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March 30, 2026

Heat shield safety concerns raise stakes for Nasa’s Artemis II Moon mission

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ed Macaulay, Lecturer in Physics and Data Science, Queen Mary University of London

The astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen are preparing to launch into space on a trajectory that will make them the first humans to travel to the Moon in over half a century.

Their 10-day mission, known as Artemis II, loops around the Moon but will not land. It will see them travel 4,700 miles (7,600 kilometres) beyond the lunar far side in Nasa’s Orion spacecraft. As such, the four astronauts will travel further from Earth than any humans before them.

The quarter-of-a-million mile Artemis II expedition is audacious, but it’s the last five minutes of the mission that might be the most cause for concern for the safety of the astronauts.

An uncrewed test of the Orion spacecraft in 2022 first highlighted problems with the heat shield. This is the part of Orion that bears the brunt of the searing heat the capsule experiences during re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere.

When engineers examined the Orion heat shield from 2022’s Artemis I mission, they found large chunks of material had been lost. The worry was that, should this happen again on the crewed Artemis II mission, it could expose the interior of the capsule to dangerously high temperatures.

Technicians at Kennedy Space Center applied more than 180 blocks of ablative material to Orion’s heat shield.
NASA/Isaac Watson

Since the earliest days of human spaceflight, engineers have protected capsules from the extreme heat of re-entry with so-called “ablative” heat shields, made from material that’s designed to burn away evenly as the capsule scorches its way through the atmosphere.

To meet the demands of the reusable space shuttle, Nasa developed an incredible heat shield system made from ultra-light tiles of glass-coated silica fibres. While this heat shield had extraordinary thermal properties, it was also exceptionally fragile, and required exhaustive maintenance after every shuttle mission.

It was damage to this fragile and exposed protection system that caused the tragic loss of space shuttle Columbia in 2003. For the Artemis programme, Nasa has returned to the concept of an ablative heat shield.

Artist’s impression of Orion re-entering Earth’s atmosphere.
Nasa

The heat shield for the Orion capsule is composed of a material called Avcoat, based on the material originally developed for the Apollo programme. Although Nasa considered other, newer materials for the Orion heat shield, they ultimately decided on the material that had been proven in flight by the Apollo missions.

However, the structure of Orion’s heat shield differs from those used during Apollo. The Apollo heat shield comprised a singular honeycomb matrix of about 320,000 individually filled hexagonal segments. To make the heat shield for Orion more efficient and reproducible to manufacture, Nasa has opted for a configuration of around 180 individual blocks.

This heat shield was first tested in 2014 when an uncrewed Orion capsule was launched to an apogee of 3,600 miles by a Delta IV rocket. The capsule blazed through the atmosphere on its return at a temperature of about 2,200°C (4,000°F), but the heat shield proved itself capable of withstanding such an inferno.

Large chunks of the heat shield were lost (red circles) during the Artemis I mission in 2022.
Nasa

The next test of the Orion capsule was the Artemis I mission in 2022. This was the first flight of the powerful Space Launch System rocket, and an uncrewed demonstration of the mission planned for Artemis II. Hurtling through Earth’s atmosphere from a far greater distance than the first test, the spacecraft reached temperatures of around 2,800°C (5,000°F). It’s here that the first concerns about the Avcoat heat shield were raised.

Instead of burning away evenly over the whole surface, parts of the Artemis I heat shield were lost unexpectedly in uneven chunks. This uneven ablation makes modelling the thermal loads of re-entry more unpredictable, and raises the possibility that the Orion capsule could be exposed to dangerous levels of heating.

The Artemis II crew members (left to right): mission specialist Jeremy Hansen CSA (Canadian Space Agency), mission specialist Christina Koch, pilot Victor Glover, and commander Reid Wiseman (Nasa).
Nasa/Isaac Watson

On investigation, the cause of this uneven ablation was found to be irregular releases of gases trapped within the heat shield material, compounded by the “skip re-entry” profile adopted by the mission.

In the skip profile, Orion first grazes the edge of the atmosphere to slow down. It then uses the aerodynamic lift of the capsule to skip back out of the atmosphere, before re-entering for its final descent to Earth. The skip profile is so named because it somewhat resembles a stone skipping across a pond.

Nasa investigators found that, when heating rates decreased during the period between dips into the atmosphere, thermal energy accumulated inside the Avcoat material. This led to the build up of gases and, in turn, the internal pressure – causing cracks and the uneven shedding of material.

Based on the lessons from Artemis I, Nasa has adopted a number of measures to protect the crew of Artemis II. For the first crewed mission of the programme, Nasa has kept the Avcoat heat shield material, but updated the design of the blocks to help the gases to escape during re-entry.

Furthermore, instead of the skip profile, Nasa has now opted for a more direct re-entry mode for the Orion capsule. This reduces the uncertainty in the heating profile and means less time at peak temperatures for trapped gases to damage the heat shield, but also means that the crew will be subjected to increased deceleration on re-entry.

Ex-Nasa engineers’ concerns about the Artemis II heat shield (ABC News)

Safety first

At the height of the drama in the film Apollo 13, flight director Gene Kranz famously declares to the team at mission control that “failure is not an option”.

Although the line was in fact the product of the film’s screenwriters, it’s become not just the second-most quotable line from the film, but also somewhat of a mantra at Nasa itself.

Nowhere is this more true than with the heat shield of Artemis II. During the final phase of the Artemis II mission, there’s no backup, no contingency, and no chance of escape. The four astronauts on board will be depending on a few inches of resin-coated silica to shield themselves from temperatures approaching half that of the surface of the Sun.

Human spaceflight has always brought with it calculated risks, but it has also provided a uniquely human perspective on our place in the cosmos. The Artemis II mission will make its crew the first humans in over half a century to observe the blue marble of planet Earth in its entirety with their own eyes.

The crew will carry with them the hopes and aspirations of a whole new generation of explorers. They will be depending on the meticulous work of thousands of scientists and engineers for their safe return, bringing with them a renewed human perspective on not just the Moon, but the planet we all call home.

Ed Macaulay does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Heat shield safety concerns raise stakes for Nasa’s Artemis II Moon mission – https://theconversation.com/heat-shield-safety-concerns-raise-stakes-for-nasas-artemis-ii-moon-mission-275853

March 30, 2026

Apple at 50: eight technology leaps that changed our world

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Nick Dalton, Associate Professor in the School of Computer Science, Northumbria University, Newcastle

In the early 1970s, the idea of an ordinary person owning a computer sounded absurd. Computers back then were more like aircraft carriers or nuclear power plants than household appliances – vast machines housed in data centres operated by teams of specialists, serving governments, universities and large corporations.

Then came Apple.

Founded on April 1 1976 by “college dropouts” Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, the Silicon Valley startup did not invent computing. What it did was arguably more important: it helped turn computing into a personal technology.

Before Apple, computers were largely sold in kit form. Jobs saw that people wanted them pre-assembled and ready to run. The earliest Apple I units, featuring handmade koa wooden cases, now sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

As an early Apple adopter and app developer, here’s my selection of the company’s (and Jobs’s) most significant technological achievements over the last 50 years.

Apple II – beige yet distinctive

Early personal computers were more curiosities than practical tools. The Apple II, launched in June 1977, introduced something new: style. Even its colour – beige! – was distinctive, contrasting with the black metal boxes common at that time.

The use of colour graphics was both new and exciting, and the keyboard felt satisfying to use. A simple speaker, with only a single-bit output, was ingeniously coaxed into producing tones and even speech-like sounds. The design revolution stretched as far as the packaging: Jerry Manock, Apple’s first in-house designer, placed the machine in a moulded plastic case which looked sleek and professional.

The mouse – a whole new way of interacting

By 1979, the 24-year-old Jobs – sensing that tech giant IBM was catching up with Apple – went looking for the next big thing. The photocopier company Xerox, wanting pre-IPO shares in Apple, offered a visit to its nearby research labs as an inducement. Jobs realised that researchers such as Alan Kay at Xerox’s Palo Alto research centre were creating the next generation of computing interfaces.

Central to this was a device invented by Kay’s mentor, Douglas Engelbart, at Stanford University in the mid-1960s and nicknamed “the mouse”. Engelbart’s vision of computers as machines to augment the human mind inspired Kay and colleagues to create graphical displays in which users interacted with scrollbars, buttons, menus and windows.

Macintosh – dawn of the modern product launch

Jobs thought anyone should be able to use a computer. In January 1984, the first Apple Mac pushed this idea to new extremes. The traditional need for obscure computer commands (and manuals) vanished. Early adopters such as myself felt we just knew how to do everything.

But the Mac’s launch was not just another technological leap for Apple. It also inspired the now-familiar cultural moment of the modern product launch. Following a teasing Super Bowl advert directed by Ridley Scott, Jobs used a 1,500-seat theatre on January 24 to create a stage performance centred on a single charismatic presenter. Jobs let a small, square and still-beige computer (then known as Macintosh) out of its bag – and it began speaking for itself, to rapturous applause.

Video: MacEssentials.

Pixar – Jobs’s side hustle

In its first decade, Apple grew at an exceptional rate – but it also came close to financial collapse on several occasions. This led to one of the most dramatic moments in Apple’s history when, in May 1985, the company forced Jobs out.

A year later and now in charge of the startup NeXT Inc, Jobs bought a division of George Lucas’s film company which was soon rebranded as Pixar. Its RenderMan software generated images by distributing processing across multiple machines simultaneously.

Pixar, jokingly referred to as Jobs’s “side hustle”, would become one of the world’s most influential (and valuable) animation production companies, having released the first fully computer-animated feature film in Toy Story (1995).

Toy Story (1995) official trailer.

iMac – a meeting of minds

After a failed attempt to develop a new operating system with IBM, Apple eventually bought Jobs’s company NeXT. In September 1997, he returned to Apple as interim CEO with the company “two months from bankruptcy”. The move, though welcomed by many Apple users, terrified some of its employees. Jobs quickly began firing staff and shutting down failed products.

During this restructuring, he visited Apple’s design studio and immediately hit it off with young British designer Jony Ive. Their meeting of minds led to the 1998 candy-coloured translucent iMac. Essentially smaller, cheaper NeXT machines, iMac (the i stood for internet) also kicked off another Apple habit: abandoning ageing technology. The floppy disk drive was ditched in favour of a CD drive – a move heavily criticised at the time, but later widely copied.

Video: TheAppleFanBoy – Apple & Computer Archives.

iPod – 1,000 songs in your pocket

For Apple, computing was always about more than, well, computing. In 2001, the company began focusing on processing sound and video, not just text and pictures. By November that year, it had released the iPod – a personal music player capable of storing “1,000 songs in your pocket”, compared with a maximum of 20-30 on each cassette tape in a Sony Walkman.

The iPod used an elegant “click wheel” to operate the screen. Music was synced through a new application called iTunes. By 2005, people were using iTunes to manage audio downloaded automatically from the internet using a process called RSS. This in turn put the pod in podcasting.

Video: xaviertic.

iPhone – a computer in everyone’s hands

By 2007, many mobile phone companies had approached Apple about merging the iPod with their phones. Instead, on January 9, Jobs unveiled Apple’s most ambitious product yet: a combined phone, music player and Mac computer – all at the size of a handset with no physical keyboard and huge screen.

Most media “experts”, from TechCrunch to the Guardian, predicted the iPhone would bomb. Steve Ballmer, then CEO of Microsoft, mocked the US$500 price tag, saying nobody would buy it. In fact, 1.4 million iPhones were sold by the end of the year – and over 3 billion more since then. This truly put a computer into everyone’s hands – and opened the door to social media as we know it today.

Video: Mac History.

App Store’s software revolution

By mid-2008, the iPhone enabled third-party developers the chance to to create a dizzying range of new applications. At the same time, the App Store – launched on July 10 2008 – addressed one of the most complex problems: how to distribute and commercialise these “apps”. Historically, they were often copied and distributed freely. The App Store changed this, using strong encryption to ensure the copy sold could only be used by that specific user, thus eliminating software piracy.

By establishing the first (eponymous) App Store, Apple changed the way people discover and purchase software. This led to an explosion of apps and a simple but powerful idea: whatever you wanted to do, someone, somewhere, had already built it. Apple captured this shift in a slogan that became part of everyday language: “There’s an app for that”.

Time and again, this extraordinary company has anticipated the value of opening up computing to everyone. Happy birthday, Apple.

Nick Dalton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Apple at 50: eight technology leaps that changed our world – https://theconversation.com/apple-at-50-eight-technology-leaps-that-changed-our-world-279541

March 30, 2026

Despite massive casualties in Ukraine, Russia is unlikely to run out of soldiers anytime soon – here’s why

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Charlie Walker, Associate Professor of Comparative Sociology, University of Southampton

Russia has begun a spring offensive in Ukraine, launching a major assault on the “fortress belt” of heavily defended cities in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. At the same time, a wave of nearly 1,000 drones and missiles targeted civilian, energy, and transport infrastructure across a wide swath of territory in a bid to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defences.

Ukraine’s technology-driven tactical nous has enabled it to kill or wound more Russian troops than are being recruited, month on month. But reports from Ukraine’s military commander Oleksandr Syrskyi that the Kremlin plans to add more than 400,000 new recruits in 2026, suggest that Russia intends to continue with its “meat grinder” strategy of attempting to overwhelm Ukraine along the front lines with sheer weight of numbers while undermining national morale by destroying its energy infrastructure.

Of course, the meat grinder involves a high level of casualties on the Russian side. This has led some western observers to suggest that Vladimir Putin might be forced to the negotiating table simply because his military can’t get enough troops to continue in this way.

The idea that Russia will have trouble recruiting enough soldiers is a hangover from some of its past wars, where the dire treatment of its soldiers and veterans led at times to considerable disillusionment. This idea has been raised in the current war against Ukraine.

During the Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s and the first Russian-Chechen War in the 1990s, soldiers’ mothers organisations across Russia placed the conditions under which their sons served their country under the spotlight. Poor service conditions, hazing and corruption – and the state’s failure to provide adequate support and recognition to veterans and the families of fallen soldiers – eroded the image of the Russian military. This led to a breakdown in society-military relations and serious problems in the recruitment and retention of soldiers.

This theme remains ever-present in western reporting of the war. There has been a great deal of media focus on draft avoidance, low morale and discipline in the field and, the poor treatment of veterans. And the enlistment of people serving prison terms as well as troops from allies such as North Korea and Serbia are also a big focus of attention in western media coverage.

Advertising soldiering as a “real job” for “real men” appeared to signal desperation. And the fact that soldiers appeared only to be fighting for money – or because they were coerced – implied that genuine support either for the war or the regime was weak. Evgeny Prigozhin’s attempted mutiny in 2023 was a more concrete and spectacular example of the potential for Russia’s military mobilisation to implode.

Rebuilding military citizenship in Russia

But in one important respect, this war is being waged differently from earlier wars in Chechnya and Afghanistan. Putin has been determined to prevent any kind of breakdown in society-military relations. He has made a concerted effort to re-engineer the relationship between the army, the state and Russian society since the 2000s – precisely to avoid a repetition of this outcome.

Both the Afghan and first Chechen wars were marked by a breakdown in the social contract between soldiers and the state, or what we call “military citizenship”. This is the reciprocal relationship whereby the state provides soldiers with forms of social and legal recognition – living wages, access to housing and decent healthcare, family support, and a degree of social respect. In exchange they carry out military service.

These forms of reciprocity clearly collapsed after the Afghan and first Chechen wars. It created a rift between the military and the state that was personified in soldiers’ social and political marginalisation and dissent and disillusionment in senior military ranks. In response to this, Russia has made significant long-term changes. A civic council was established in 2006 under the control of the Ministry of Defence – chaired by patriotic film-maker Nikita Mikhalkov – specifically to guide this process.

This was followed in 2008 by the Strategy for the Development of the Russian Armed Forces. As part of this, Russia has introduced extensive material benefits relating to housing, pensions, salaries and social guarantees for soldiers. The in-house newspaper of Russia’s defence ministry, Krasnaya Zvezda, trumpeted that, under these reforms, “contract soldiers are becoming the country’s middle class”. This is, of course, the government line, but it reflects the importance the Kremlin places in being at least seen to address this historic problem.

This programme of reforms has been accompanied by work to rebuild military patriotism. Civil society organisations such as the Immortal Regiment, a massive and highly active organisation of veterans, are helping to mobilise Russia’s proudly held military tradition from the second world war (known in Russia as the “great patriotic war”).

These forms of material and symbolic recognition will not, of course, appeal to all Russian men. Putin has been forced over the course of the war to introduce stringent rules and severe punishments to prevent draft dodging and the mass emigration of military-aged men.

But on the other hand, many Russians still live in hardship as a result of the country’s shaky economic transition after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. For many young and older men in deindustrialising parts of provincial Russia, the army is still seen as the only prospect of social mobility. And this has been reinforced by the benefits provided to the military in recent years.

This does not mean that there are no concerns about conditions in the military, the quality of social protection for soldiers and their families, and – ultimately – about the legitimacy of the war in Ukraine. The relationship the Russian state has attempted to reestablish with society, and with its men in particular, remains problematic. It is still marked by tensions that Putin is either trying to address or attempting to hide. And desertion remains a significant problem for the Russian military.

But the high military salaries and sign-on bonuses continue to attract a steady stream of recruits. So we need to question this idea that relations between military and society will fall apart now and force Russia to the negotiating table. Given the boost to Russia’s economy provided by the current war in the Middle East, the west would do better to focus on how it can assist Ukraine on the battlefield.

Charlie Walker currently receives funding from Economic and Social Research Council and Russia Strategic Initiative

Bettina Renz has previously received funding from the Russia Strategic Initiative

– ref. Despite massive casualties in Ukraine, Russia is unlikely to run out of soldiers anytime soon – here’s why – https://theconversation.com/despite-massive-casualties-in-ukraine-russia-is-unlikely-to-run-out-of-soldiers-anytime-soon-heres-why-278119

March 30, 2026

Plus de preuves, mais pas plus de justice : les limites des technologies visuelles dans les affaires de droits de la personne

Source: The Conversation – in French – By Kamari Maxine Clarke, Full Professor, University of Toronto

Les caméras corporelles, les satellites et les outils de vérification numériques génèrent plus de preuves de violence que jamais. Mais ce sont toujours les institutions chargées de rendre la justice qui décident de ce qui constitue une preuve ou non.

Certains des reportages les plus marquants sur la violence sanctionnée par l’État portent sur des litiges concernant les preuves, à savoir qui contrôle les vidéos, les métadonnées et les canaux sur lesquels les événements sont enregistrés en temps réel.

Au Minnesota, en janvier 2026, cela s’est traduit par des batailles judiciaires et une pression publique pour la conservation – et la diffusion éventuelle – des images des caméras corporelles de l’Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) après les meurtres d’Alex Pretti et de Renée Good, parallèlement à des conflits plus larges sur la transparence fédérale lors des opérations de contrôle de l’immigration.

Les médias nationaux américains ont suivi l’utilisation par la population de messageries cryptées telles que Signal pour repérer et signaler les activités de l’ICE, ce qui a déclenché une enquête du FBI qui, selon les spécialistes en libertés civiles, teste la frontière entre l’observation protégée et la prétendue « ingérence ».

Pendant ce temps, au Canada, la GRC déploie des caméras d’intervention à l’échelle nationale, soulevant des questions sur le fait que les données collectées par les services de sécurité de l’État pourraient constituer une future archive pour les procédures de plainte, les poursuites pénales et les litiges civils.

Ce à quoi nous assistons, c’est un « régime juriscopique » – un enchevêtrement dense de technologies scopiques (caméras corporelles, satellites, vérification à source libre), de protocoles scientifiques et d’horizons de preuve juridiques qui, ensemble, régissent ce qui peut être vu, vérifié et considéré comme la « vérité » – définissant qui sont les spécialistes et quelles formes de connaissance sont ignorées en raison de leur nature anecdotique, non scientifique ou non juridique.

Comment les communautés documentent la violence

Les citoyennes et citoyens s’approprient également ces outils de documentation.

Les familles qui ont subi des violences et la disparition forcée ou le meurtre d’êtres chers mettent de plus en plus en place des « infrastructures de preuves » locales grâce à ces technologies.

Au Mexique, par exemple, les colectivos – des groupes de familles à la recherche de leurs proches – utilisent la cartographie par géolocalisation, les relevés par drone et d’autres outils géospatiaux pour identifier d’éventuels sites de fosses clandestines et pour documenter les recherches en temps réel, afin de générer des pistes et de pousser les institutions réticentes à agir.

Certains groupes expérimentent avec la narration assistée par l’intelligence artificielle (IA), créant des vidéos « vivantes » et d’autres interventions numériques pour maintenir la visibilité des cas, tout en composant avec de nouveaux risques tels que l’extorsion numérique et les représailles qui découlent de la divulgation d’informations personnelles.

Au Nigeria, des familles utilisent les réseaux sociaux et de nouveaux portails dédiés aux personnes disparues pour élargir le cercle de personnes susceptibles de reconnaître un visage, un nom ou un lieu, une forme de production participative pour l’identification et la collecte de renseignements, alors que les registres officiels sont fragmentés ou difficiles d’accès. Dans ces contextes et bien d’autres dans le monde, les collectivités organisent l’entraide, alertent les autres des menaces, préservent les données avant qu’elles ne disparaissent et transforment le deuil privé en savoir collectif et exploitable.

Mais la visibilité est inégalement répartie.

Dans cette « révolution des preuves », on pourrait penser qu’une meilleure visibilité garantit une meilleure justice, mais dans la pratique, ce sont les tribunaux et les institutions juridiques qui décident de ce qui est considéré comme la vérité. C’est ce contrôle qui nuit à la reconnaissance des préjudices et limite les mesures prises en conséquence, et qui restreint la portée de la justice.

Les limites juridiques des preuves numériques

Les professionnelles et professionnels des droits de la personne et de la justice internationale s’appuient de plus en plus sur des preuves numériques et visuelles – images satellites, vidéos issues de la production participative, géolocalisation et analyses assistées par l’IA – pour documenter les préjudices et demander des comptes aux coupables.

Le recours à ces technologies peut même creuser le fossé entre les victimes et les preuves censées les aider.

Les proches des personnes disparues disposent souvent de connaissances approfondies, mais leur expertise n’est pas toujours prise au sérieux.

Le droit redéfinit ce que signifie le terme « preuve », et même la meilleure technologie doit se conformer aux règles de preuve et aux priorités institutionnelles, qui restreignent les possibilités d’action – souvent de manière opaque.

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Les résultats de nos recherches récemment publiés montrent que ces systèmes rendent certaines formes de préjudice plus visibles que d’autres. Si cette visibilité peut s’avérer est utile, les disparitions, les enlèvements et de nombreuses formes de violence d’État peuvent être pratiquement impossibles à « voir » d’en haut.

Au Nigeria, par exemple, ces biais optiques peuvent également reproduire des hiérarchies plus anciennes : les communautés qui s’alignent sur les régimes fonciers modernes et les schémas d’établissement sédentaire peuvent être plus visibles que les populations nomades ou déplacées, ce qui détermine quels préjudices sont considérés comme des preuves faisant autorité.

Nous constatons que les technologies optiques et numériques ne se contentent pas de révéler la vérité ; elles sont interprétées et validées par les institutions juridiques et les hiérarchies d’experts, reléguant parfois au second plan les savoirs issus de la base.

À la Cour pénale internationale (CPI), par exemple, où des affaires de disparitions et de crimes de masse pourraient potentiellement être jugées, les règles en matière de preuve et les priorités institutionnelles de la cour – la manière dont elle détermine l’admissibilité, la pertinence et la valeur probante – constituent des obstacles à l’admission des preuves. Dans le cas des preuves issues de la technologie, la CPI s’appuie sur certains spécialistes techniques pour les rendre lisibles aux juges.

En conséquence, des jugements techniques socialement construits régissent la production de connaissances. La science médico-légale explicite ce que le droit de la preuve de la CPI implique souvent : les preuves ne sont pas des choses, mais une inférence.

Élargir les cadres de preuve pour la justice

Lorsqu’une mère au Mexique ou une sœur au Nigeria recherche un proche disparu ou assassiné, elle entre dans un régime de preuve bien avant le tribunal. Son archive de « preuves » commence par une série de données : messages, observations, bribes d’informations, rumeurs, cartes. La science médico-légale nous enseigne ce qu’il faut faire de ces données pour qu’elles deviennent des preuves viables : y a-t-il une chaîne de conservation ? Un contrôle de la contamination ? Des méthodes validées ? Des déclarations honnêtes d’incertitude ?

Mais le besoin de la famille de connaître la vérité sur ce qui s’est passé met en évidence les limites tant de la science médico-légale que des tribunaux internationaux.

Un élément de preuve peut être existentiellement décisif, mais institutionnellement irrecevable ; scientifiquement interprétable, mais socialement insuffisant ; juridiquement convaincant, mais trop tardif pour mettre fin à la disparition en tant que condition vécue au quotidien.

Dans cette lacune, la lutte ne porte pas seulement sur les faits, mais sur la question de savoir quelle connaissance devient officielle, et si la vérité est traitée comme un droit dû aux familles plutôt que comme un sous-produit de la poursuite judiciaire.

Il faut élargir la définition de preuve devant les tribunaux et évoluer vers une approche qui considère la documentation comme politique, traite le droit comme une optique contraignante autant que comme une solution, insiste pour que les projets de responsabilisation soient recentrés sur les connaissances locales et les priorités de la base, et reconnaît que diverses formes de préjudice ne se traduisent pas clairement en catégories de preuve.

Il faut également revoir ce qui est une expertise, inclure les pratiques médico-légales vernaculaires des familles et le travail incarné de recherche, de cartographie et d’endurance.

À moins de changer notre conception de la justice, nous continuerons à passer à côté de beaucoup de choses.

Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.

– ref. Plus de preuves, mais pas plus de justice : les limites des technologies visuelles dans les affaires de droits de la personne – https://theconversation.com/plus-de-preuves-mais-pas-plus-de-justice-les-limites-des-technologies-visuelles-dans-les-affaires-de-droits-de-la-personne-279422

March 30, 2026

Violent conflicts are reshaping what Nigerian farmers grow: what this means for food security

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Abeeb Babatunde Omotoso, Senior Lecturer at Oyo State College of Agriculture and Technology, Igboora, Nigeria and Senior Research Associate at North West University, North-West University

Agriculture is the backbone of Africa’s economy. It provides livelihoods for over 70% of the rural population and contributes to national food security and economic development.

For most rural households, farming is not just a source of income and sustenance. It also provides cultural identity and social stability. Over the past two decades, however, rural Africa has witnessed increasing levels of violent conflicts that undermine agricultural productivity, investment and long-term development.

Farmers facing insecurity often abandon productive crops, reduce land use and invest less in their farms. There are serious consequences for food security.

Conflict destroys lives and property. It also changes the decisions farmers make about investing in their land.

We are agricultural and applied economists with expertise in rural development,sustainable food system and climate-smart agriculture. We’ve studied the impact of conflict on food systems in the global south.

One of our studies examined how violent conflict influenced agricultural investment decisions among rural households in Nigeria. We combined nationally representative household data with detailed conflict records, to track how exposure to violence affects farming.

The findings showed that violent conflict altered agricultural investment decisions. It made farmers less likely to cultivate major crops.

The cultivation of yam, sweet potato, groundnut, cowpea, maize and cassava declined as conflict incidents increased. Sweet potato was the most affected, perhaps because it needs a lot of labour and a longer time to grow.

When conflict disrupts farming through abandoned fields, lost livestock, or altered investment decisions, it undermines food availability and long-term agricultural development.

Understanding these impacts is useful when designing ways to help farmers and sustain food systems in conflict-affected areas.

The reality

Our study used panel data from Nigeria’s Living Standards Measurement Study covering the periods 2012/2013, 2015/2016 and 2018/2019.

The national study provides detailed household-level information. This covers demographic characteristics, agricultural production, crop choice, land allocation, input use, production costs and market participation.

We combined the household coordinates with geocoded conflict data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) to measure exposure to violent conflict. The ACLED database provides detailed information on battles, violence against civilians, remote violence, protests and riots.

Our study focused on three indicators of violent conflict exposure:

total number of conflict incidents
number of violent incidents affecting civilians (including Boko Haram-related violence)
number of battles, including protests, riots and farmer–herder clashes.

To capture local exposure to violence, we measured conflict incidents within a radius of 10km of each surveyed household in a given year.

By linking spatial conflict data with household-level agricultural information across multiple survey waves, the study analysed how exposure to violent conflict influenced farmers’ production decisions, land allocation and agricultural outcomes over time.

The findings

The results indicate that insecurity discourages farmers from engaging in production activities that involve greater risk or long-term investment. Conflict exposure also affects land allocation decisions.

The analysis showed a reduction in the total cultivated land area and a decline in the share of land allocated to key staple crops.

This pattern suggests that farmers respond to insecurity by scaling down farming activities, avoiding distant plots, and concentrating on smaller or safer areas of land. Reducing the land cultivated may result in less food produced.

We found that conflict led to less spending on agricultural production. Farmers invested less in inputs such as fertilizer, pesticides and hired labour.

The effects varied across management types. Plots managed by men showed relatively stable investment levels. Production costs increased on plots managed by men and women. This could be due to reliance on external labour during periods of insecurity.

The findings demonstrate that violent conflict affects crop choices, reduces land use and discourages agricultural investment.

Disruptions also increase the cost of agricultural production and marketing, making farming less profitable. Government efforts to support agriculture, such as input subsidies and rural development programmes, don’t work so well in conflict zones.

The adverse effects are more severe for households in highly conflict-prone areas. Disputes have long-term economic impacts.

Recommendation and policy implications

The findings highlight the need for conflict-sensitive agricultural policies and targeted rural development interventions.

First, strong rural security and community conflict resolution mechanisms are essential. Government and local authorities should monitor security in major agricultural zones and help communities to build peace.

Policies should encourage farmers to plant climate-smart and low-risk crops that need fewer inputs and have shorter production cycles. This would make agricultural systems more resilient to conflict.

Extension services should advise farmers on which crops to plant, improved seed varieties, and farming strategies suitable for insecure environments.

Policymakers should invest in rural infrastructure and early-warning systems, including market access, transport networks and conflict monitoring systems.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Violent conflicts are reshaping what Nigerian farmers grow: what this means for food security – https://theconversation.com/violent-conflicts-are-reshaping-what-nigerian-farmers-grow-what-this-means-for-food-security-278719

March 30, 2026

Strike on Afghan hospital shows the laws of war may document atrocities — but don’t prevent them

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Shabnam Salehi, PhD Candidate, Law, Carleton University; L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

Pakistani jets recently bombed the Omid Addiction Treatment Hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, a facility with 2,000 beds dedicated to helping patients recover from drug addiction.

Authorities in Afghanistan, along with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and various news agencies, reported that more than 400 people were killed and 265 were injured.

Pakistan has denied targeting the hospital, saying it aimed only at military installations and terrorist support infrastructure.

As a former commissioner at the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and a legal scholar focused on accountability for civilian harm, I view this incident as a serious violation of international humanitarian law, with profound implications for one of the most vulnerable groups: those struggling with addiction.

The chain of human casualities

The incident at Omid Hospital is a critical moment in the ongoing conflict, which dates back to late February, when Pakistani forces conducted airstrikes in the eastern provinces of Nangarhar and Paktika.

According to UNAMA, the strikes in Nangarhar resulted in at least 13 civilian deaths and seven injuries, including women and children from the same family. In Paktika, a strike impacted a madrassa and damaged a mosque, a centre for religious education, in the Barmal district.

Pakistan then officially initiated Operation Ghazab lil-Haq on Feb. 26, leading to an escalation of violence targeting non-military sites. The first phase of the attacks lasted six days, during which UNAMA reported 42 civilian fatalities and 104 injuries.

By March 6, these figures had risen to 56 dead and 129 injured, with 55 per cent of the casualties being women and children. Approximately a week later, just three days before the Omid strike, the toll reached 75 dead and 193 injured. The UN humanitarian office warned of significant displacement and disruptions to aid efforts across the affected provinces.

Then, on March 16, the attack on Omid Hospital occurred. The severity of this incident highlighted the alarming reality of systematic violations of humanitarian law within the ongoing conflict.

Why does a drug treatment hospital matter?

Afghanistan is grappling with one of the most severe addiction crises in the world, exhibiting some of the highest drug use rates globally.

A 2025 report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) described the situation as “a pressing but less understood dimension” of the drug economy.

Treatment facilities are critically limited, and international donors have largely withdrawn since the Taliban assumed power in 2021.

Attacking a facility like Omid Hospital not only endangers its patients but also undermines one of the few remaining care structures for a population that has suffered through more than five decades of conflict and war.

What the international law says

The rules safeguarding hospitals during wartime are longstanding. According to the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, medical facilities “shall be respected and protected in all circumstances” and cannot be targeted. A hospital can lose this protection only if it is being used for hostile activities. Even in such cases, the attacking force is required to issue a warning and provide time before proceeding.

There is no evidence Pakistan issued a warning to the Omid facility, nor has the country made such a claim. Pakistan asserts that the building contained ammunition, citing secondary explosions as a primary cause of the incident.

But even if that’s true, international law stipulates that any anticipated civilian harm must not be “excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.” The destruction of suspected weapons cannot justify the deaths and injuries of hundreds of civilians.

A conflict the world isn’t watching

Despite a death toll surpassing many incidents that have captured headlines in other conflicts, this conflict is receiving scant attention from the West.

This is likely because the Taliban, which provides the casualty figures, is not viewed as a reliable source. Similar death toll claims by the Gaza Health Ministry faced scrutiny for years before the Israeli military finally validated them. UNAMA is now providing independent verification in Afghanistan.

The Omid strike is reminiscent of the 2015 United States airstrike on the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)/Doctors Without Borders trauma centre in Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan, that resulted in the deaths of 42 people.

The U.S. military acknowledged its failure to verify the target, and no one faced prosecution. Following Kunduz, MSF president Joanne Liu stated: “Today we say enough. Even war has rules.”

A decade later, these rules are once again being challenged amid the devastation of another Afghan hospital and other civilian targets. Scholars, along with various international organizations, are raising alarms that international humanitarian law is increasingly being ignored due to the normalization of attacks on health-care facilities.

Will anyone enforce the rules?

The strike on the Omid hospital raises concerns not only about the ambiguity in applying international law, but about the enforcement of international humanitarian law and the mechanisms for its implementation.

Strikes on hospitals in Kunduz, Aleppo in Syria and Mariupol in Ukraine led to reports and condemnations, yet none resulted in prosecutions or future enforcement of humanitarian laws.

If the Omid strike follows the same trajectory, it will confirm my greatest concern in my research: that the laws of war, at best, are capable of documenting atrocities but not preventing them. The actions taken by the international community now will determine whether these rules are enforced.

Shabnam Salehi is affiliated with Women’s Rights First org. as co-founder and president, which works on women’s rights issues in Afghanistan.

– ref. Strike on Afghan hospital shows the laws of war may document atrocities — but don’t prevent them – https://theconversation.com/strike-on-afghan-hospital-shows-the-laws-of-war-may-document-atrocities-but-dont-prevent-them-278715

March 30, 2026

More evidence doesn’t mean more justice: The limits of visual technologies in human rights cases

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Kamari Maxine Clarke, Full Professor, University of Toronto

Editor’s note: This story is part of a series of articles from Canada’s top social sciences and humanities academics in a partnership between the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and The Conversation Canada.

Body cameras, satellites and digital verification tools are generating more evidence of violence than ever before. But the institutions responsible for delivering justice still decide what counts as evidence — and what does not.

Some of the most consequential reporting on state-sanctioned violence concerns disputes over evidence: who controls the video, the metadata and the channels where events are logged in real time.

In Minnesota in January 2026, that meant court fights and public pressure over preserving — and potentially sharing — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) body camera footage after the killings of Alex Pretti and Renée Good, alongside wider disputes over federal transparency during immigration enforcement operations.

National outlets have tracked how community members are using encrypted messaging such as Signal to spot and report ICE activity, prompting an FBI investigation that civil liberties experts say tests the boundary between protected observation and alleged “interference.”

Meanwhile, in Canada, the RCMP is rolling out body cameras nationwide, raising questions about how the data collected by state security services might provide a future archive for complaint processes, prosecutions and civil litigation.

What we are witnessing is a “juriscopic regime” — a dense entanglement of scopic technologies (body cameras, satellites, open‑source verification), scientific protocols and legal evidentiary horizons that together govern what can be seen, verified and acted upon as “truth” — defining who counts as an expert and what forms of knowledge are ignored as anecdotal, non-scientific or non-legal.

How communities document violence

Citizens are taking these documentation tools into their own hands.

Families who have experienced violence and the forced disappearance or murder of loved ones are increasingly building grassroots “evidence infrastructures” with these technologies.

In Mexico, for example, colectivos — groups of families searching for their loved ones — have added geolocation mapping, drone surveys and other geospatial tools to identify possible clandestine grave sites and to document searches in real time, both to generate leads and to pressure reluctant institutions into action.

Some groups are experimenting with AI-mediated storytelling, creating “living” videos and other digital interventions to keep cases visible while simultaneously navigating new risks like digital extortion and retaliation that follow from making personal information public.

In Nigeria, families use social media and emerging missing persons portals to widen the radius of who might recognize a face, a name or a location, effectively crowd-sourcing identification and tips when official registries are fragmented or difficult to access.

Across these and many other contexts globally, communities are organizing mutual aid, warning others about threats, preserving data before it disappears and transforming private grief into collective, actionable knowledge.

But visibility is unevenly distributed.

This “evidence revolution” is often treated as if better visibility produces better justice but in practice, courts and legal institutions decide what becomes legible as truth. It is this gatekeeping that distorts what harms are recognized and acted upon, and that narrows the scope of what justice looks like.

The legal limits of digital evidence

Human rights and international justice professionals are increasingly relying on digital and visual evidence — satellite imagery, crowd-sourced video, geolocation and AI-assisted analysis — to document harm and hold perpetrators to account.

Turning to these technologies may even deepen the distance between those victimized and the evidence meant to help them.

Family members of the missing frequently have extensive knowledge, but their expertise may not be taken seriously.

Law reshapes what “evidence” means, and even the best technology must pass through evidentiary rules and institutional priorities, which narrow what can be acted on — often in opaque ways.

Our recently released research findings show that these systems make certain forms of harm more legible than others. While this is helpful for certain evidentiary processes, disappearances, abductions and many forms of state violence can be virtually impossible to “see” from above.

In Nigeria, for example, those optical biases can also reproduce older hierarchies: communities that align with modern land tenure and fixed settlement patterns may be more legible than nomadic or displaced populations, shaping which harms travel as authoritative evidence.

What we see is that optical and digital technologies don’t simply reveal truth; they are translated and authorized through legal institutions and expert hierarchies, sometimes sidelining grassroots knowledge.

At the International Criminal Court (ICC), for example, where mass atrocity and disappearance cases could potentially be heard, the evidentiary rules and institutional priorities of the court — the ways in which it determines admissibility, relevance and probative value — act as obstacles to admitting evidence. In the case of technologically derived evidence, the court relies on a few technical experts to render it legible to judges.

As a result, socially constructed technical judgments govern the production of knowledge. Forensic science makes explicit what the ICC’s evidence law often implies: that evidence is not a thing but an inference.

Expanding evidentiary frameworks for justice

When a mother in Mexico or a sister in Nigeria searches for a disappeared or killed loved one, she enters an evidence regime long before any court does. Her “evidence” archive begins as a series of data — messages, sightings, scraps, rumours, maps. Forensic science teaches us what must happen with this data in order for it to become viable evidence: Is there a chain of custody? Contamination control? Validated methods? Honest statements of uncertainty?

But the family’s need to know the truth of what happened exposes the limits of both forensic science and international courts.

A trace of evidence can be existentially decisive yet institutionally inadmissible; scientifically interpretable yet socially insufficient; legally persuasive yet too late to end the disappearance as a lived everyday condition.

In that gap, the struggle is not only over facts, but over whose knowledge becomes official, and whether truth is treated as a right owed to families rather than a byproduct of prosecution.

We need a more expansive regime of what counts as evidence in courts, moving toward an approach that regards documentation as political, treats law as a constraining optic as much as a solution, insists that accountability projects be regrounded in local knowledge and grassroots priorities and acknowledges that various forms of harm do not neatly convert into evidentiary categories.

We also need to widen the scope of who counts as an expert, include families’ vernacular forensic practice and the embodied work of searching, mapping and enduring.

Unless we change what justice looks like, we will continue to miss a lot.

– ref. More evidence doesn’t mean more justice: The limits of visual technologies in human rights cases – https://theconversation.com/more-evidence-doesnt-mean-more-justice-the-limits-of-visual-technologies-in-human-rights-cases-274929

March 30, 2026

Economic policy in South Africa neglects informal traders: 5 focus areas to support the sector

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By David Campbell Francis, Senior Researcher, Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, University of the Witwatersrand

The informal economy is responsible for a large share of economic output across the continent. Yet economic policy is almost always designed for the formal economy and overlooks the informal economy.

We are labour-market economists interested in the informal economy and informal work. We have spent the last two years investigating the concept of an economic policy for informal workers. We spent several months interviewing informal traders, traders’ associations and key stakeholders. Our aim was to better understand their challenges, and to inform the development of an economic policy for informal trading.

Drawing on our research partnership with Women in Informal Employment Globalising and Organising, we argue that rethinking economic policy from the perspective of the informal economy is essential.

We begin from the premise that economic policy must actively support the everyday economy. Recognising informal traders as economic agents, and investing in systems that support them, allows local economies to become more resilient, inclusive and sustainable. Traders need a supportive ecosystem so they can move beyond survival, and contribute to local growth and development.

Our findings highlight five areas that should support a policy ecosystem: macroeconomic stability; efficient administration; regulation of competition; participation in policy and governance; and inclusive infrastructure.

On the ground

Our research focused on informal traders in Gauteng, South Africa’s economic hub. The sector provides vital income for marginalised communities and brings essential goods and services closer to where people live. Yet traders remain on the periphery of policy attention. Urban management often treats them as a problem to control rather than as economic actors to engage.

Most informal traders are own-account workers, operating on survivalist incomes that often fall below the poverty line. They face unpredictable markets, limited access to infrastructure, and constant regulatory uncertainty. This makes it difficult to grow their businesses or improve earnings.

These difficulties reflect the fact that informal traders operate in environments that have multiple layers. These include:

local factors: municipal regulations, permits, policing, infrastructure, competition, community networks
broader national forces: macroeconomic trends, regulatory frameworks, structural inequalities, formal-sector dominance.

Understanding these interlocking layers is essential when creating policies that support sustainable livelihoods and growth.

Five policy pillars

(1) Macroeconomic stability

This needs to be the first pillar of the economic policy. The informal sector is highly sensitive to macroeconomic conditions for a number of reasons.

Firstly, informal traders earn low and unstable incomes. This means that rising living costs quickly erode their ability to sustain livelihoods. This is particularly true when it comes to food, transport and energy prices.

Secondly, the sector is vulnerable to poor growth and unemployment. The informal economy functions as a safety net during economic downturns by absorbing workers displaced from the formal sector. This was well illustrated during the COVID pandemic. But there’s a downside. A flood of new entrants into a constrained sector leads to overcrowding. In turn this:

leads to intensified competition for limited trading spaces
disrupts existing organisational systems
weakens trader networks
reduces earnings.

Macroeconomic instability, therefore, expands informality. It also threatens informal livelihoods.

Revisiting macroeconomic policy should also include a tax policy that doesn’t prejudice informal workers.

(2) Efficient administration

Administrative inefficiencies and exclusionary practices create barriers for informal traders. For example, delays in issuing permits and other documentation leave traders vulnerable to harassment, bribery and eviction.

Inconsistent enforcement of bylaws creates an uneven playing field. Compliant traders are disadvantaged while irregular practices persist.

These burdens are not solely the result of local government shortcomings. They also reflect national-level failures such as delays in processing asylum-seeker applications. This disadvantages traders who rely on formal documentation to operate legally.

Together, these administrative challenges have a number of knock-on effects. They:

intensify competition over limited spaces
erode trust in authorities
constrain the stability and growth of the informal sector.

(3) Regulation of competition

The South African informal sector faces competition on multiple fronts.

Traders compete among themselves for a limited number of customers and trading spaces. They also face intense competition from the formal sector. Examples include supermarkets, retail chains and shopping malls. Informal traders are pushed into less profitable or precarious locations.

It’s often assumed that there’s perfect competition in the sector – that market players can trade freely.

But they do face structural disadvantages such as regulatory barriers, formal-sector dominance and uneven access to prime trading spaces.

Formal-sector expansion is framed as economic “development”. But it frequently displaces long-standing informal systems.

Intense and unfair competition in the informal sector has another consequence: it forces traders to compete primarily on price rather than quality or service. This is because they can’t match the economies of scale, marketing power, or infrastructure advantages of formal retailers and better-resourced informal traders.

(4) Participation in policy and governance

An economic policy for informal traders needs to emerge from their involvement in policy and governance discussions.

Informal traders are often excluded from the planning and decision-making processes around things that affect them. This includes bylaw enforcement, market design and permit systems.

The result is policies that fail to reflect the realities of informal trade. In turn this:

creates unnecessary obstacles
increases uncertainty
limits traders’ ability to plan, invest and grow.

(5) Inclusive infrastructure

Many traders operate in spaces without electricity, water, sanitation or safe storage facilities. Poor infrastructure limits the types of goods traders can sell and increases operational. It also exposes both traders and customers to health and safety risks.

Too often, cities treat infrastructure provision for informal traders as optional. Or it’s not designed with the needs of informal traders in mind.

This neglect produces unsafe and precarious work environments, undermining both livelihoods and local economic activity.

Infrastructure that is designed to meet traders’ needs will translate investment into higher productivity, improved earnings, safer working conditions and more vibrant local markets. This will benefit both traders and the communities they serve.

David Francis received funding from Women in Informal Employment Globalising and Organising (WIEGO) to support the research that informed this article.

Siphelele Ngidi received funding from Women in Informal Employment Globalising and Organising (WIEGO) to support the research that informed this article.

– ref. Economic policy in South Africa neglects informal traders: 5 focus areas to support the sector – https://theconversation.com/economic-policy-in-south-africa-neglects-informal-traders-5-focus-areas-to-support-the-sector-278323

March 30, 2026

China is helping build Africa’s cities, but its approach sidelines local urban planners and residents

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Ding Fei, Assistant Professor, Cornell University

As African cities experience some of the fastest urban growth rates in the world, China has become a major bilateral financier for urban infrastructure.

From Nairobi’s elevated expressways to Lagos’s airport upgrades and Addis Ababa’s new riverside developments, Chinese-backed projects are transforming skylines and daily life across the continent.

I study China’s economic engagements in Africa, focusing on how development is enacted, negotiated, and contested across sites of production, governance, and everyday life.

My recent analysis of 267 Chinese‑financed projects in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of Congo), Lagos (Nigeria), Luanda (Angola), Lusaka (Zambia) and Nairobi (Kenya) shows that while China delivers an impressive volume of infrastructure, it risks reinforcing Africa’s national government dominance in decision-making on urban infrastructure development.

The completion rate, and the speed at which most projects are finished, is impressive. But that’s only part of the equation. Cities – their governments and residents – are excluded from the project planning and negotiation process.

Across my project dataset, none of the infrastructure deals were financed directly through municipal governments. Instead, the agreements were mostly negotiated and funded through national ministries or state agencies. This happens partly because many cities are legally restricted from taking on external debt, and partly because lenders prefer working with sovereign governments.

This national-level dominance has far-reaching consequences for how African cities develop. When cities are not involved in financing negotiations, they lose the opportunity to align major infrastructure projects with long-term urban development plans.

China’s expanding footprint

African cities face massive infrastructure shortfalls. The African Union estimates that urban areas require about US$142 billion every year to build and maintain essential systems. In this context of urgent need, China has become one of the most important bilateral financiers helping to fill the gap.

The six cities examined in my study are the biggest urban centres in their respective countries. Together they house only about 13% of national populations. Yet they receive nearly 30% of all Chinese infrastructure financing flows into those countries.

Between 2000 and 2021, Chinese lenders committed about US$37 billion to urban infrastructure in these six cities. Transport projects account for the largest share, over US$17 billion. This is followed by social projects such as housing, schools and hospitals, which drew more than US$8 billion. Digital networks, electricity systems, water infrastructure and government buildings made up the remainder.

These investment patterns mirror the continent’s biggest infrastructure gaps, especially in transport and education, as identified in a 2022 UN-Habitat report.

Most of this financing is in the form of loans rather than grants. Loans represent nearly 68% of all projects and almost 89% of the total money committed to the six cities. The terms vary widely. Some loans are offered at very low interest rates. Others are closer to commercial rates, sometimes approaching 7%, with repayment periods stretching up to two decades.

Digital infrastructure projects often come with more favourable terms, though they are often tied to Chinese technology suppliers. Two large Chinese development banks, the Export-Import Bank of China and the China Development Bank, provide nearly 94% of project lending.

One notable feature of Chinese finance is the speed at which many projects are completed. Of the projects with available information, about 74% were completed. Many were completed within two to three years.

This is a relatively high rate compared with typical attrition levels in infrastructure projects across the continent.

The overall completion rate shows a capacity to deliver infrastructure projects at speed.

Still, speed and scale tell only part of the story. Equally significant is who negotiates the terms of lending.

Bypassing city authorities

Local governments are often mandated to implement projects and operate new infrastructure. Yet they lack the power or resources to do so.

In 2020, subnational governments across Africa received only 24% of total public spending, well below the global average of 39.5%. Weak property tax systems, heavy reliance on transfers from central government, and restrictions on borrowing leave most cities with limited fiscal autonomy.

Chinese financing, while substantial, has not altered this structural imbalance.

It’s not that cities don’t get funding at all. As urban hubs in their respective countries, the six cities under study often attract high-profile, foreign-funded projects. The projects elevate a city’s skyline. But they often don’t address neighbourhood-level gaps in water supply, transit access, or environmental services.

My other research indicates that large, showcase projects funded by China often take precedence over localised, community-level improvements. Thus infrastructure is unevenly provided in urban areas.

Cities need fiscal power

If African cities are to manage the rapid urbanisation and meet the needs of the roughly 1.5 billion people expected to live in urban areas by mid-century, they need more than new bridges and roads.

They need the fiscal power and planning capacity to plan, finance and govern infrastructure on their own terms.

Based on my research findings, these steps would be useful:

rethink how urban infrastructure is discussed
strengthen municipal revenue and financial capacity
improve planning coordination across governments.

Firstly, it is crucial to rethink how urban infrastructure is discussed in policy and the media. For years, the conversation has revolved around the idea that African cities simply lack enough roads, pipes, grids and public facilities.

While the shortfalls are real, this framing can reinforce the belief that only large, externally financed megaprojects can solve urban problems. It also risks sidelining the diverse and often creative ways communities already provide services when formal systems fall short.

Instead of viewing cities solely through the lens of what they lack, policymakers should also recognise the hybrid networks that public, private or community actors establish to keep daily services running. Examples of these include housing collectives in Harare and smart water meters in Nairobi.

Strengthening these systems requires a broader, more inclusive vision of what urban infrastructure can be.

Secondly, municipal revenue and financial capacity needs to be strengthened.

For cities to gain real decision-making power, they need stronger and more reliable sources of revenue. That means improving property tax systems, developing transparent land-based financing tools, and ensuring residents have equitable access to productive sector employment.

Some cities, such as Lagos, have already built robust tax bases and even issued municipal bonds to finance major projects.

But reforms cannot just happen at the city level. National governments must give municipalities clearer legal authority to raise revenues and borrow responsibly.

And when countries do rely on external finance, they need strong safeguards in terms of transparent bidding processes, rigorous project evaluations, and clear rules for how risks and costs are shared. Without oversight, long-term contracts can saddle cities with high user fees or hidden financial liabilities that become burdens on future budgets and residents.

Thirdly, planning coordination across governments and sectors must be improved.

Urban infrastructure does not function in silos. Transport depends on land use, water systems depend on energy, and digital networks depend on both. Yet planning is often fragmented across ministries, sectors and international partners.

A more coordinated approach is essential. National and local governments should work together through joint planning committees, shared databases and consultation processes that ensure new projects fit into long-term city strategies. Giving city governments and community groups a seat at the table, especially in the early stages of feasibility studies and project design, will help prevent mismatches between high-profile investments and everyday needs.

Reliable information is central to this effort. Many African countries still lack systems to track external financial flows, project progress, evaluation and management. Building comprehensive data systems is a cornerstone of transparent and responsible governance.

China’s involvement across multiple sectors offers an opportunity to pursue more integrated planning. The recent summits of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation have pledged efforts to institutionalise subnational cooperation. But these will only be effective if African governments actively and strategically shape the agenda.

The challenge for African cities is not simply attracting more finance but gaining the authority and capacity to guide urban development. China will likely remain an important financier. But no external partner can substitute for strong city institutions, transparent financial systems, and coordinated planning.

Ding Fei does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. China is helping build Africa’s cities, but its approach sidelines local urban planners and residents – https://theconversation.com/china-is-helping-build-africas-cities-but-its-approach-sidelines-local-urban-planners-and-residents-278209

March 30, 2026

Violent conflicts are reshaping what farmers grow: what this means for food security

Agriculture is the backbone of Africa’s economy. It provides livelihoods for over 70% of the rural population and contributes to national food security and economic development.

Farmers facing insecurity often abandon productive crops, reduce land use and invest less in their farms. There are serious consequences for food security.

Conflict destroys lives and property. It also changes the decisions farmers make about investing in their land.

The findings showed that violent conflict altered agricultural investment decisions. It made farmers less likely to cultivate major crops.

When conflict disrupts farming through abandoned fields, lost livestock, or altered investment decisions, it undermines food availability and long-term agricultural development.

Understanding these impacts is useful when designing ways to help farmers and sustain food systems in conflict-affected areas.

The reality

Our study used panel data from Nigeria’s Living Standards Measurement Study covering the periods 2012/2013, 2015/2016 and 2018/2019.

Our study focused on three indicators of violent conflict exposure:

total number of conflict incidents
number of violent incidents affecting civilians (including Boko Haram-related violence)
number of battles, including protests, riots and farmer–herder clashes.

To capture local exposure to violence, we measured conflict incidents within a radius of 10km of each surveyed household in a given year.

The findings

The analysis showed a reduction in the total cultivated land area and a decline in the share of land allocated to key staple crops.

We found that conflict led to less spending on agricultural production. Farmers invested less in inputs such as fertilizer, pesticides and hired labour.

The findings demonstrate that violent conflict affects crop choices, reduces land use and discourages agricultural investment.

The adverse effects are more severe for households in highly conflict-prone areas. Disputes have long-term economic impacts.

Recommendation and policy implications

The findings highlight the need for conflict-sensitive agricultural policies and targeted rural development interventions.

Policies should encourage farmers to plant climate-smart and low-risk crops that need fewer inputs and have shorter production cycles. This would make agricultural systems more resilient to conflict.

Extension services should advise farmers on which crops to plant, improved seed varieties, and farming strategies suitable for insecure environments.

Policymakers should invest in rural infrastructure and early-warning systems, including market access, transport networks and conflict monitoring systems.

– ref. Violent conflicts are reshaping what farmers grow: what this means for food security – https://theconversation.com/violent-conflicts-are-reshaping-what-farmers-grow-what-this-means-for-food-security-278719