopian children are currently out of school. They are caught in the crossfire of armed conflicts, natural disasters, tribal tensions and economic hardships.

In 2023, Ethiopia had a total school-aged population of 35,444,482 children, about 52% of them primary school-aged. In the same year, only 22,949,597 children were enrolled in schools, leaving over 35% of school-aged children out of school. In the past year, the ongoing humanitarian crisis has worsened the situation, forcing even more children out of school.

Armed conflict erupted in 2020 between the federal government and Tigray regional government. The crisis was compounded by armed resistance to the government in the two largest regional states, Amhara and Oromia. There are also ongoing conflicts between the pastoralist communities of the Afar and Somali regions.

The Tigray war drained the nation’s economic resources. The destruction of infrastructure, particularly schools, in this conflict forced over a million children out of school. Since then conflict in the nine regions has also undermined government control, causing widespread disruptions to essential services, including education and healthcare.

Most recently, natural disasters, including earthquakes in the eastern parts of the country, have displaced tens of thousands of civilians, including children.

Scale of the crisis

The numbers tell the story. As of November 2024, around 10,000 schools were damaged and over 6,000 schools were closed due to conflict, violence and natural disasters. The worst hit regions are Amhara, Oromia, Tigray, Somali and Afar.

In three of these – Amhara, Oromia and Tigray – a total of 8,910,000 children are out of school. Amhara is particularly hard hit with only 2.3 million students enrolling for the current academic year out of 7 million.

I am a scholar of education policy with close to 15 years of research on Ethiopia’s education sector. It’s my view that children have borne the heaviest burden from the challenges that have overwhelmed the country’s capacity to provide essential services.

Leaving millions of children out of school has devastating consequences. There is a well documented increased risk of child labour, early marriage, and other forms of exploitation. Children who miss out on early education also face lifelong disadvantages, including limited employment opportunities and greater vulnerability to poverty and social exclusion.

When children are not in school and miss out on learning, the consequences are far-reaching. At a personal level, disrupted education hinders their cognitive, social and emotional development. It limits their ability to acquire skills needed for personal growth and future employment. At the societal level, a lack of education drives cycles of poverty, reduces economic productivity and weakens social cohesion. Under-educated citizens are less equipped to take an active part in civic life. It also stifles innovation, worsens inequalities and holds back national progress and stability.

Despair and hopelessness have driven countless young people from Ethiopia to risk their lives on dangerous migration routes to the Middle East. The loss of educational opportunities for millions of children also undermines the nation’s capacity to develop the human capital needed for its growth. An uneducated population is more susceptible to being drawn into ongoing conflict.

What can be done?

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in April 2018 with a pledge of change for Ethiopia. But Abiy’s government often sidesteps critical challenges, choosing to amplify positive narratives over confronting pressing issues.

Instead of tackling the crisis directly, Abiy has left regional state governments to find resources. For example, in November 2024, it was left to an advocacy group formed by Amhara’s ten public universities to appeal to donors for aid for education.

In early January 2025, the Amhara regional state government also asked stakeholders to help reopen closed schools. In Ethiopia’s federal structure, the education ministry sets national policies and standards, and manages higher education. Regional governments carry out these policies, oversee primary and secondary education, and adapt curricula to local contexts. Budgets are shared based mainly on the population size of each regional state.

Denying the reality of the crisis only deepens the wounds of the nation and delays the necessary actions for peace and recovery. It’s now time for Abiy’s government to take action. It must:

confront the crisis
engage in dialogue to resolve conflicts
appeal for international support.

The scale of the disruption demands a coordinated and comprehensive humanitarian response. Global development aid partners need to recognise that the education crisis in Ethiopia deserves immediate and sustained attention. Another round of global funds dedicated to education in emergencies is urgently needed.

The collective duty should extend beyond providing immediate relief. It should also encourage the Ethiopian government to resolve its various internal conflicts through peaceful dialogue. Diplomacy, negotiation and reconciliation should take precedence over war and violence.

– 9 million Ethiopian children have been forced out of school: what the government must do
– https://theconversation.com/9-million-ethiopian-children-have-been-forced-out-of-school-what-the-government-must-do-247697

January 23, 2025

Informal mining in South Africa is here to stay. Police brutality won’t end it – here’s what will

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Rosalind C. Morris, Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University

In mid-January 2024 over 1,000 hunger-weakened miners exited two abandoned mine shafts in Stilfontein, near Johannesburg in South Africa. They had been starved out by the police in Operation Vala Umgodi — meaning “plug the hole” – which had cut off food and water in an effort to “smoke out” a shadow workforce.

An estimated 6,100 closed mines are distributed across the country. Although closed, they are not sealed. Residual gold remains in these ruins, and is extracted by miners who come from across the region. They are mainly unlicensed or undocumented migrants, and work in groups that range from a few dozen individuals to highly organised teams of hundreds.

Television stations and social media feeds carried horrendous images of the emaciated figures of the living and the dead as they were brought to the surface in mid-January 2024, nearly six months after the operation was started.

The tales of what the police operation inflicted on these mineral gleaners are harrowing. Reports of illness and starvation, of weeks in fetid air next to decomposing corpses, as well as the eating of insects and even human flesh, were entered into evidence before the constitutional court. A case was brought before the court by an organisation seeking to halt the operation on human rights grounds.

This wasn’t the first siege undertaken as part of Operation Vala Umgodi. But it was the first sustained blockade.

What could lead to the adoption of nearly medieval military tactics in a nation with otherwise robust constitutional protections for human rights as well as strong regulations governing mine closure and rehabilitation? And why do so many South African citizens appear to agree with this brutal strategy? Who are the “criminals” captured as a result of such extreme measures?

I am an anthropologist and I’ve been studying the social life and history of South African gold mining for nearly three decades. I’ve also made a film with and about informal miners.

The problems posed by informal mining will not be solved by treating it as a question of criminality or border security. It must be understood in relation to the history of the formal industry, and in terms of regional and global economic forces. This includes the problem of demonetisation (the substitution of digital tokens for hard currency), rising rates of personal debt, exclusion from digital infrastructures and protracted local economic crises.

The world of the miners

Over the years I’ve come to know many individuals who have gone underground in search of what’s been left behind by large scale industrial mining. They come from the same places as did many of their forebears who worked in the formal industry. In its heyday South Africa’s mines employed nearly half a million people. They came from Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi, as well as the Eastern Cape of South Africa.

Some are former mine workers, now unemployed. Some are farmers or fishermen whose livelihoods have been made untenable by drought and floods, or by monetary and political crises at home.

These are the people on the lowest rung of informal mining’s ladder. Like most industries, this one is highly stratified. Above such desperate individuals are the criminal syndicates who traffic in arms, people, narcotics and gold. And, as journalists and even the World Gold Council acknowledge, they are enmeshed in webs of corruption. These include bankers, as well as management and security forces of formal mines, smelting and reclamation companies, buyers and traders, and smugglers who carry gold from South Africa to Dubai.

Those webs also include police and government officials with the authority to intervene. Or to profit handsomely for not intervening.

Yet, the police strategy and public sentiment in South Africa treat the gangsters and their virtually enslaved labourers as equally culpable for the economic, material and environmental devastation that afflicts the nation. And they largely ignore the depredations that resulted from the industry’s formal operations over a century and a half.

The context

The horrors in Stilfontein and elsewhere need to be understood in a global context. According to a 2024 report by the World Gold Council, 20% of the world’s newly mined gold comes from small scale and artisanal production. And an astonishing 80% of all the people who work in the gold sector worldwide do so as informal or artisanal mineworkers. Many work in the shadow of the law under extremely coercive circumstances.

In 2022, that meant about 20 million people were eking a living as small scale miners of gold. (Another 20 million or so work in similar fashion to obtain other minerals.) They, in turn, supported an estimated 270 million people. More people than live in Brazil, or about seven times the population of Canada.

These numbers reflect rapid growth in recent decades. The World Gold Council measures that upsurge from 1993, the year that triggered the era of globalisation with the fall of Soviet socialism and the emergence of new regionalisms (the North American Free Trade Agreement, the European Union).

What we see around the world today, in tariff wars, isolationalist nationalism and the vilification of migrants, can be traced to the same period, when capital began to fly around the world and multinational corporations began to shed their commitments to local communities of labourers.

South Africa’s story

Black workers in South Africa experienced this trend in acute ways.

The country’s mineral economy was defined by the compound system, in which mineworkers lived in single-sex hostels and travelled between the mines and their residential homes on short-term contract bases. Black workers were heavily dependent on the corporation for social goods that the state was not providing because of racial policies.

Over the past four decades many South African mining corporations, like those elsewhere, shrank their work forces and moved to subcontract labour for those remaining. In lieu of benefits, they offered workers more “freedom”. Many workers desired this. But freed from longer-term contracts and from the social goods extracted by unions, they also became vulnerable to other forces. And the HIV/AIDS epidemic afflicted communities with terrible strain.

Personal indebtedness rose dramatically. For those without documented citizenship or resident status, accessing credit meant turning to shadowy lenders, including gangs, who charged and enforced merciless interest rates. This in turn strengthened the power of the gangs, long part of the landscape in southern Africa.

The undocumented and the very poor have also often been forced into a realm of criminality where they depend on illegally mined and unminted gold. These are the people who are most easily preyed upon by armed criminal groups.

Popular mythology in South Africa attributes much violent crime to the “zama zamas” (the name means “to keep on trying” or “to gamble”). But there is no evidence of this.

In my observation, violence around the abandoned mines is mainly committed by gangs and their collaborators, who also coerce zama zamas in their underground labours, extracting from them the gold they manage to take from underground, charging security fees to enter shafts and to exit them, organising coerced prostitution, trafficking in child labour, and supplying the dynamite, the mercury, and the pneumatic drills in larger operations.

This is why the World Gold Council report is correct to speak of the exploitation of small scale and artisanal miners. It recommends that states prosecute the buyers, smelters and bankers, as well as political authorities who profit from this merciless economy.

Solutions

Laudable as these efforts to redirect prosecutorial zeal are, the solution to the problem of informal economies is not policing. Nor is it regulation.

In places where gold is found in surface deposits, licensing by the state can provide systems of oversight and a regulatory framework to protect workers. So can negotiated settlements with “criminal” gangs, who become more like corporate institutions in the process.

But in South Africa the possibility of self-organised mining appears to have passed. Rises in the price of gold have led to more intense and militarised competition among gangs. In addition, South Africa’s gold mines – the deepest in the world – aren’t hospitable sites for either licensing or decentralising strategies. It is too dangerous and too expensive to secure the thousands of miles of underground tunnels.

The solution must begin with massive regional economic repair, including debt relief for individuals and for sovereign states which can’t spend on social goods because of their interest obligations on foreign loans. It must include the stabilisation of local economies, and reinvestment in climate-resilient agriculture.

And migration needs to be rethought and decriminalised. The past of the gold mines is a history of migration. The future, shaped by climate change, will also be a story of migration. Above all, therefore, a change in consciousness is required.

– Informal mining in South Africa is here to stay. Police brutality won’t end it – here’s what will
– https://theconversation.com/informal-mining-in-south-africa-is-here-to-stay-police-brutality-wont-end-it-heres-what-will-247865

January 23, 2025

Africa without borders could help the continent prosper – what’s getting in the way

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Tinashe Sithole, Postdoctoral research fellow at the SARChI Chair: African Diplomacy and Foreign Policy, University of Johannesburg

The vision of a “borderless Africa” is one of unity and shared prosperity for the continent. It is rooted in the ideals of the pan-Africanist movement.

There are contradictions, however, between those ideals and the realities of governance on the continent.

Internal divisions, structural poverty, poor governance and competing national interests have undermined pan-Africanism over the decades. Political and economic instability are on the rise. The escalating conflict in Sudan has the potential to destabilise neighbouring countries. There is thus an urgent need to revive pan-Africanism to foster peace and unity.

Historically, pan-Africanism began in earnest with the first Pan-African Conference in London, in 1900. Influential leaders and movements championed it, notably in the wave of African liberation between the 1950s and 1970s.

The formation of the Organisation of African Unity in 1963 marked a critical step towards uniting Africa. Leaders committed to creating a United States of Africa. But they often undermined unity through domestic authoritarian practices, power struggles and governance failures.

My academic research has examined domestic conflicts that have affected many parts of Africa. It has analysed ethnic conflicts in Sudan, Rwanda and Kenya, state-sponsored election violence and coups in Lesotho and Mauritania. It shows that political intolerance, bad governance and social marginalisation fuel instability and conflict within African countries.

My latest research paper explored pan-Africanism and Africa’s developmental challenges. I argue that unity can only be realised if African states first address critical domestic challenges.

Challenges to pan-African integration

Many regional initiatives emphasise cross-border integration and development. The African Union’s Agenda 2063, a framework for socio-economic transformation, is one.

Agenda 2063 envisions a peaceful, prosperous and globally competitive Africa. It advocates for projects focusing on infrastructure, trade and empowerment of youth and women. But bad governance and socio-economic inequality within individual nations undermines these ambitions.

For example, the poor governance of mineral resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo has fuelled violent conflict. Over 5.6 million people are internally displaced. One million are exiled in neighbouring countries. Armed groups exploit the country’s mineral resources, worsening instability and undermining regional integration by creating cross-border humanitarian crises.

To bridge the gap between the ideals and practice of pan-Africanism, African leaders must commit to:

resolve domestic challenges and systemic contradictions
foster equitable development that transcends national borders.

Resistance to open markets

The goals of pan-Africanism are at odds with the desire of political elites to maintain power in their individual countries. They see open markets as a threat to their authority. The African Continental Free Trade Area shows this tension. It officially entered into force on 30 May 2019, and trading under its framework began on 1 January 2021.

However Nigeria, among other countries, initially delayed participating. It feared that cheaper imports would harm domestic industries and displace local jobs.

Agricultural sectors in less industrialised African nations are particularly vulnerable. They fear that competition from more industrialised African economies would hurt local farmers and deepen inequalities. For example, Botswana and Namibia banned South African vegetable imports in December 2021.

Botswana said the ban was meant to be good for local farmers and the economy. But it restricts free trade, creates cross-border supply barriers, and puts national interests first. This blocks regional integration goals. Botswana’s new government has begun lifting the ban.

Internal strife

Structural poverty, governance failures and ethnic politics in some countries are barriers to national unity. Political power is contested along ethnic lines, deepening divisions.

For example, former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe was celebrated as a pan-African leader for his strong stance against western imperialism. His legacy, however, shows he undermined elections through state-sponsored violence.

He also weakened national unity by eroding democratic processes. Political persecution and economic collapse on his watch fuelled a refugee crisis, causing resentment and tension in southern Africa.

Uneven benefits of regionalism

Regionalism has been championed as a pathway to pan-African unity. Yet its benefits are uneven. The Economic Community of West African States has successfully promoted stability and peace and mediated conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

However, political instability, unequal resource distribution, corruption and weak infrastructure hinder broader progress. This includes expanded trade networks and stronger regional governance.

Mozambique, for example, is experiencing post-election unrest. And a deadly insurgency in the northern Cabo Delgado province has raged since 2017. These examples highlight how Mozambique’s political leaders have failed to address local grievances, instead fuelling violence and conflict for their benefit. This is at the expense of domestic unity, peace and development.

A belated military intervention by the Southern African Development Community in July 2021 failed to end the insurgency.

What needs to be done

A stable, inclusive and equitable domestic foundation is the basis of regional integration.

For example, countries could use a framework that makes decision making and resource distribution more inclusive. This could promote national cohesion.

Practical action to meet governance challenges together would strengthen pan-Africanism.

One approach could be to establish a “cross-border unity and action forum” to help communities, business leaders and civil society bodies share best practices. They could also develop regional projects and take on common challenges.

Lastly, a “pan-African local action network” could connect grassroots bodies, community leaders and small business forums across Africa.

Local entrepreneurs in agriculture or technology could work with counterparts in other countries through exchange programmes. They could establish regional business incubators, or simplified cross-border trade agreements. These connections between citizens would drive unity, shared accountability and solidarity.

A borderless Africa

Pan-Africanism is often used to deflect responsibility for domestic failures while offering superficial solidarity.

Without addressing internal governance crises, structural poverty and ethnic divisions, African states will remain fragmented. If they cannot unite their own nations, can they ever hope to unite as a continent?

As Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first prime minister and president, stated:

If we are to remain free, if we are to enjoy the full benefits of Africa’s rich resources, we must unite…

– Africa without borders could help the continent prosper – what’s getting in the way
– https://theconversation.com/africa-without-borders-could-help-the-continent-prosper-whats-getting-in-the-way-245394

January 23, 2025

It’s hard for women in Sierra Leone to own land – here’s why

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Bankolay Theodore Turay, PhD Candidate, University of Lagos

Land disputes in Sierra Leone are a complex issue, dating back decades. Weak land tenure systems, rapid urbanisation and population growth, poverty, inequality, corruption and weak governance are some of the factors driving these widespread conflicts.

They have an impact on livelihoods, hinder development and contribute to social unrest.

One community that serves as a microcosm of these disputes is Grafton, 32km east of the capital, Freetown. This is where I’ve been carrying out research for my PhD, focusing on women’s access to land and sustainable livelihoods.

Grafton’s proximity to Freetown and its role as a corridor for migration have attracted land speculators, leading to land grabbing and fraud.

The rate of development has outpaced traditional land management systems, creating confusion and conflict over rights to own and use land. Broader weaknesses in land tenure and justice systems also fuel the land disputes in Grafton.

Women in the Grafton community confront particular difficulties. Social conventions, cultural customs and legal frameworks that favour male property ownership and control frequently work against them.

When male heirs get preference, women are left with very restricted land ownership rights, even when they have helped to acquire or cultivate the land.

Land grabbers frequently target women, especially widows and single mothers, taking advantage of their precarious social and economic status.

Many women are unable to defend their land rights in court because they do not have access to legal aid.

My PhD research explores women’s vulnerability to land disputes in Grafton. I argue that policymakers, civil society groups and international development agencies should work together on policies that will protect women’s land rights.

Weak governance and multiple actors

Many Grafton residents do not have official land titles. Ambiguity about who owns the land can lead to conflicts and land grabs.

Land administration organisations and law enforcement are weak. Illegal land transfers, false titles, evictions and manipulated records can go unpunished.

Although traditional leaders have a big say in how land is used and allocated, their power clashes with official legal frameworks.

Confusion and inconsistency may result from overlapping authorities.

Cultural and social norms

In Grafton and many other parts of Sierra Leone, women are subject to cultural and societal conventions that frequently give preference to male land ownership and inheritance.

Women, particularly widows and daughters, have little to no inheritance rights under customary inheritance laws. Widows are frequently left without a source of income when their husband’s land is not left to them.

Communities may exclude women who try to stand up for their land rights.

Many women don’t know how to defend those rights, due to a lack of education.

Economic marginalisation

Like many other women in the country, Grafton women experience severe economic marginalisation. It has a direct effect on their capacity to own property.

Many don’t have collateral or formal jobs that would help them borrow money. It also means they are less able to invest in land improvements or buy land. The rising cost of land makes this even harder, especially in peri-urban areas where demand for land is high.

Their economic weakness makes women more vulnerable to land grabbing and other forms of exploitation.

Lack of legal awareness and access to justice

It’s difficult for women to defend their land rights when they lack legal knowledge and access to court systems.

The distance to courts and legal aid offices is a barrier. And legal bills and court costs are not affordable for many. Women may experience bias and discrimination in the legal system, which could result in unjust treatment and unsatisfactory legal counsel.

Violence and intimidation

In Grafton, women who stand up for their land rights frequently encounter intimidation and violence. From threats and verbal abuse to physical attack and property destruction, this violence can take many forms.

These violent crimes feed a culture of insecurity and dread. In public settings or during communal gatherings, women have experienced verbal abuse, insults and threats of violence.

Women are occasionally subjected to physical abuse, such as beatings and sexual assault. As a kind of intimidation, women may have their homes, farms or livestock destroyed or harmed.

Land disputes committee

The Sierra Leone government established the Complaints Committee on Land Disputes in the Western Area to investigate complaints about land disputes concerning the state for the period between April 2018 and January 2021. The committee has now completed its work.

It made key resolutions, referred cases in court to the Ministry of Lands for adjudication, and made recommendations to strengthen land dispute mechanisms.

The Western Area includes Freetown and surrounding rural areas – Grafton among them.

The government acted in response to the increasing number of violent land disputes in the area.

The Complaints Committee had the potential to help women with their land tenure issues, though its actual effectiveness remains unclear.

The committee has now concluded its operations. Even during its active period, it faced challenges such as insufficient infrastructure, personnel and funding, which likely hindered its ability to effectively address land tenure issues, particularly those faced by women.

Delays and backlogs result from the committee’s inability to manage a high caseload.

What’s needed

The Grafton case study shows that preventing and solving land conflicts in Sierra Leone needs a multifaceted approach. It should do the following:

strengthen land tenure security
formalise customary land tenure systems through clear documentation
give women equal access to land ownership and inheritance rights through legal reforms and awareness campaigns
make legal aid services accessible and affordable
train legal professionals on gender-sensitive approaches to land rights and dispute resolution
improve women’s economic independence through skills training and access to finance
increase women’s participation in decision-making processes related to land use and management.

– It’s hard for women in Sierra Leone to own land – here’s why
– https://theconversation.com/its-hard-for-women-in-sierra-leone-to-own-land-heres-why-246935

January 23, 2025

AI in education: what those buzzwords mean

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Herkulaas MvE Combrink, Senior lecturer/ Co-Director, University of the Free State

You’ll be hearing a great deal about artificial intelligence (AI) and education in 2025.

The UK government unveiled its “AI opportunities action plan” in mid-January. As part of the plan it has awarded funding of £1 million (about US$1.2 million) to 16 educational technology companies to “build teacher AI tools for feedback and marking, driving high and rising education standards”. Schools in some US states are testing AI tools in their classrooms. A Moroccan university has become the first in Africa to introduce an AI-powered learning system across the institution.

And the theme for this year’s United Nations International Day of Education, observed annually on 24 January, is “AI and education: Preserving human agency in a world of automation”.

But what does AI mean in this context? It’s often used as a catch-all term in education, frequently mixed with digital skills, online learning platforms, software development, or even basic digital automation.

This mischaracterisation can warp perceptions and obscure the true potential and meaning of AI-driven technologies. These technologies were developed by scientists and experts in the field, and brought to scale through big tech companies. For many people, the term AI reminds them of systems like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which is capable of writing essays or answering complex queries. However, AI’s capabilities extend far beyond these applications – and each has unique implications for education.

I am an expert in AI, machine learning, infodemiology – where I study large amounts of information using AI to combat misinformation – knowledge mapping (discovering and visualising the contents of different areas of knowledge), and Human Language Technology (building) models that use AI to advance human language, such as live translation tools. I do all of this as the head of the Knowledge Mapping Lab, a research group within the Faculty of Economics and Management Sciences, and co-director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Digital Futures at the University of the Free State.

In this article I explain the technologies and science behind the buzzwords to shed light on what terms like machine learning and deep learning mean in education, how such technologies can be – or are already being – used in education, and their benefits and pitfalls.

Machine learning: personalisation in action

Machine learning is a subset of AI involving algorithms that learn from data to make predictions or decisions. In education, this can be used to adapt content to individual learners – what’s known as adaptive learning platforms. These can, for example, assess students’ strengths and weaknesses, tailoring lessons to their pace and style.

Imagine a mathematics app that asks questions based on the curriculum, then uses a learner’s answers to identify where they struggle and adjusts its curriculum to focus on foundational skills before advancing. Although the science is still being explored, that level of personalisation could improve educational outcomes.

Deep learning: assessment and accessibility

Deep learning is a branch of machine learning. It mimics the human brain through neural networks, enabling more complex tasks such as image and speech recognition. In education, this technology has opened new avenues for assessment and accessibility.

When it comes to assessment, AI-driven tools can assist in marking, analyse handwritten assignments, evaluate speech patterns in language learning, or translate content into multiple languages in real time. Such technologies can both help teachers to lessen their administrative loads and contribute to the learning journey.

Then there’s inclusivity. Speech-to-text and text-to-speech applications allow students with disabilities to engage with material in ways that were previously impossible.

Natural language processing: beyond ChatGPT

Natural language processing is a branch of AI that allows computers to aid in the understanding, interpretation and generation of human language. ChatGPT is the most familiar example but it is just one of many such applications.

The field’s potential for education is huge.

Natural language processing can be used to:

analyse student writing for sentiment and style to provide real time feedback into the thinking, tone and quality of writing. This extends beyond syntax and semantics
identify plagiarism
provide pre-class feedback to learners, which will deepen classroom discussions
summarise papers
translate complex texts into more digestible formats.

Reinforcement learning: simulating and gamifying education

Gamifying education is a way to keep kids engaged while they learn in a virtual space. sritanan/Getty Images

In reinforcement learning, computer systems learn through trial and error.

This is particularly promising in gamified educational environments. These are platforms where the principles of gamification and education are applied in a virtual world that students “play” through. They learn through playing. Over time, the system learns how to adapt itself to make the content more challenging based on what the student has already learned.

Challenges

Of course, these technologies aren’t without their flaws and ethical issues. They raise questions about equity, for instance: what happens when students without access to such tools fall further behind? How can algorithms be prevented from reinforcing biases already present in educational data? In the earlier mathematical example this might not be as much of an issue – but imagine the unintended consequences of reinforcing bias in subjects like history.

Accuracy and fairness are key concerns, too. A poorly designed model could misinterpret accents or dialects, disadvantaging specific groups of learners.

An over-reliance on such tools could also lead to an erosion of critical thinking skills among both students and educators. How do we strike the right balance between assistance and autonomy?

And, from an ethical point of view, what if AI is allowed to track and adapt to a student’s emotional state? How do we ensure that the data collected in such systems is used responsibly and securely?

Experimentation

AI’s potential needs to be explored through experimentation. But this works best if managed under controlled environments. One way to do this is through regulatory AI “sandboxes” – spaces in which educators and designers can experiment with new tools and explore applications.

This approach has been used at the University of the Free State since 2023. As part of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Digital Futures, the sandboxes serve as open educational resources, offering videos, guides and tools to help educators and institutional leaders understand and responsibly implement AI technologies. The resource is open to both students and educators at the university, but our primary focus is on improving educators’ skills.

AI in education is here to stay. If its components are properly understood, and its implementation is driven by good research and experimentation, it has the potential to augment learning while education remains human-centred, inclusive and empowering.

– AI in education: what those buzzwords mean
– https://theconversation.com/ai-in-education-what-those-buzzwords-mean-247587