Over the past decade, In On Africa (IOA) has positioned itself as one of the top research, intelligence and publishing firms in and focused exclusively on Africa. The company works with a wide array of clients across the African continent through its complementary divisions, service offerings and insight-driven products.
The infographic provides a snapshot of IOA – its core offerings, mission, values, vision and key differentiators.
Journalists face intimidation and death in parts of the sub-continent directly in proportion to a rise in political oppression in some countries. The role of the media is not appreciated by leadership in the region’s democracies, and is thwarted in non-democratic states.
Of all professions, journalism in Africa requires courage; and the reporter, whether consciously or just doing their job, becomes an activist. Intentional or not, his or her work is progressive, moving the continent forward by providing information. Despots are exposed and incompetency and criminality are revealed, while economic and social advancement is celebrated. Even in countries where democracy is stifled, the impulse of journalists to know what story is important and pursue facts is never entirely quashed. Read more
As a local election is held under a State of Emergency, jihadist militants linked with al-Qaeda mounted attacks to further destabilise a fragmented country. The Islamic State (ISIS) also seeks Mali’s breakup to open a way for the terror group’s migration southward.
Having postponed local elections four times for security reasons, Mali’s central government led by President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita decided the polling must proceed on 20 November 2016. Further delays would have ensured continuing governance problems at the local level, where mayors, town councillors and others were needed to do administrative duties. The local governance system had to be defended against the Islamic jihadist groups whose goal is to impede governance at all levels. With Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA) to the north gradually replacing chaos with national sovereignty and driving out ISIS fighters, Mali presents an opportunity for terror groups to further exacerbate a nation in crisis. Into Mali’s vacuum of lawlessness will filter ISIS fighters, creating a southern beachhead and teaming up with militants affiliated with al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM) to expand into Sub-Saharan Africa. In Nigeria and Cameroon, Boko Haram has pledged allegiance to ISIS, and this alliance will spread their fight. Read more
Oil companies pose a threat to the future of Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo but cases for sustainable development approaches to park management as an alternative means to developing the region economically, present greater long-term social, economic and environmental benefits for the region.
Written by Lonnie Kehler; Updated by Tanya Bruggemann
Through the World Heritage Convention UNESCO seeks to identify and preserve natural and cultural heritage sites that have incalculable value. Unfortunately, 55 established World Heritage sites are listed as “in danger”, and Africa has more than its fair share at 17. The high number of affected African sites reflects particular challenges of the continent, notably civil unrest and war.2 The Virunga National Park in the DRC and Uganda, Africa’s oldest national park, is one of those sites.
Instability in the region has had devastating consequences for the park, for its wildlife and for those who look after it. The park and its rangers are threatened by poachers and rebel groups, and now another threat, in foreign oil companies interested in exploration within park borders, has been developing over the last few years.
IOA was privileged to participate in the 2016 Sustainability Summit at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) – a two-day event founded and organised by Blank Canvas International. The Sustainability Summit is a platform for trusted collaboration between business leaders and building of relationships towards more sustainable, agile business for Africa.
IOA and Blank Canvas International collaborated to develop the Sustainability & Redefining African Development report. The report assesses Africa’s efforts and progress toward ‘sustainable development’ and argues that what is needed is real, transformative change to unlock the incredible potential within Africa’s diverse communities, businesses, economies and cultures.
Surprisingly, no shots have been fired by African navies against foreign vessels that illegally plunder fish and undersea mineral resources from Africa’s territorial waters. However, as fish stocks diminish and African peoples’ understanding of the value of sea minerals grows, aggressive responses will replace government’s lackadaisical attitudes.
The scenario in which Mozambican, Namibian, Tanzanian and South African warships or boats from other African countries’ navies chase off or even fire upon an ever-growing fleet of foreign pirate ships is easy to imagine. No, the pirates are not the old-fashioned type that raid commercial vessels or kidnap ship crews or well-heeled guests on luxury yachts as is practiced off Somalia in East Africa and in the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa. Rather, the invading armada is comprised of industrial-capacity vessels whose aim is to loot Africa’s aquatic natural resources.
In so doing, Chinese fishing ships decimate fisheries, rendering African fishermen who for generations have depended on the waters for their livelihoods unemployed and made fish expensive or unavailable to local markets and their customers who rely on fish for basic nutrition. Aquatic life is just one resource that is being looted. Mineral resources have also drawn pirates. Read more
After Madagascar was diplomatically isolated following a 2009 coup d’état, normalcy seemed to have been restored to the island with the installation in 2014 of the government of Hery Rajaonarimampianina, which was elected in 2013 with 54% of the vote. However, the underlying causes for political instability remain, including long-held rivalries between major political leaders. IOA discussed these issues with Adrien M. Ratsimbaharison, Professor of Political Science at Benedict College in the US, author of the ‘The Failure of the United Nations Development Programs for Africa’ and long-time commentator on his native Madgascar.
Professor Ratsimbaharison, has political stability returned to the island?
The short answer to this question is that political stability has not returned to the island, despite the signing of the Roadmap for Ending the Crisis document in September 2011, the holding of the presidential and legislative elections in 2013, and the inauguration of the new president, Hery Rajaonarimampianina, in January 2014.
The long answer is that the Roadmap for Ending the Crisis signed by the major political parties in September 2011, which allowed the holding of the presidential and legislative elections in 2013, did not resolve the conflicts between the major political actors, particularly between former President Marc Ravalomanana and former Mayor Andry Rajoelina. In this sense, I totally agree with the assessment of the International Crisis Group (ICG) that the Roadmap and the ensuing elections were just a “cosmetic end to the crisis,” given the fact that the conflicts between these major political actors were deliberately swept under the rug through this agreement. What the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the international community tried to achieve through the Roadmap was just the establishment of a so-called “consensual transition,” and the holding of the presidential and legislative elections. That was what was celebrated as being the “return to a constitutional order” after the so-called ‘coup d’état’ in 2009. As a result, the conflicts and their underlying causes remain untouched. In fact, the same underlying causes are now starting to create new instability and most likely, a new crisis sooner or later. Read more
A UN panel calling Namibia out on breaking international sanctions by making military deals with Asia’s pariah state, North Korea, has wider implications. African countries can no longer blindly do what they want and laugh at international law without consequences.
The bilateral advantages were too tantalising for African countries to resist or for North Korea to withstand exploiting. Condemned in the international community as a rogue nation with a horrid human rights record, North Korea is subject to ever more strenuous sanctions aimed at hindering its nuclear and military ambitions.
The country is ruled by tyrannical Kim Jong-un, who may or may not be insane but is sufficiently ruthless to execute family members. Since 2006, the UN Security Council (UNSC) has passed five major resolutions aimed at countering North Korea’s nuclear programme. North Korea will go to any lengths to get what it wants, in this case, nuclear weapons and intercontinental missile delivery systems for those bombs that will ensure that Pyongyang gets whatever it wants in perpetuity. A foreign policy based on lies, insults, bellicosity and threats has unnerved the country’s immediate neighbours and disturbed the superpowers of the People’s Republic of China and the US.
Four African countries in particular, Ethiopia, the Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda, have leaderships that seem not to care about the prospect of a nuclear-armed North Korea, nor about the millions of North Koreans oppressed by the Kim military regime. The fulsome descriptions of a “strong friendship between development partners,” that African heads of state and diplomats use to praise their relations with Pyongyang refer to a relationship with a regime, not a silent and powerless Korean people. Read more
Central Africa’s democracies are endangered by leaders whose desire to retain power is subverting democratic governance. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is now on the brink of dictatorship as its leader seeks to perpetuate a family dynasty.
Judging by the unfolding game plan of President Joseph Kabila, the DRC is to be led by a family dynasty. National elections scheduled for 2016 to allow the DRC’s people to vote for Kabila’s replacement will most certainly not take place. DRC observers and international diplomats had concluded this by mid-year, and in July the UN Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) conceded this as well. Kabila wants MONUSCO out of the country to allow him a free hand at seizing power through unconstitutional means. The UN suspects a plot, and is staying put.
Kabila’s original plan was to deny seeking to manipulate the national constitution to allow him to stay in power beyond his constitutionally-allowable two terms, while working behind the scenes to enact such changes. Under intense international scrutiny, Kabila has been unable to pull this off, and has enacted Plan B: stall any government succession by not setting a date for new elections. The flaw in the DRC system is that the president is the one who sets election dates, rather than having a timetable firmly written into the constitution. Kabila has been able to work this shortcoming to his advantage.Meanwhile, the contraction of civil liberties to curtail political opposition campaigning and the arrest of political opposition figures has become so flagrant that the former colonial power of the Congo, Belgium, as well as France and the US, are considering sanctions against Kabila and his government co-conspirators against democracy. Read more
Nigeria has been battling Islamic militants in its North-East since 2009, yet the government now also faces the prospect of a second internal conflict – for very different reasons. Militant groups in the Niger Delta have sabotaged pipelines and launched attacks on vital oil infrastructure in protest after a reigniting of long-standing grievances held by local communities. In an interview extracted from the July 2016 edition of IOA’s Africa Conflict Monitor (ACM), Udeme Akpan, a Nigeria-based IOA consultant and journalist and author with over 20 years of experience examining the dynamics of Nigeria’s energy sector, says that environmental devastation in the Niger Delta is “real and forms the basis of the conflict.”
Since early 2016, violence has flared up in the Niger Delta, the heartland of Nigeria’s oil production. The attacks have been conducted by a range of militia groups, foremost among them the Nigerian Delta Avengers. The group has declared that its goal is to bring Nigeria’s oil industry to a complete halt. Can you tell us more about these militant groups, and the reasons behind their attacks?
The Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) is made up of militants who were formerly a part of insurgent movements in the early 2000s. These militants had in the past demonstrated their commitment to aggressively protecting the interests of the region, lashing out against foreign-owned oil facilities and government paramilitary groups. But the thinking in some quarters is that members of the NDA also have a personal interest in renewing conflict, as they, in one way or another, benefited from concessions made by the previous administration led by then President Goodluck Jonathan. Read more
Ignorance and bigotry towards Africa are on display during the US presidential election cycle from both candidates and the broadcast media that reports their antics. Africans who watch the coverage on international news stations like CNN confront a TV image at odds with history and current reality.
Africans have reason to be concerned about the 2016 US presidential election, which features as one of its two principal candidates, a demagogue who would ban immigration and even visitation to the US by citizens of virtually every African country. If the ban on Muslim immigration to the US, that is the main platform of the Republican Party’s nominee, Donald Trump, is implemented, then no African nation will be spared having its citizens prohibited from entering the US. Thousands of Africans who regularly travel to the US on business, to train as soldiers with the US military, to study, to work, to act in movies and win Oscars, and even African leaders, would be blocked.
This is obviously big news in Africa. However, the impact Trump’s immigration policies would have on Africa is a story that is nowhere told in the US media, be it the broadcast media or web-based news media. Africa can be forgiven if it feels that it is, once again, an overlooked continent. Africans also have reason to be angry at the lack of knowledge that news commentators and, similarly, politicians share on African current events, and not only African, but US history. Given the cultural, military and trade ties between the US and Africa, much is at stake for Africans when Americans go to the polls in November. And much is to be feared by Africans.
Africa depicted through the prism of American domestic politics
US network news programmes are aired in Africa via satellite TV and viewed by millions across the continent. CNN is a global broadcast news provider, on par with the UK’s BBC, and is probably viewed by more Africans than any other news channel, again via satellite TV reception. CNN’s news editorial policy is to refer to Libya as a ‘failed state’. Read more
