Category: The Conversation – Africa

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Danny Bradlow, Professor/Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancement of Scholarship, University of Pretoria

US president Donald Trump’s address to the annual gathering of the United Nations general assembly in late September 2025 set a new low in international relations. Trump delivered a broadside attack on multilateralism – the effort to solve the world’s problems through collective endeavour – as well as issues that have found common cause among rich and poor countries alike, such as climate change.

So where does this leave the work of organisations such as the G20? The body was set up by the G7 in 1999 in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. The purpose was to create a bigger grouping of countries to help manage the governance of the global economy.

The group now represents about 67% of the global population and about 85% of the global economy. But it’s a strange beast: it is a self-selected group, which raises questions about its legitimacy. And it doesn’t have a permanent secretariat, which makes its work cumbersome.

We asked four leading scholars for their answers. Given the changing global context, is the G20 still useful?

Danny Bradlow, in addition to his position at the University of Pretoria, is Senior G20 Advisor to the South African Institute of International Affairs, a Senior Non-Resident Fellow, Global Development Policy Center, Boston University and co-chair of the T20 task force on sustainable finance.

My research is funded by the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment.

Sandy Africa is the Research Director of the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA) and a Research Associate at the University of Pretoria and writes here in her personal capacity. MISTRA is providing technical support to the RSA government during its G20 Presidency.

Ana Saggioro Garcia 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. G20 in a changing world: is it still useful? Four scholars weigh in – https://theconversation.com/g20-in-a-changing-world-is-it-still-useful-four-scholars-weigh-in-266221

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Anda David, Senior researcher, Agence Française de Développement (AFD)

An increasingly strong case is being made to bring inequality into discussions about climate change. The logic behind this has been set out by leading international institutions such as the International Labour Organisation, the UN Environmental Programme and the Network for Greening the Financial System.

All have begun to highlight the connection between climate outcomes and inequality. They are stressing that inequality should be viewed as posing systemic and macroeconomic risk. Inequality has been found to undermine democracy, social and political cohesion and economic stability. Inequality also undermines our ability to deal with climate and environmental challenges.

In a recent summary paper we analysed how environmental policies can be designed and implemented with an inequality-reduction lens. We used examples from South Africa, Colombia, Indonesia and Mexico.

As researchers in the research department of the French development agency the AFD, specialising in the analysis of inequality and the social implications of energy and economic transitions, we have seen how climate action can either narrow or deepen existing divides, depending on how policies are designed.

The core of the case we make is that reducing inequality should be a guiding principle in decisions on climate change. There are numerous cases we studied in which it’s clear that countries often simply opt for compensating those who stand to lose from environmental transitions rather than seeking more equitable solutions. This needs to change. But a shift requires focusing on a meaningful reduction of inequality as well as understanding who wins from the transition.

The green transition and the absence of equity

We take the just transition as a starting point as it is increasingly cited as the accepted framework for building sustainable economies. This approach focuses on the social dimension of the ecological and energy transition and highlights the need to secure the livelihood of those negatively affected by the green transition. It highlights an inclusive transition to a low-carbon and sustainable economy, leaving no one behind.

Countries are progressively incorporating just transition principles into their national climate strategies. Examples include South Africa’s 2022 just transition framework and Mexico’s upcoming NDC 3.0. But when it comes to the actual design and implementation of policies, equity is rarely treated as the central concern. This becomes obvious when we look at some of the characteristics of the current green transitions.

Green jobs: The promise often is that these jobs are better, more stable and more sustainable. But the research we coordinated in Colombia with the University of Los Andes shows that these opportunities benefit groups that already have advantages. Examples include university-educated urban men. Women, youth and rural populations remain largely excluded.

Green infrastructures: We looked at who owns green infrastructures, such as solar parks, wind farms, smart grids, and storage systems. We often saw it remained largely in the hands of large private and multinational companies. In South Africa, for instance, the union Numsa has pushed back against a profit-driven renewable energy programme that transferred risks to the state and kept electricity tariffs high. The main beneficiaries of the programme are financial actors and multinational corporations. This is a good illustration of how ownership determines who controls energy as well as who truly gains from the transition.

Environmental protection policies. These include:

• protected areas – defined spaces with the goal of nature conservation and the preservation of ecosystems

• biodiversity offsets – intended to compensate for environmental damage caused by development projects.

These policies and plans for environmental protection can generate inequalities as they are often designed top-down. As a result, local communities can lose out.

What needs to shift

Putting inequality reduction at the centre means more than adding a social component to existing programmes.

In Colombia, the findings point to the need for early and targeted public policies to address labour market disparities. Examples include:

• integrating training in renewable energy, energy efficiency and other sustainability-related skills into technical and vocational training

• using approaches tailored to local needs and that are sensitive to gender differences.

---

Read more:
33 million women grow food on plots in sub-Saharan Africa. Greener farming can boost their earnings — study

---

Another thing that needs to change is the level of support for businesses and particularly small enterprises so that they can contribute to job creation. Most of them operate informally and rely on survivalist strategies. Evidence from South Africa showed that they’re excluded from just energy transition plans.

We also identified areas that need improvement around taxation. A fair climate policy should start with recognising that carbon taxes are not neutral: their burden falls differently across income groups.

In Indonesia, the study we led with our partners using microsimulation found that a €30-per-ton carbon tax would slightly increase costs for lower-middle income households. But when revenues were recycled through targeted cash transfers to low-income and energy-poor households, the policy had positive outcomes.

---

Read more:
Renewable energy projects in rural Ghana have some built-in limitations

---

This example shows that equity depends less on the tax itself than on how its proceeds are used.

Finally, democratising ownership of the energy transition process is key to ensuring that it’s just. Our evidence shows that community and user-owned models can make renewable infrastructure inclusive as well as viable. Examples include community-owned solar installations, worker share ownership schemes and multistakeholder cooperatives.

---

Read more:
We studied smallholder farming in three African countries for 10 years: why profitable irrigation is key

---

In Mexico’s Río Lagartos, for example, a local fishing cooperative invested in a solar-powered ice machine. This led to costs being cut and local incomes being boosted.

Next steps

Inequalities threaten the commitment to existing efforts in the climate domain. Embedding the reduction of inequality into climate action is an opportunity for a meaningful transformation.

The examples we found of best practice as well as the weaknesses in initiatives can help guide policymakers. The needle is moving in discussions on inequality. The suggestion by the G20 Extraordinary Committee of Independent Experts on Global Inequality is a case in point. It has recommended the creation of a global panel to provide guidance to countries on how they can ensure that reducing inequality sits at the heart of their development trajectories.

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. Climate change and inequality are connected – policies need to reflect this – https://theconversation.com/climate-change-and-inequality-are-connected-policies-need-to-reflect-this-269657

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Phiwe Babalo Nota, Researcher, Children’s Institute, University of Cape Town

In South Africa, intimate partner violence is the most common form of violence against women, and it is pervasive. According to the National Gender-Based Violence Prevalence Study, 24% of women aged 18 and older have experienced physical or sexual violence by a partner or spouse.

Pregnancy can trigger or worsen violence in relationships, often due to changes in power dynamics, financial stress, or a partner’s perceived loss of control.

A longitudinal study in Durban, a South African coastal city, found that 20% of women had experienced at least one form of physical, sexual or psychological intimate partner violence during pregnancy. Another study in Johannesburg, South Africa’s economic capital, found 36.6% of young women reported violence by a partner or spouse, and pregnancy was cited as a key risk period for violence.

Children are directly and indirectly affected by this violence against women. They also experience violence across a range of settings, including their homes, schools and communities. The Birth to Thirty study, a research programme tracking the lives of a group of people in the South African township of Soweto, found that 99% of the cohort had been exposed to at least one type of violence. And 40% had been exposed to five or six other types of violence.

The 18th issue of the South African Child Gauge, a research report launched in November 2025, focuses on the intersections of violence against women and children. These forms of violence occur together in the same households and share the same risk factors. However, they historically have been treated as separate issues, with services housed in different government departments.

This article offers an opportunity to shift the focus from awareness raising to action-oriented thinking that can break the cycle of violence. These reflections come from our chapter in the Child Gauge, which was co-written with Aislinn Delany, an independent social researcher.

In this article, we highlight three approaches that can guide South Africa’s efforts to prevent violence against women and children:

• starting early

• working across sectors, with the Department of Health playing a critical role

• transforming harmful gender norms.

Breaking the cycle of violence

The first 1,000 days (from conception to 2 years old) are a critical development phase that shapes a child’s future health, learning and wellbeing.

Exposure to ongoing violence is especially damaging during the early years. Excessive physical and psychological stress or trauma, also known as toxic stress, can disrupt the development of the brain. This may result in lifelong consequences for children’s cognitive and socio-emotional development.

Studies have shown that children exposed to violence in the home are more likely to normalise violence as a method of conflict resolution. This keeps the cycle of violence going from one generation to the next. It puts boys at higher risk of being violent to their partners as men. It makes girls more vulnerable to victimisation by intimate partners later in life.

Preventing violence against women and children should therefore begin early and continue. Early action can address the root causes and risk factors, interrupting the cycle within an individual’s lifetime and across generations.

The health sector’s role

Violence against women and children is a complex and deeply rooted problem. It requires a coordinated response from a range of sectors, including health, education, justice and social services.

Within this ecosystem of support, maternal and child health services offer one of the most frequent points of contact with pregnant women, young children and their families. These routine contacts provide opportunities to identify women and children at risk and connect families with support services.

It is therefore essential to strengthen the focus on violence prevention during the first 1,000 days through the direct actions of health workers or by using health facilities as platforms for delivery. For example, training health workers not only to screen for substance use, mental health concerns and exposure to violence, but also to provide care that recognises how violence and adversity affect health and behaviour.

Screening must also be linked to clear and reliable referral pathways to services.

The Road to Health Book (the South African child health record given to children at birth) offers another opportunity to strengthen screening and support.

Early opportunities to challenge harmful gender norms

Violence is a learned behaviour, shaped by social norms. Where violence is accepted or justified as a way of resolving conflict, it becomes part of everyday life. Transforming harmful norms is therefore essential to building safer homes and communities.

Some programmes have shown positive results in shifting attitudes and behaviours and reducing violence against women and children. The Bandebereho and RealFathers studies are examples from low-resource settings in sub-Saharan Africa. They are designed to engage men as fathers and have been shown to reduce intimate partner violence and violent discipline of children by engaging men as caregivers.

The beliefs that caregiving is only a woman’s role, and that women should endure violence to preserve family unity, are harmful. By addressing harmful beliefs, these programmes can foster shared caregiving, positive discipline and joint decision-making.

Evidence also suggests that men’s involvement during pregnancy and early childhood can strengthen family relationships and improve maternal and child well-being. Research in Soweto, South Africa found that when fathers attended pregnancy ultrasound scans, they reported stronger emotional bonds with their partners. And they felt a greater sense of responsibility and care for their unborn child.

Similarly, another analysis found that postnatal father involvement was associated with lower rates of maternal depression. These findings underscore the importance of designing gender transformative interventions. Practically, this may mean creating family-friendly health environments, with flexible clinic hours, and programmes that prepare men and families for nurturing and responsive care.

Conclusion

Without intervention, violence against women and children is likely to increase in frequency and severity.

Early intervention is therefore crucial. Violence prevention should ideally be integrated into existing systems at scale rather than treated as additional services. In this, the health sector plays a central role, particularly during the first 1,000 days, given its routine contact with mothers, infants and caregivers.

It is equally important to transform the harmful gender norms that sustain violence and limit men’s participation in caregiving.

Aislinn Delany was a coauthor of the chapter on violence prevention within the first 1,000 days in the South African Child Gauge 2025 on which this article is based.

Wiedaad Slemming is the Director of the Children’s Institute, an interdisciplinary research unit, at UCT. She serves on several national and international technical and advisory committees in the fields of maternal and child health, early childhood development and child disability.

Phiwe Babalo Nota 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. Violence against women and children is deeply connected. Three ways to break the patterns – https://theconversation.com/violence-against-women-and-children-is-deeply-connected-three-ways-to-break-the-patterns-269656

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Kwasi Konadu, Professor in Africana & Latin American Studies, Colgate University

African American singer Ciara received citizenship from the Republic of Benin in 2025 as a descendant of enslaved Africans. The images of her ceremony at Ouidah’s slave route memorial site, “Door of No Return”, were broadcast worldwide. Surrounded by drummers and dignitaries, she held a new Beninese passport aloft, a gesture hailed as both homecoming and healing.

As a historian of Africa, the African diaspora and Ghana, I see Ciara’s citizenship as part of a broader, complex story about how African states are reengaging with their diasporas. These are the global communities of people whose ancestors were displaced through slavery, migration and colonialism.

Several African countries have offered national identity to these descendants.

For many in the global African diaspora, Ciara’s ceremony felt like justice finally taking physical form. It was a symbolic reversal of forced displacement, affirming that descendants of the enslaved can now return as citizens rather than commodities. But behind the symbolism lies a deeper set of questions about power, inequality, and the politics of belonging.

At stake is whether Africa’s experiment with citizenship based on ancestry – what might be called citizenship diplomacy – represents genuine repair for past injustices or a ploy by governments to rebrand themselves.

A new wave of diaspora citizenship

Benin enacted a new law in 2024 which offers nationality to adults who can prove they descend from people enslaved and shipped from African shores. Proof may include DNA testing, genealogical documentation, or oral testimony. Recipients must finalise the process in person within three years.

The initiative follows similar efforts elsewhere. Ghana’s “Year of Return” in 2019 granted citizenship to dozens of African Americans; Sierra Leone has extended passports to descendants using DNA verification. Rwanda and The Gambia have launched programmes to attract “repatriates”.

These policies share a powerful moral ambition: to repair the rupture of slavery and reconnect global Africans with the continent.

Yet as Africa transforms its history into diplomacy, its diplomacy runs the risk of being less about genuine reuniting and more about using identity as a marketing strategy – selling the idea of “returning home” to improve an African nation’s global image.

This tension gives rise to four key issues revealed in my research: unequal access, genealogical governance, heritage commodification, and domestic inequality.

The unequal path to return

The first tension is access. DNA tests and ancestral research are expensive. The documentation required to verify lineage privileges those with resources, education and digital literacy. Celebrities can easily navigate this process; millions of others cannot.

In fact, those whose family histories were most violently erased are least able to prove descent.

These programmes are often promoted as open arms to the world’s Black descendants. However, they rely on technologies and bureaucracies rooted in western data regimes.

As scholars have shown, genetic ancestry databases are overwhelmingly managed by companies in the United States and Europe. These companies market and sell DNA while claiming to restore identity. The proof of African belonging is, once again, mediated by foreign tools and global capital.

Genealogy as governance

This reliance on genetics and archives revives colonial ways of classifying identity. European empires once defined African subjects through blood, “tribe” and lineage. Today, the state risks reinstating similar categories.

To decide who “counts” as African, governments are outsourcing moral authority to laboratories and paperwork. Instead, they could focus on community-based verification. This uses local historical societies, oral historians and cultural institutions that recognise shared heritage without reducing it to data.

The bureaucracy of belonging threatens to eclipse the politics of solidarity.

From memory to marketing

Another layer of complexity is economic. Governments market these citizenship programmes as engines of tourism, philanthropy and investment. Ghana’s Year of Return generated millions of dollars in tourism revenue, prompting other states to follow suit.

But when heritage becomes an industry, memory risks turning into merchandise. The descendants of the enslaved become consumers of identity rather than coauthors of the continent’s future.

There is nothing wrong with diaspora investment or travel. However, reparation should not be measured in flight packages and photo opportunities.

Inequality on the ground

Citizenship by ancestry can also create new inequalities within African societies. Returnees with foreign capital might purchase prime land, establish gated enclaves, or get privileges unavailable to locals.

In Ghana, tensions have surfaced between diaspora residents and citizens over property rights and cultural authority.

If unaddressed, these disparities could reproduce the very economic divides that colonialism imposed.

Citizenship as reparation must not translate into citizenship as entitlement. The moral gesture of inclusion loses meaning when it mirrors the social exclusions of global wealth.

Confronting historical complicity

Benin deserves recognition for acknowledging its historical role in the Atlantic slave trade, when the Kingdom of Dahomey captured and sold captives to European traders. The current government has invested in memorial tourism and educational projects around Ouidah’s slave route sites.

But recognition is only the first step. Apology without transformation leaves history unhealed. A citizenship programme can value memory only if it also builds institutions that dismantle the legacies of exploitation.

These national programmes expose a broader governance gap. The African Union (AU) officially designates the diaspora as Africa’s “sixth region”, yet there is no unified policy guiding diaspora citizenship. Each nation improvises its own standards, often shaped by domestic politics or diplomatic ambitions.

The absence of coordination creates a patchwork of eligibility rules and inconsistent rights. In some states, new citizens can vote or own property; in others, their status remains largely symbolic.

A continental framework could establish shared legal, ethical and economic principles for diaspora citizenship. Coordination would protect migrants from exploitation, prevent nationality shopping, and turn symbolic gestures into coherent policy.

Beyond ancestry: towards agency

The most profound shift must be philosophical. The descendants of the enslaved do not simply seek to return to Africa. They seek to return with Africa, to participate in a collective rethinking of freedom, belonging and justice.

Drawing from my research on diaspora reconstruction and transatlantic history, I argue that reconnecting should not be a sentimental pilgrimage. It should be a political partnership. Governments can collaborate with diaspora communities to build archives and fund educational exchanges. They can also invest in cultural institutions that preserve collective histories.

In that sense, citizenship as reparation can succeed only when it becomes citizenship as responsibility. That is, a mutual pact to build societies more equitable than the world that slavery and colonialism created.

Homecoming is an unfinished conversation. It is one that begins each time the continent and its diasporas meet not as strangers or symbols, but as partners in building the world that history denied them.

Kwasi Konadu 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. Ciara’s Beninese citizenship: marketing ploys can’t heal the past – https://theconversation.com/ciaras-beninese-citizenship-marketing-ploys-cant-heal-the-past-269213

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Richard G. Cowden, Research Scientist, Harvard University

South Africa is often portrayed in the media as a country struggling with inequality, corruption, crime, infrastructure collapse and public health challenges. But this isn’t the whole story.

When South Africans are asked to describe their own lives, they often reveal signs that they are flourishing in vital ways. According to the Global Flourishing Study, many South Africans are in fact showing resolve by striving to move forward from the country’s difficult past and maintaining hope for a better future.

Human flourishing is sometimes used to describe an ideal state in which all aspects of a person’s life are good, including the environments and communities they’re part of. The global study was launched in 2021 to better understand human flourishing around the world.

Over 200,000 people in 22 countries from Argentina to Japan participated in the first wave of the Global Flourishing Study. They completed a survey about their background, upbringing, health, well-being, and other areas of life.

Recently, we analysed the data from 2,561 South Africans in the study to drill deeper. We explored how they are doing across nearly 70 health, well-being and related outcomes. The analysis offers the first comprehensive overview of flourishing in South Africa.

So, what does flourishing look like in South Africa right now?

Contrary to a gloomy view of the country, adult South Africans are flourishing in many ways that mirror the broader world. The country even has some notable strengths it could capitalise on. There are also lingering struggles that may be hindering flourishing in South Africa.

These findings show that some flourishing is still possible amid adversity. Insights from South Africa could offer clues about how to support the well-being of people living in places that are going through significant social and structural challenges.

What South Africa has in common with others

Part of our analysis compared South Africa’s average for each indicator of flourishing to the average across all other countries in the study.

For example, consider the question, “In general, how happy or unhappy do you usually feel?” (rated on a scale from 0-10, with 0 being extremely unhappy and 10 being extremely happy). The average response was 6.95 in South Africa and 7.00 across the other countries. This suggests average happiness in South Africa is about the same as in the other countries, taken together.

The findings were similar for more than 30 of the main outcomes, including sense of purpose, social belonging, depression, gratitude, and general health.

---

Read more:
What makes people flourish? A new survey of more than 200,000 people across 22 countries looks for global patterns and local differences

---

Despite deep-seated societal problems, many South Africans report experiences of well-being that are not very different from the rest of the world. This doesn’t mean that the country’s social and structural challenges should be minimised or overlooked. However, it does show that many people can still experience high levels of well-being in circumstances of material fragility and deprivation.

It raises questions for South African leaders, policymakers and citizens to reflect on. For example, what might the flourishing of South Africans look like if these social-structural constraints were loosened or lifted?

South Africa’s strengths

The findings also suggest that South Africans have several strengths. Compared with the combined averages of the other countries, South Africans reported lower pain and suffering, greater inner peace, hope and forgiveness of others, and greater religious or spiritual engagement. On many of these, South Africa was ranked among the top five countries.

This shines a light on the enormous potential for flourishing in South Africa. For instance, many South Africans say they have the capacity to reckon with wounds from the oppressive system of racial segregation that shaped society for decades (through forgiveness).

South Africans tend to stay grounded amid the challenges of daily life (through inner peace), which puts them in a position to transcend adversities. And they generally hold onto the possibility of a brighter future despite enduring social-structural vulnerabilities (through hope).

---

Read more:
Christianity is changing in South Africa as pentecostal and indigenous churches grow – what’s behind the trend

---

Perhaps the most inspiring of these findings is forgiveness. This is a strength that appears to have been cultivated through South Africa’s protracted reckoning with the legacy of apartheid. It may reflect a general societal commitment to pursuing peace and healing over discord and bitterness.

Faith may be a foundational source for the strengths seen in South Africa. For many South Africans, religion or spirituality is something they lean on to navigate the struggles they face in one of the most unequal societies in the world.

The challenges

Like many countries in the Global Flourishing Study, South Africa has clear opportunities to strengthen and expand the conditions that support human flourishing.

South Africans also tended to report lower well-being on several outcomes. These included satisfaction with life, meaning in life, place satisfaction, social trust, experiences of discrimination, charitable giving, and several socioeconomic factors such as employment and financial well-being.

---

Read more:
Which African countries are flourishing? Scientists have a new way of measuring well-being

---

These point to actionable areas that government, civil society, and private sector leaders can prioritise to improve flourishing in the country. Special attention should be directed toward supporting vulnerable groups that the analysis showed are struggling in many aspects of flourishing, including women, divorced people, and those with lower levels of education.

What this all means

The concept of flourishing invites South Africa to envision the highest ideals for its people and the kind of society those ideals might sustain. This does not mean that everyone will agree on what those ideals are, or how best to achieve them.

But the language of flourishing offers a way to unite different sectors and stakeholders around a shared goal: harnessing South Africa’s strengths while addressing challenges that hold back deeper forms of human flourishing in the country.

Richard G. Cowden 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. South Africans are flourishing more than you might expect – here’s why – https://theconversation.com/south-africans-are-flourishing-more-than-you-might-expect-heres-why-268695

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Lilac Nachum, Visiting professor, Strathmore University

Africa is the world’s most endowed continent in agricultural potential, yet it remains a marginal player in global agribusiness. This paradox lies at the heart of Africa’s development challenge.

Africa’s land accounts for nearly half of the global total. Most of it can be used for growing crops. It is also largely unprotected, and not forested, with low population density. The continent’s climate supports the growth of 80% of the foods consumed globally. Economic theory would predict that these conditions would lead to strong export performance. Yet Africa’s share of global agricultural exports is the lowest worldwide. It fell from about 8% in 1960 to 4% in the early 2020s, according to World Bank data.

Policymakers have largely neglected agribusiness export performance, with a few exceptions, such as Kenya and Ghana. Agribusiness refers to the entire range of activities in producing, processing, distributing and marketing agricultural products.

Despite being the largest contributor to GDP and employment, agribusiness receives a disproportionately small share of government spending (on average 4%), far below its economic significance. There are variations across the continent, ranging from 8% and 7% respectively in Mali and South Sudan to less than 3% in Kenya and Ghana. Many governments have instead chosen manufacturing as the pathway to global integration.

Based on insights from over three decades of research, consulting and teaching on global markets and development, I argue that agriculture could lead Africa’s integration into the world economy. Four reforms would be necessary: improving access to capital; documenting land; designing targeted cross-border policies; and strategically employing trade policy.

In these ways, Africa could use its natural assets to secure broad-based economic growth and a stronger position in global value chains.

Four reforms to support agribusiness

1. Improve access to capital

Capital scarcity remains the most serious constraint on African agribusiness. Financial institutions are reluctant to lend due to high risk, long investment horizons, poor collateral, and profits being vulnerable to price shocks. The World Bank estimates that agriculture receives only about 1% of commercial lending despite contributing 25%-40% of GDP (up to 6% in Nigeria and Ethiopia). Lending rates are often double the economy-wide average, as UN Food and Agriculture Organization data show for Uganda.

Governments can help close this financing gap. In 2024, Kenya allocated US$7.7 million for developing its tea production. Domestic investment can generate savings by cutting food import bills. Nigeria’s Tomato Jos project, for instance, reduced annual tomato paste imports by US$360 million.

Governments should expand public lending while also enabling private sector participation through risk-sharing mechanisms. South Africa’s Khula Credit Guarantee Scheme illustrates how government-backed guarantees can unlock finance for collateral-poor farmers. This model has been reproduced in Kenya and Tanzania with EU and development bank support.

Private finance sources such as venture capital have also grown rapidly. In 2024, Nigeria and South Africa each attracted about US$500 million in venture funding. Funded African startups have grown six times faster than the global average. Micro-lending platforms now exceed US$8.5 billion in loans.

2. Document the land

Over 80% of Africa’s arable land is undocumented and governed by customary tenure systems poorly integrated into formal law. Weak land administration deters investment and limits land’s use as collateral. Transfers cost twice as much and take twice as long as in OECD countries (the world’s 38 most developed countries). That constrains access to credit and economies of scale needed for exports.

Several land tenure reforms introduced in the last decade demonstrate the benefits of formalisation. Ethiopia issued certificates to 20 million smallholders, boosting rental activity. Malawi’s redistribution of 15,000 hectares raised household incomes by 40%. In Mozambique, Uganda and Liberia, governments legally recognised customary institutions to facilitate formal land contracts. Rwanda’s comprehensive land mapping further improved transparency and investment incentives.

3. Design focused cross-border policies

Regional and global markets need different strategies for export success. Intra-African trade benefits from proximity and regulatory harmonisation. The East African Community’s trade facilitation measures increased intra-regional dairy exports 65-fold within a decade.

Most African agricultural exports, however, go to non-African markets, requiring infrastructure and logistics investments to ensure speed and quality. Senegal increased exports by 20% annually after investing in high-speed shipping, while Ethiopia’s flower growing boom owes much to its air transport and cold-chain systems.

Policies must also be crop specific. Kenya’s targeted avocado export strategy transformed it into Africa’s largest exporter, with double-digit annual growth. Mali’s mango export policy built a competitive value chain serving European markets.

4. Use trade policy as a tool for upgrading

African exporters primarily sell raw, low-value materials. Nigeria, a top tomato producer, exports nearly all production unprocessed – and imports paste. Less than 5% of Kenyan tea, the nation’s leading export, is branded. Trade policy can reverse this imbalance by encouraging domestic processing.

The East African Community’s differentiated tariff structure successfully encouraged value addition by lowering duties on intermediate goods while protecting local food processing. Governments could similarly tax or restrict unprocessed exports to motivate upgrading. At the same time, it’s necessary to invest in processing capacity. Several countries, including Botswana, Uganda and Côte d’Ivoire, have attempted raw export bans with limited success because the enabling conditions are missing.

A decisive shift

Africa’s agribusiness sector embodies the continent’s untapped potential for structural transformation. With abundant land, favourable climate and rapidly growing domestic demand, Africa possesses clear comparative advantages. Africa is also becoming more capable of addressing the challenges that have arrested the development of the agribusiness sector in the past. This article develops a policy agenda designed to reverse Africa’s declining share of world agricultural trade by amending institutional failures that have constrained competitiveness.

This agenda is based on enhancing access to finance, formalising land rights, implementing targeted cross-border initiatives, and using trade policy for upgrading. A decisive policy shift towards an agriculture-led development agenda is essential. Implementing this agenda will enable African countries to improve their economic position at home and in the world.

Lilac Nachum 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. Agricultural exports from Africa are not doing well. Four ways to change that – https://theconversation.com/agricultural-exports-from-africa-are-not-doing-well-four-ways-to-change-that-268780

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Amanda Gouws, Professor of Political Science and Chair of the South African Research Initiative in Gender Politics, Stellenbosch University

For democracies to function well, citizens have to trust their institutions. Every incidence of bad service delivery or corruption will influence how much citizens trust institutions.

The latest incident that will most likely shake confidence in South Africa’s political system, and specifically the police and the criminal justice system, is the accusation by General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, provincial commissioner of KwaZulu-Natal province, that members of these institutions are involved in organised crime. The accusations are being investigated by the Madlanga Commission and heard in parliament by an ad hoc committee.

General Mkhwanazi alleged that the police minister, other members of the South African Police Force and members of the judiciary interfered with the investigation he was leading into political assassinations. He alleged they attempted to close down the “political killings task team” because of their own links to organised crime.

Signs of corruption have, over time, eroded political trust among citizens in South Africa.

In this article we discuss the findings of the most recent survey by Afrobarometer, a pan-African research network, and two attitude surveys done by Citizen Surveys for the South African Research Chairs Initiative chair in Gender Politics. The data of the SARChI Chair will be made public once the research project is concluded.

Prof Gouws specialises in the construction of surveys and analysis of survey data and Dr Kupolusi is a statistician who is her post-doctoral fellow and did the statistical analysis for this article.

The reports show a decline of trust over a four-year period. The 2022 Afrobarometer data supports the findings of our two attitude surveys.

Citizens have to trust a political system if they are to accept its legitimacy and support it. When they see the system as legitimate, citizens are more willing to obey the laws of the country. They then support the rule of law.

Political trust and legitimacy

We understand “political trust” as it was conceptualised by David Easton, an American political scientist, in 1975. It is the perceived likelihood that the political system will deliver public goods without having to be closely scrutinised by citizens. Political trust is closely linked to the concepts of political support and legitimacy.

These three concepts relate to each other in the following way. Support for the political authorities or a regime will typically express itself in two forms: trust or confidence in them, and belief in their legitimacy.

Trust is present when citizens feel that their own interests would be attended to even if the authorities were exposed to little supervision or scrutiny. Legitimacy is present when people believe it is right and proper to accept and obey the authorities, and abide by the requirements of the political system.

Trust and legitimacy are therefore distinct concepts. Trust is measured through political support for the regime and its authorities. Easton distinguishes between two types of support.

Diffuse support is a reservoir of positive attitudes and goodwill towards the regime as a whole, its underlying principles, and the larger political community. Diffuse support is more durable than specific support, which is trust in the incumbents of the political system.

Research
has shown that levels of trust in institutions like parliament, parties and courts far outweigh judgements on national and personal economic well-being. Economic performance is more important in high income countries, but trust in institutions, coupled with free and fair elections, is more important in newer democracies.

Declining levels of trust

In this article, through the use of different surveys conducted at different points in time (2018 and two different surveys in 2022), we show how institutional trust has declined over time in South Africa, to the detriment of the political system.

We also show that there’s a gender gap – that men and women differ in their attitudes towards the rule of law.

The most recent Afrobarometer survey (Round 9, 2022) had a national sample of 1,582 respondents. It found “no trust” at 66% for the police, 73% for parliament, 75% for the ruling party and 72% for opposition parties. It is only for the courts where “no trust” is below 50%.

Afrobarometer’s findings corroborate those of our own surveys, done in 2018 and 2022 by Citizen Surveys, a survey company in Cape Town. The survey was conducted with a national stratified sample of 1,300 respondents in all nine provinces and translated into seven languages. The interviews were done face to face by the fieldworkers of Citizen Surveys.

What our surveys show are declining levels of trust over time in the most important institutions of the police, parliament and political parties, with “no trust” in all of them over 50%.

When it comes to the rule of law our 2022 data showed that 45.8% of respondents said it was “not necessary to obey the laws of a corrupt government”, 69% indicated that it was fine to “get around the law as long as you don’t break it”, 62% agreed that it was fine if “the law is suspended in times of emergency” and 50.4% thought it was “better to ignore the law and solve problems immediately than wait for a legal solution” (vigilante justice).

What surprised us was the difference between the attitudes of men and women for the rule of law in our 2022 data. For “it is not necessary to obey the laws of a corrupt government” 44% of men agreed vs 47% of women. For “it is all right to get around the law as long as you don’t actually break it” 65.6% of men agreed vs 71.4% of women. For “suspending the law in times of emergency” 61.2% of men agreed vs 63.5% of women. And for “sometimes it is better to ignore the law and solve problems immediately” 46.2% of men vs 53.4% of women agreed.

What this shows is that women are more militant in their attitudes towards (breaking) the rule of law – findings that were quite unexpected. It seems that women, who are often at the receiving end of crime, have had enough.

What needs to happen

Declining trust and support for the rule of law undermines the legitimacy of government. The courts have been a beacon of legitimacy but even for courts the level of “no trust” is close to 50%.

A serious problem is that citizens do not distinguish between institutions (diffuse support) and incumbents (specific support). This means that corrupt officials undermine trust in institutions (such as the police, parliament and political parties).

A decline in specific support affects diffuse support – that reservoir of goodwill toward institutions. When corruption is not dealt with, erosion of trust in institutions is a consequence of the behaviour of incumbents.

Political trust and support for the rule of law are important in democracies to sustain stability, and so that citizens will not start to look for alternative ways such as protest or political violence to make their demands known to those who govern them.

Amanda Gouws receives funding from the National Research Foundation through her SARChI Chair in Gender Politics.

Joseph Ayodele Kupolusi receives funding from the National Research Foundation through Amanda Gouws SARChI Chair in Gender Politics

– ref. South Africans have lost trust in the police, in parliament and in political parties – what that means – https://theconversation.com/south-africans-have-lost-trust-in-the-police-in-parliament-and-in-political-parties-what-that-means-268804

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Lamine Doumbia, Research Associate – Dep. African History /Institute for Asian and African Studies, Humboldt University of Berlin

Mali has been struggling for over a decade to defeat “jihadists” around Gao, Kidal and Ségou. Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), linked to al-Qaida, is believed to be the most vicious of the terrorist groups operating there, based on the scale of its attacks.

The group’s aims include an imposition of its strict interpretation of Islam and sharia. Recently it raised the ante with attacks in certain zones in Mali. This has put strain on trade routes and the supply of essential commodities, including fuel.

Consequently, there have been media reports raising concerns about the deepening security crisis in the country. Yet, as Malian researchers, we think some of these claims are exaggerated. We work in African studies, social anthropology, history, economics and development studies, and have been conducting fieldwork in Bamako over the past six months. Our view also draws on our broader research on urban market dynamics and social resilience in west Africa.

We argue that what is being reported is more like guesses based on certain conditions than solid conclusions backed by evidence.

For instance, the fuel crisis in Bamako has been interpreted as the direct consequence of terrorist activity. A contributing factor may be the limited institutional and governmental capacity to effectively coordinate fuel and energy procurement and storage of the country.

Indeed, since September 2025, Mali has a fuel shortage and a sharp rise in prices. Government efforts have not yet brought the crisis under lasting control. But this does not necessarily mean the capital city is under siege.

Our field observations suggest a different picture. Bamako is indeed under immense pressure and activities have been disrupted. But markets continue to function, and people display remarkable solidarity and adaptability in their daily lives.

The distinction matters, not to minimise the crisis, but to capture it with the nuance, complexity and empirical sensitivity that local realities demand.

Beyond the narrative of collapse

Framing Bamako as “blockaded” risks obscuring these complex social realities. While insecurity on key transport corridors is real, the city remains functional.

Markets continue to operate, albeit under difficult conditions. Schools, though intermittently closed, have reopened after a shutdown of two weeks, and many urban communities are mobilising local forms of resilience. External analyses too often overlook these.

To call this situation a “blockade” is to conflate logistical disruption with military encirclement. A blockade would imply that no movement of people or goods is possible, which is not the case. What we are witnessing is a progressive suffocation of the city’s economic arteries, not a total siege.

Everyday realities: markets and hardship

To understand the present crisis around Bamako, one must trace its history. As the emeritus social anthropologist Georg Klute explains, conflict in the Sahara-Sahel region has long taken the form of asymmetric, nomadic “small wars”.

These were not total wars but mobile and negotiated confrontations, rooted in strategies of autonomy and survival in marginal environments. What we see today is a continuation of this tradition of localised contestation.

The asymmetric “small war” has evolved into hybrid insurgencies blending historical modes of resistance, political grievances from the 1990s onwards, and transnational terrorists’ ideology.

This trajectory was already visible more than a decade ago, when the 2012 coup was followed by the occupation of northern Mali by Tuareg separatists and terrorists Islamist groups.

Once celebrated as a model democracy, Mali entered a prolonged cycle of fragility, marked by military coups, fragmented authority and the erosion of public trust.

While Bamako faces shortages and rising prices, the epicentre of economic suffering lies further north and east, in the Mopti, Kayes and Ségou regions. Recent studies show how armed groups have inserted themselves into everyday economic life, controlling markets, taxing trade routes and regulating mobility.

In Mopti, “jihadist” factions have established parallel systems of governance, collecting “zakat” taxes, enforcing their own codes of justice, and offering minimal security in exchange for compliance.

In Ségou, transport networks are heavily monitored; farmers and traders are often forced to pay informal levies to move goods between villages. These measures have distorted local economies, redirected value chains and imposed new hierarchies of control.

What began as localised insurgency in nomadic peripheries has now reached the urban heart of Mali’s political and economic life.

Yet, as we observed during our recent fieldwork in Bamako’s Grand Marché, this is not a war fought solely with weapons, it is also a struggle for survival, dignity and sovereignty.

Resilience and solidarity

During our recent field research on urban market dynamics and contestations in west Africa, we witnessed how the current crisis has reshaped everyday life in Bamako.

In the Grand Marché, the city’s commercial heart, traders and consumers alike are facing hardship. The shortage of fuel has disrupted the circulation of goods and people, making transport scarce and expensive.

This shortage has set off a chain reaction. Prices of basic commodities have soared and electricity cuts have multiplied, undermining cold storage, small-scale industries, and household livelihoods. Although we don’t have official data, we have observed “unregistered” workers – the majority of Bamako’s labour force – seeing their income sources collapse.

Yet resilience and solidarity remain striking. Many traders continue to walk long distances to reach the market, often uncertain whether customers will come at all. On Saturdays, when fuel becomes slightly more available, market areas come alive with crowds of vendors and buyers.

Across the city, long queues form at petrol stations, and people wait patiently, sharing water, information and small acts of support.

What emerges from these scenes is a remarkable atmosphere of mutuality, a collective will to endure and to adapt. In the face of scarcity, Bamako’s residents are reinventing everyday life through cooperation, perseverance, and a sense of community.

In this context, the lesson is that military escalation cannot resolve what began as an asymmetric, socially embedded crisis. As both our field observations and long-term research suggest, negotiation (rooted in local realities and historical understanding) offers the only sustainable path forward.

Negotiation, not militarisation

From the vantage point of the Grand Marché, Bamako’s current crisis is not one of imminent collapse, but of cumulative exhaustion. The people’s resilience cannot indefinitely compensate for the paralysis of governance.

The Malian crisis has demonstrated, time and again, the limits of a purely military response. The social and economic despair we are witnessing today reinforces the urgency of a social political dialogue, not as a sign of weakness, but as a pragmatic acknowledgment of reality.

Negotiation must go beyond the binary of “state versus armed groups”. It must include religious leaders, market actors, civil society groups, university scholars and local communities.

Such a process will be difficult, especially given the commitment to laïcité (secularism) in Mali’s constitutional framework. Yet, refusing dialogue only deepens isolation (political, social, and humanitarian).

Rather than framing Mali’s capital as a city under siege, we should recognise it as a city struggling under immense strain; one that still breathes, resists and adapts. Negotiation, not militarisation, remains the only credible route to sustainable peace in Bamako.

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. Bamako is under pressure, not under siege: the difference and why it matters – https://theconversation.com/bamako-is-under-pressure-not-under-siege-the-difference-and-why-it-matters-269447

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Misheck Mutize, Post Doctoral Researcher, Graduate School of Business (GSB), University of Cape Town

The decision by the rating agency Moody’s to downgrade Senegal’s sovereign credit rating in late October 2025 triggered an immediate week-long sell-off in Senegal’s Eurobonds. This was the third downgrade in one year. It left the country’s 16-year bond trading at a 40% discount to its face value. Meaning, for every one dollar denominated bond, it was being sold for 60c on the market.

Moody’s decision once again raised questions about the accuracy of decisions taken by the world’s three biggest rating agencies – Moody’s, Standard and Poor’s, and the Fitch – when it comes to African countries.

One of the main reasons for Moody’s downgrade was Senegal’s decision to turn to regional markets to raise capital. Since the start of 2025, the government has raised over US$5 billion through the West African Economic and Monetary Union regional bond market. This is approximately 12% of Senegal’s US$42 billion public debt.

Moody’s interpreted Senegal’s actions as weakness, warning that dependence on regional investors could expose Senegal to ‘reversals in investor sentiment’. In other words, the rating agency treated the fact that Senegal had mobilised domestic and regional capital as a new source of risk. On the contrary, S&P recognise this strength.

I have been researching Africa’s capital markets and the institutions that govern them for decades. Drawing in this, I argue here that Moody’s interpretation is both unfair and analytically flawed. Tapping into local and regional capital markets isn’t a liability. It’s a model of the fiscal sovereignty African countries have been encouraged by economists and African leaders to pursue for decades. This enhances self-reliance and reduces vulnerability to external shocks.

At the heart of the problem lies a narrow definition of risk. Rating models for emerging markets still prioritise narrow macroeconomic indicators – per-capita GDP, foreign-exchange reserves, current-account balances and IMF programme status. They don’t capture qualitative factors like domestic investor participation, fiscal adaptability and the development of regional markets.

Regional markets versus global

Countries worldwide are increasingly relying on local and regional markets to raise capital. In Africa, South Africa, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali and Côte d’Ivoire have been mirroring patterns seen in Mexico, Brazil and Indonesia, prioritising domestic and regional borrowing.

Regional and local-market financing has a number of benefits for countries.

First, it reduces foreign exchange exposure by reducing the needs for huge foreign currency reserves for debt servicing.

Second, it strengthens domestic market liquidity by expanding the number of local investors on the bond market.

Third, it keeps debt-service payments within Africa’s financial ecosystem. Retaining capital on the continent and reducing dependence on volatile external financing.

Lastly, it minimises market swings. Domestic bondholders are largely local institutional investors — a more stable and less speculative pool of capital that understands local market dynamics far better than external rating agencies.

Senegal’s regional bond issues have been performing extremely well because investors want to buy more than the government is even offering — a sign of strong demand. The interest rate it paid, averaging 7%, was also much lower than the much higher (double-digit) interest rates it would have been charged if it had borrowed from international markets through Eurobonds. In simple terms, borrowing locally was cheaper, safer and more attractive for Senegal than borrowing globally.

Investors from across the region – pension funds, banks and insurance companies – have been lining up to purchase the bonds on all the five issuance in 2025.

Senegal’s success boosts confidence among local investors and encourage other African governments to tap their own capital markets. A powerful incentive to mobilise more African capital for the continent’s development.

When ratings become a source of risk

Moody’s downgrade triggered immediate selling of Senegal’s Eurobonds due in 2048, driving their price down to about 72 cents on the dollar. That slump was not because the country’s economic fundamentals were deteriorating, it was sentiment triggered by the downgrade.

This dynamic creates a damaging feedback loop. Negative ratings lead to investor flight, which raises borrowing costs and validates the pessimism. In effect, the perception of risk becomes the cause of risk.

This cycle undermines the policy credibility of African governments. It disincentivises reform and discourages innovation.

It’s not the first time that rating agencies have cautioned risks that have a near zero chance of materialising and in the process, shaken investor confidence and caused capital fight. These include:

• During the COVID crisis S&P warned of imminent food shortages and foreign-exchange depletion in Egypt despite stable remittance inflows and active central-bank management.

• In 2023 the Kenyan government announced plans to repurchase part of its maturing Eurobond. This was a prudent debt-management step, but Moody’s warned it would be interpreted as a sign of distress. This never happened. In fact, Moody’s later upgraded Kenya’s outlook, largely based on the success of same bond restructuring which it warned against 10 months earlier.

What needs to change

Credit ratings are supposed to guide investors, not govern economies through certain policy inclinations. But in Africa’s case, they often do both. Because many institutional investors are required to hold investment-grade securities, a single downgrade can abruptly cut a country off from international capital markets.

The consequences are immediate and severe – higher interest rates, reduced access to credit, weaker currencies and a perception of crisis. This sequence can unfold even when a country’s underlying fundamentals are still strong. Overly cautious rating assessments not only reflect negative market sentiment, they create it.

Africa does not need special treatment, it needs balanced and context-sensitive rating evaluation.

Accurate risk assessment would recognise the strategic logic of financing through domestic and regional markets. It would acknowledge that by financing through domestic and regional markets, African governments are building alternatives that are better suited to current realities.

Global agencies must therefore recalibrate their analysis to account for domestic and regional market depth, fiscal adaptability, strength and stability of Africa’s internal markets. Ignoring these and focusing solely on perceived weaknesses is to tell an incomplete story to investors.

Without such adjustments, rating agencies will continue to lag behind economic reality and risk becoming instruments of distortion rather than insight.

Misheck Mutize is affiliated with the African Union – African Peer Review Mechanism as a Lead Expert on credit ratings

– ref. Senegal’s credit rating: Moody’s latest downgrade was questionable – here’s why – https://theconversation.com/senegals-credit-rating-moodys-latest-downgrade-was-questionable-heres-why-269473

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Ekta Patel, Scientist, International Livestock Research Institute

Aquaculture – the farming of fish and other aquatic organisms – is the world’s fastest-growing food production system.

The sharpest growth in aquaculture is happening in Africa. Average annual growth rates have exceeded 10% in recent years measured by production value.

Over the past 10 years in Lake Victoria, shared between Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, aquaculture has transformed from a small-scale enterprise into a vast and diverse commercial industry.

Lake Victoria is the world’s second-largest freshwater lake. Cage aquaculture, the farming of fish within cages, has expanded rapidly in the lake. The cages are made of nets in frames, and are mostly stocked with Nile tilapia. The number of fish in a cage farm varies from tens to hundreds of thousands. The sector accounts for about 25% of the fish Kenya produces.

These cage farms support the nutrition and livelihoods of more than 40 million people in the lake’s basin.

We are environmental scientists who study biological threats to public health. From our research, we have found that this industry faces two interconnected challenges: large-scale fish deaths; and resistance to the drugs used to treat diseased fish.

Repeated, large-scale die-offs are known as fish kills. They involve the rapid death of hundreds of thousands, or sometimes millions, of fish within a few days. Many farmers who find dead fish in their cages simply toss them into the lake, where they can easily wash up against another cage and transmit disease.

Farmers and fish health professionals often use antimicrobials, which are drugs like antibiotics, to manage and treat infectious diseases. But antimicrobial resistance is a rising threat. A misuse of these drugs is fuelling the emergence of resistant bacteria, making treatments ineffective.

Because of the scale of these problems, we set out to systematically examine both the causes of mass fish deaths and the spread of antimicrobial resistance in Lake Victoria’s cage aquaculture industry.

Our study was conducted in Kenya. We found that fish deaths in Lake Victoria’s tilapia industry are likely driven by water quality problems. These include low oxygen levels, pollution and harmful algal blooms. Algal blooms refer to the rapid growth and subsequent decomposition of algae. This can lead to the release of toxins and rapid drops in dissolved oxygen levels.

These water quality problems create openings for infectious bacteria to thrive.

To address this, we suggest:

• stronger disease reporting systems to enable a prompt response from industry authorities

• improved diagnostics to determine the cause of fish mortalities

• clear guidelines for antimicrobial use among farmers.

Without these interventions, the sustainability of a rapidly growing industry – and the food security of millions in east Africa – remains at risk.

Our findings

Our study surveyed 172 cage farm operations. These were across the five Kenyan counties in Lake Victoria (Kisumu, Siaya, Busia, Homa Bay and Migori).

We surveyed cage farmers’ perceptions and responses to fish kills. We also carried out a rapid-response investigation of a mass tilapia mortality event, and disease surveillance. Finally, we tested the antimicrobial resistance of identified bacterial pathogens.

Between 2020 and 2023, the farmers in our study reported 82 large-scale fish kill events in Lake Victoria, with more than 1.8 million tilapia dying.

These events had major economic consequences, but reporting and treatment were limited.

We found that only 39% of farmers informed the relevant Kenyan authorities. These include the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute, Kenya Fisheries Service and county fisheries offices.

Just 17% attempted treatment. This usually included applying salt to the water without obtaining a diagnosis. This points to gaps in reporting systems and access to fish health services.

Farmers mostly attributed fish deaths to poor water quality. Nearly 90% perceived links to changes in water colour and smell, high temperatures or algal blooms.

Harmful algal blooms happen when phytoplankton (tiny organisms in the water) quickly multiply and then decompose. These blooms produce dangerous toxins and can rapidly lower the levels of dissolved oxygen in the water. They can lead to fish deaths, and can affect human health if people eat contaminated fish or drink the water.

Harmful algal blooms in Lake Victoria are driven by the runoff from industries and the excessive use of fertilisers.

A smaller number of farmers cited human activities like stocking, handling or pollution.

Very few directly associated mortalities with disease. This probably reflects limited training to recognise clinical signs of infection.

Our rapid-response investigation of a major fish kill in Busia County supported these observations. On arrival, we found discoloured, foul-smelling water. There were floating dead molluscs and low dissolved oxygen levels, conditions typical of harmful algal blooms.

From freshly deceased tilapia, we isolated three bacterial pathogens: Aeromonas jandaei, Enterobacter hormaechei and Staphylococcus epidermidis. These opportunistic pathogens often cause disease secondary to a primary stressor, such as poor water quality or rough handling.

This was the first time bacterial pathogens were successfully identified from a fish kill in Lake Victoria.

We found that bacterial tilapia pathogens were more commonly found within cage farms with clogged cage nets, likely because the nets reduce water circulation and worsen cage water quality.

Finally, antimicrobial resistance testing revealed resistant strains among the bacterial samples.

These results can guide veterinarians and policymakers in making decisions about antimicrobial use in aquaculture.

What next

Our findings point to a central conclusion: opportunistic pathogens are widespread in Lake Victoria. And fish disease outbreaks are often driven by poor water quality.

Action is needed at multiple levels.

At the landscape scale, nutrient runoff into the lake must be reduced. This requires improving sanitation infrastructure and promoting more efficient fertiliser use in agriculture. This will help prevent harmful algal blooms.

Fish farmers can:

• set up cages in deeper waters with better circulation

• keep cage nets clean to allow water flow

• dispose of dead fish by composting or burning rather than throwing them back into the lake

• rapidly report mortality events so authorities can investigate

• improve feeding practices, such as using high-quality feed and avoiding overfeeding, to reduce nutrient loading into the lake.

A One Health approach, which recognises the interconnectedness of human, animal and environmental health, is important for the sustainability of Lake Victoria’s aquaculture.

This means monitoring water quality and pollution, and establishing cross-sectoral collaborations for rapid disease response. Farmers also need training.

Improved production practices can decrease the need for antibiotics in the first place. Coordinated monitoring systems and cross-sectoral collaboration can help promote their responsible use.

Eric Teplitz was funded by an NIH T32 postdoctoral training grant and a Cornell Atkinson Center Graduate Student Research Grant.

This study received funding from the USAID Feed the Future Fish Innovation Lab, US National Science Foundation, Cornell Atkinson Center Academic Venture Fund, and the Department of Public and Ecosystem Health Impact Awards (to KJF).

Ekta Patel 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. Fish farming is booming in Lake Victoria, but pollution and disease are wiping out millions. How to reduce losses – https://theconversation.com/fish-farming-is-booming-in-lake-victoria-but-pollution-and-disease-are-wiping-out-millions-how-to-reduce-losses-266073