The Conversation – Africa – Page 17

October 26, 2025

Ethiopian quarter: how migrants have shaped a thriving shopping district in South Africa’s city of gold

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Tanya Zack, Visiting senior lecturer, University of the Witwatersrand

Since its founding in 1886, Johannesburg, has been a city of migrants, internal and international. But the economic capital of South Africa has undergone big changes since 1994 when South Africa became a democracy. One such change involves migration into the city by people from other African countries.

A new book, The Chaos Precinct: Johannesburg as a port city, by Tanya Zack traces how migrant Ethiopians have shaped a trading post in Johannesburg’s inner city. Zack, a planner who specialises in urban policy, regeneration, informality and sustainable development, explains how the Ethiopians did it.

What space have Ethiopian migrants carved out in the centre of Johannesburg?

The book is set in the shopping centres of the so-called Ethiopian Quarter, in high-rise, formerly commercial buildings in the inner city of Johannesburg. It is a cross-border shopping hub of thousands of cupboard-sized shops crammed into buildings. It defies the categories of formal or informal, of wholesale or retail. And it is where people from all of southern Africa come to shop for fast fashion.

While migrants from several countries trade here, the trading post was pioneered by and remains dominated by Ethiopian and Eritrean migrants. It is an extraordinary shopping district in what were high-rise medical buildings. These office towers centre on Rahima Moosa (previously Jeppe) Street, where medical practitioners and pharmaceutical companies once agglomerated.

Buildings that had been underutilised or abandoned became the canvas for an entrepreneurial transformation. Ethiopian migrants led the repurposing of these structures into over 3,000 tiny shops. Shopfronts are linked to storerooms located higher up in the buildings or nearby spaces. This new retail footprint wasn’t known in Johannesburg three decades ago. And the scale of trading has attracted many infrastructure uses that support the transnational movement of goods and people.

It was not supported by formal planning or pension funds, but developed by migrant entrepreneurs, one shop at a time.

They draw on global supply chains, particularly Chinese wholesalers operating in warehouse-style malls west of the inner city, to access a steady stream of fast fashion, cosmetics and household items. Inner-city-based Ethiopian traders then retail these goods in individual or smaller quantities. Their clientele is composed largely of cross-border traders who on-sell the products throughout southern Africa.

This model has effectively turned the inner city into an inland port. It’s a logistics hub where goods circulate rapidly, and where shoppers are embedded in an informal yet highly organised distribution network.

The inner-city street grid, first surveyed in 1886 during Johannesburg’s mining camp era, consists of very short blocks, which amplify pedestrian and vehicular congestion. It’s a frenzied shopping environment.

Shopkeepers and stallholders have maximised their display areas through creative lightweight architectures. Small shopfronts are linked to storerooms higher up in buildings or nearby. Sidewalks are lined with street vendors, forming mini corridors.

Internal arcades in the buildings further maximise the retail footprint. This hybrid, vertically integrated structuring has generated a real estate boom in previously underutilised buildings in a flagging property market.

The success of this enclave is also tied to the migrants’ ability to craft both social and commercial networks. Migrant traders and cross-border shoppers have relationships based on trading through information sharing, mutual assistance, and informal credit mechanisms. Traders are necessarily adaptive. They adjust to the pace of demand, shifting product lines quickly. They also coordinate closely with suppliers and resellers throughout Southern Africa. The spaces they use and adapt are similarly flexible.

This combination of adaptive reuse, dense retail specialisation and networked entrepreneurship has allowed Ethiopian migrants to carve out a commercial territory that is at once highly visible and deeply embedded in regional trade flows.

South Africa has been harsh towards informal economic activity. How has this been managed?

The Ethiopian Quarter exists in a context of often-hostile municipal and national governance.

South Africa has historically oscillated between tolerance and repression of informal economic activity, particularly when driven by foreign migrants. Law enforcement campaigns have regularly targeted street traders and migrant shopkeepers. Traders and shoppers alike face the constant threat of violent policing, corruption, theft, and harassment. Uniformed police or wardens regularly confront them, demanding that they prove their migrant status. There’s talk of being detained in vehicles until a bribe is paid.

Ethiopian migrant traders have developed a range of strategies to navigate the challenges of hostility. They co-locate with other Ethiopian traders, and rely on ethnic and commercial networks to absorb shocks and share information about law enforcement activities.

Ethiopian traders have also innovatively adapted their physical and commercial operations to reduce vulnerability. Shops are designed to control stock and display goods while concealing cash and high-value items. The light architectures and arcade designs of Jeppe also make it possible to conceal the shop in the event of raids.

Shoppers spend as little time as possible inside the crime-ridden Johannesburg CBD. On the day they choose goods, they often carry no money. They return later with cash to purchase goods as swiftly as possible so that cash is not carried unnecessarily. Many hide cash on their bodies.

The infrastructures that have developed to service the port-like functions of this massive cross border trading hub offer storage, package, information exchange and distribution services. Hotels, buses and storage facilities provide relative safety for cross-border shoppers who must navigate a city known for crime. A 2017 survey, funded by the Johannesburg Inner City Partnership,
found that over 60% of retailers had experienced physical assault. 38% reported regularly giving police officers something to mitigate harassment.

What lessons do you draw about how cities should govern migration?

The cross-border shopping hub demonstrates that migrant-driven informal economies are engines of economic activity. Estimates based on the 2017 cross border shopping survey showed that shoppers in the Jeppe district alone spent close to US$600 million annually. This was twice the turnover of Sandton City, at that time Africa’s richest mall.

The activities of Jeppe mimic international entrepots like Singapore and Hong Kong. They offer information exchange, repackaging and distribution services for goods flowing from China to international destinations. This Johannesburg entrepot has regional significance, distributing goods throughout southern Africa. But it’s under-recognised by municipal authorities.

A law and order approach must at least be coupled with a developmental approach. Cities that aim to govern migration must integrate migrant economic activity rather than suppress it.

Support through infrastructure improvements and security provision would amplify Jeppe’s economic impact.

This includes recognising the legitimacy of informal trading spaces, investing in basic infrastructure and safety, and developing regulations that protect safety while accommodating new building uses.

Partnership approaches that involve traders’ associations, building managers and community intermediaries to co-manage spaces would be valuable.

What does your work tell us about a city that’s been in decline. And solutions?

The burgeoning economy in Jeppe needs to be recognised alongside the private investments in Johannesburg that are celebrated for their regenerative capacity. This migrant enclave demonstrates how urban regeneration can evolve out of the actions of thousands of actors.

The challenge is to direct, support and harness this energy.

If we were to think of Johannesburg as a port, how would we understand and use the ecosystems of trade, movement and distribution that this networked economy has created? What other services could flow through these ecosystems? And what safety, mobility and public infrastructure services are required to enhance these entrepot functions and claim this role for the city, an African urban hub tied to multiple cities and small towns across the continent?

The cross-border shopping hub of Jeppe offers hope for an inland entrepot to be recognised, supported and expanded to offer the global services that Johannesburg’s infrastructure can provide.

Tanya Zack 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. Ethiopian quarter: how migrants have shaped a thriving shopping district in South Africa’s city of gold – https://theconversation.com/ethiopian-quarter-how-migrants-have-shaped-a-thriving-shopping-district-in-south-africas-city-of-gold-266494

October 26, 2025

Ghana’s banks are not lending enough to sectors where it matters most, like agriculture and manufacturing

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Abotebuno Akolgo, Postdoctoral Fellow, Bard College Berlin; Bayreuth University

Bank lending is a major source of funding for businesses in Ghana. It helps pay for operational expenditure and investment in expansion of productive capacity. Therefore, it is important that there is substantial, affordable, and accessible financial credit for all businesses in the medium to long term. More than this, it matters which sectors of the country’s economy receive most of its bank credit.

In a recent study of the sectoral distribution of bank lending in Ghana, I found that for two and a half decades, bank lending to the agricultural and manufacturing enterprises has been in sharp decline.

In the 25 years from 1999 to 2023, the share of total bank credit that went to the agricultural and manufacturing sector fell by about 65% and 56% respectively. For instance, in 1999, about 25% of total bank lending went to manufacturing businesses. By 2023 however, that figure had fallen to about 11%.

I am an economist with expertise in the political economy of money, finance, and development in Africa. My research on Ghana has attempted to explain the financial constraints to the country’s economic transformation since independence in 1957. I have previously written on Ghana’s sovereign indebtedness and its banking and monetary policies.

The findings in the current study matter because in Ghana, agriculture and manufacturing are crucial to creating substantial, sustainable, and shared economic growth. Agriculture is the second largest employer in Ghana’s economy after the services sector. It is also crucial for creating the raw materials that can fuel manufacturing sector growth.

The role of banks & finance in economic development

There is no single perspective among economists on how banks operate or should operate in an economy. There are those economists within neoclassical economics circles who hold the conventional, largely discredited view that banks act merely as intermediaries who take money from savers and lend to borrowers.

In contrast, there are those, particularly post-Keynesian economists, who assert, rightly, that modern banks do not merely receive deposits and turn them into loans. They insist that banks create credit for borrowers but not necessarily from savers’ deposits.

Still, most economists agree on some things. First of all, that finance is crucial to economic development. Secondly, that the banking system has a role in the flow of finance to individuals, households and businesses.

Not all forms of financial flows are healthy for economic transformation, however. The key then for successful financial policy is to distinguish between productive and unproductive credit.

Productive credit flows support the entrepreneurial innovation that is central to creating new products or expanding production levels. This kind of credit will for instance support agricultural production and expand manufacturing capacity and outputs.

Unproductive credit does not increase the level of output. For instance, lending to support household consumption or financial speculation is unproductive.

The Ghanaian banking system does not generate enough credit for the private sector. However, that was hardly the concern for this study. Of particular interest is the question: where does the credit go to?

Bank credit to agriculture and manufacturing has declined

My study set out to disaggregate the data on financial credit to the various sectors of the Ghanaian economy. These sectors included agriculture, manufacturing and services. The evidence shows that bank lending has not significantly supported real productive sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing.

As indicated in Figures 1 and 2, the shares of financial credit to the agricultural and manufacturing have been in decline. On average, over the last 25 years, 14.6% and 5.8% of total bank credit was allocated to manufacturing and agriculture respectively. In contrast, the services sector averaged 20.7% of bank credit. Commerce and finance sector received an average of 17.3% over the same period.

As productive sectors are denied sufficient credit, well-paid and sustainable jobs cannot be created in agriculture or manufacturing as most Ghanaians are reduced to informal petty trading of foreign goods.

Two main reasons have accounted for this dysfunction of the financial system. First, the foreign domination of Ghana’s banking sector, and second the failure of monetary policy. About 50% of banks in Ghana are foreign owned. Foreign banks tend to be more risk averse. They are less likely to lend to small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs).

Second, the Bank of Ghana’s excessive focus on monetary stability through inflation-targeting is problematic. It often results in raising interest rates and, consequently, borrowing costs. This discourages private sector borrowing while attracting bank investments into government securities. Ghana’s inflation is largely driven by structural factors and not money supply problems. These factors include production and transport costs. Monetary stability through inflation-targeting is therefore a misplaced priority.

Besides, by focusing solely on monetary stability, the central bank is neglecting its role to support the overall development of the economy through credit policy. This developmental role is clearly set out in The Bank of Ghana (Amendment) Act 2016 (Act 918). This revised the 2002 Act to take account of the central bank’s role to support government economic policy and ensure an efficient operation of the banking and credit system.

Before the IMF-led financial reforms of the 1980s and 1990s which were necessitated by the 1980s financial crisis, the Bank of Ghana intervened, effectively and efficiently, to direct credit to priority sectors. For instance, in the early 1980s when the liberal financial reforms had not taken root in Ghana, the Bank of Ghana used a combination of credit ceilings, interest rates, reserve requirements, and mandatory lending ratios to direct credit to agriculture and industry. Credit ceilings ensured that banks could not lend beyond a certain limit to sectors other than agriculture and manufacturing. Lower interest rates were also offered to agricultural loans and in other instances, mandatory lending ratios ensured banks were forced to lend a certain share of loans to agriculture and manufacturing.

Drawing lessons from the present moment and past, I recommend a serious rethink of financial policy. A return to some level of credit policies, a deliberate support for indigenous participation in the banking system and a revitalisation of development banks such as the Agricultural Development Bank and the National Investment Bank.

This article is the outcome of research conducted within the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy – EXC 2052/1 – 390713894

– ref. Ghana’s banks are not lending enough to sectors where it matters most, like agriculture and manufacturing – https://theconversation.com/ghanas-banks-are-not-lending-enough-to-sectors-where-it-matters-most-like-agriculture-and-manufacturing-265433

October 26, 2025

Taking down malaria’s bodyguards: scientists target parasite’s secret defence system

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Tawanda Zininga, Lecturer and Researcher, Stellenbosch University

Malaria remains one of the world’s most devastating infectious diseases, claiming more than half a million lives each year. In Africa, the illness is mostly caused by a parasite carried by mosquitoes – Plasmodium falciparum.

When the parasite invades the human body, it faces a hostile environment: soaring fevers, attacks from the body’s immune system, and the stress of antimalarial medicines. Yet it can survive, thanks to an internal defence system made up of “helper” molecules known as heat shock proteins.

Among these, a powerful group called small heat shock proteins act as the parasite’s last line of defence. These molecules behave like tiny bodyguards, protecting other proteins inside the parasite from damage when conditions become extreme. They are the parasite’s emergency rescue team when energy reserves are dangerously low, such as during high fever or exposure to drugs.

In my biochemistry laboratory, we’re looking for ways to disrupt these bodyguards.

Master’s student Francisca Magum Timothy and I are using advanced protein-chemistry tools to examine three small heat shock proteins found in the parasite. These share a common core structure but behave differently.

We’ve found that they can be chemically disrupted. This marks an exciting direction for malaria research. Instead of directly killing the parasite, the approach focuses on disarming its defences, allowing other treatments or the body’s immune system to finish the job.

The next steps involve finding small, drug-like molecules that can specifically target and disable these parasite proteins without harming human cells. This will require advanced computer modelling, laboratory testing and eventually, studies in animal models to make sure the approach is both effective and safe. If successful, this could lead to a new class of antimalarial drugs that work in a completely different way from current treatments. This is an especially important goal as resistance to existing medicines continues to grow.

From early laboratory work to developing a drug that could be tested in people will likely take around eight to 10 years, depending on how the candidates perform in each research stage. Still, the discovery of these heat shock protein targets represents a big step forward and offers real hope for more effective, long-lasting malaria control in the future.

Unpacking the mysteries of three proteins

We found clear differences between the three proteins we tested in the laboratory.

One was the strongest and most stable of the trio, the other was more flexible but less stable, and one was the weakest protector.

When tested in stress conditions, all three acted as “molecular sponges”, preventing other proteins from clumping together. That’s a crucial step for the parasite’s survival during fever. But their protective strength varied: one offered the most consistent defence, while the other lost structure more easily.

These findings suggest that the parasite may rely on a team effort among the three, each taking on a slightly different role during stress.

So we asked: could natural compounds found in plants disrupt these bodyguards? Our team focused on quercetin, a plant-based flavonoid. Flavonoids are among the compounds that give plants their bright colours, like red in apples, purple in berries, or yellow in lemons. They help protect plants from sunlight, pests and disease. These are abundant in apples, onions and berries. Quercetin is already known for its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Some studies have already hinted that it might slow down malaria parasites.

When we exposed the parasite proteins to quercetin, we observed remarkable effects. The compound destabilised the small heat shock proteins, altering their shape and reducing their ability to protect other proteins. In simple terms, quercetin appeared to confuse or weaken the parasite’s bodyguards.

Further tests confirmed that quercetin also slowed the growth of malaria parasites in laboratory cultures. When malaria parasites were grown in controlled laboratory conditions and exposed to quercetin, they multiplied more slowly than usual, including strains that are resistant to standard drugs. This is encouraging because it suggests that quercetin itself, or new medicines made to work like it but even more strongly, could become the starting point for developing a new type of antimalarial drug in the future.

Moreover, small heat shock proteins kick in when the parasite’s energy supply, known as ATP, the cell’s main “fuel”, runs very low. In simple terms, when the parasite is close to running out of energy and facing danger, these proteins act as its last line of defence.

Next steps

Our findings point to the possibility of drugs being designed that shut down these ATP-independent helpers and strike the parasite precisely when it is weakest.

Although quercetin itself is a natural compound found in many foods, its potency and stability are not yet strong enough for clinical use. The team envisions chemical modification of quercetin’s structure to create derivatives with enhanced activity and better drug-like properties.

As global efforts to eliminate malaria face growing challenges from drug resistance, innovations like this provide renewed hope. By turning the parasite’s own survival machinery against it, scientists may have found a subtle but powerful way to outsmart one of humanity’s oldest foes.

Tawanda Zininga receives funding from the National Research Foundation and the Medical Research Council, who have no role in the project and its outcomes.

– ref. Taking down malaria’s bodyguards: scientists target parasite’s secret defence system – https://theconversation.com/taking-down-malarias-bodyguards-scientists-target-parasites-secret-defence-system-267029

October 23, 2025

Ancient antelope teeth offer surprise insights into how early humans lived

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Megan Malherbe, Research Assistant Scientific Collection Institute of Evolutionary Medicine Faculty of Science, University of Zurich

Understanding what the environment looked like millions of years ago is essential for piecing together how our earliest ancestors lived and survived. Habitat shapes everything, from what food was available, to where water could be found, to how predators and prey interacted.

For decades, scientists studying South Africa’s Cradle of Humankind have tried to reconstruct the landscape in which species like Australopithecus sediba, Paranthropus robustus and Homo naledi once lived. These were hominins that inhabited the region between roughly 2.5 million and 0.25 million years ago. The Cradle of Humankind is a Unesco world heritage site that has remained the single richest source of early human fossils for over 90 years.

A long-standing idea has been that the Cradle experienced a dramatic environmental change around 1.7 million years ago: a shift from woodlands to open grasslands. This shift likely happened as global climates became cooler and drier, with stronger seasonal patterns. These broader changes, linked to the expansion of polar ice sheets and shifts in atmospheric circulation, reduced the availability of year-round rainfall in southern Africa.

Trees and shrubs, which depend on consistent moisture, gave way to hardy grasses better suited to long dry seasons and intense sunlight. In the woodlands, dense trees and shrubs had once provided leafy vegetation for browsing animals. As the landscape opened up, short grasses became dominant, supporting grazing animals.

This supposed sudden transformation was thought to have reshaped the setting in which early humans evolved, possibly influencing their diets, mobility and survival strategies.

But was there really such a sudden switch?

I’m a palaeoecologist who’s part of a team that specialises in reconstructing ancient environments by studying fossil animals. We set out to test the “sudden switch” idea, using a large dataset of fossil antelope teeth. Antelopes (bovids) are particularly useful for reconstructing past environments in Africa: they are abundant in the fossil record, they occupy a wide range of habitats today as well as in the past, and their teeth preserve clear signals of what they ate.

We examined more than 600 fossil teeth from seven well-dated sites in the Cradle, covering a broad time span from 3.2 million to 1.3 million years ago.

The results of our study were striking. Across all seven sites, spanning nearly two million years, the antelopes show consistently strong grazing signals. Grass-eating was dominant throughout the period, challenging the old model of a sudden woodland-to-grassland shift 1.7 million years ago. Instead, the evidence points to a more stable but varied landscape: a mosaic environment. Some fossil species even showed different feeding strategies from their modern relatives, highlighting that ancient antelopes adapted to past conditions in distinct ways.

This tells us more about the world early humans evolved in – but it also reminds us to be cautious. Fossil animals didn’t always behave like their modern relatives, so drawing direct parallels risks oversimplifying the past.

Dating the sites

To interpret the fossils in context, we needed to be sure of when each site formed. Previous work often relied on broad age estimates based on the types of animals found in each sediment layer – a method called biochronology – which could only give a rough idea of when different species lived. This made it difficult to line up fossils from the many cave sites in the Cradle on a reliable timeline. Thanks to recent improvements in radiometric dating, a method that finds the precise age of rocks by measuring how radioactive elements change into other elements over time, the chronology of the Cradle has been refined.

The layers of calcite deposited in caves (known as flowstones) were recently shown by geochronologists to have formed at the same time across multiple sites, providing a regional framework for the whole area. This means researchers can now compare fossils from different caves knowing they represent the same windows of time. It’s a huge step forward in testing whether environmental shifts were truly regional events.

Reading diets from teeth

The method used in this study is called dental mesowear analysis. It records the long-term impact of diet on the tooth surfaces of herbivores throughout their life. In simple terms, different diets wear teeth in different ways:

browsers (like kudu or giraffes), which eat leaves and twigs, usually have sharper cusps, because their food causes less wear on the teeth
grazers (like wildebeest or zebra), which feed mostly on grasses rich in silica and often covered in grit, develop blunter cusps from heavy tooth grinding
mixed feeders show intermediate wear, reflecting generalist behaviour and a diet that shifts with seasons or local vegetation.

By scoring cusp shape and relief on each fossil tooth, we assessed whether past populations leaned more towards browsing or grazing.

The results showed there was a mix of different habitats in this environment at that time: open grassy areas mixed with patches of trees and shrubs. This would have created a patchwork of ecological niches, offering early humans a diverse range of resources.

Some sites – including the famous Sterkfontein Caves, home to one of the most complete early hominin skulls ever found, “Mrs Ples” – showed a bimodal pattern in tooth wear, meaning that even within the same community, some antelopes were grazing while others were browsing. This suggests that vegetation structure shifted locally or seasonally, and that animals adapted their diets accordingly. They switched between food sources as conditions changed.

Lessons from antelope diets

One of the most important findings is that some fossil antelopes fed very differently than their modern relatives. For example, certain groups that today are almost exclusively browsers were much more grass-focused in the Cradle fossil record. Others showed unexpected flexibility, with individuals of the same tribe in the same site adopting different strategies.

This has two key implications.

We cannot always rely on modern analogies. Assuming extinct animals behaved like their living relatives can be misleading, since the fossil record shows surprising shifts in diet. This means reconstructions based only on which species were present may give the wrong impression or oversimplify the reality.

Flexibility was crucial. The fact that antelopes could switch between grazing and browsing indicates that the Cradle’s environment was dynamic, and that survival often depended on adaptability. This echoes what we know about early humans, who also seem to have thrived by exploiting a wide range of resources.

Megan Malherbe is affiliated with the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich, and the Human Evolution Research Institute at the University of Cape Town.

– ref. Ancient antelope teeth offer surprise insights into how early humans lived – https://theconversation.com/ancient-antelope-teeth-offer-surprise-insights-into-how-early-humans-lived-267169

October 23, 2025

Rift Valley fever: what it is, how it spreads and how to stop it

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Marc Souris, chercheur, Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD)

Rift Valley Fever (RVF) is a viral disease transmitted by mosquitoes that mainly affects livestock. It can also infect humans. While most human cases remain mild, it can cause death. The disease causes heavy economic and health losses for livestock farmers.

As a researcher, I have contributed to several studies on this mosquito-borne virus.

So, what exactly is Rift Valley fever, how it is treated, and how it can be controlled?

What is Rift Valley fever?

Rift Valley fever is a zoonosis (a disease affecting animals that can be transmitted to humans). It is caused by the RVF virus, a phlebovirus from the Phenuiviridae family (order Bunyavirales). The disease primarily affects domestic animals, mainly cattle, sheep and goats, but also camelids and other small ruminants. It can occasionally infect humans.

In animals, the disease causes high morbidity: reduced milk production, high newborn mortality, mass abortions in pregnant females, and death in 10% to 20% of cases. This leads to serious economic losses for farmers.

Most people who get Rift Valley fever have no symptoms or just flu-like syndrome. But in a few people, it can become very serious, causing complications such as eye disorders, meningoencephalitis (inflammation of the brain), or hemorrhagic fever. The fatality rate among infected people is around 1%.

How it’s transmitted

In animals, the disease is mainly spread through bites from infected mosquitoes. At least 50 mosquito species can transmit the Rift Valley fever virus, including Aedes, Culex, Anopheles and Mansonia species. Mosquitoes become infected when they feed on animals carrying the virus in their blood, then transmit it to other animals through their bites. In Aedes mosquitoes, vertical transmission – from infected females to their eggs – is also possible, allowing the virus to survive in the environment.

For humans, the most common way to get infected is through direct contact with the blood or organs of an infected animal. This often happens during veterinary work, slaughtering, or butchering.

While it is also possible for human to get the virus from a mosquito bite, this is not common. No human-to-human transmission has been observed to date.

The origins and spread

A serious outbreak of Rift Valley fever began to be reported in Senegal in late September 2025. The west African country has been battling to control it.

The disease was first discovered in 1931 in the Rift Valley in Kenya in east Africa, during a human epidemic of 200 cases. The virus itself was isolated and identified in 1944 in neighbouring Uganda.

Since then, numerous outbreaks of the disease have been reported in Africa: in Egypt (1977), Madagascar (1990, 2021), Kenya (1997, 1998), in Somalia (1998), in Tanzania (1998), the Comoros (2007-2008) and Mayotte (2018-2019).

In west Africa, the main epidemics affected Mauritania (1987, 1993, 1998, 2003, 2010, 2012), Senegal (1987, 2013-2014) and Niger (2016).

Its spread into the Sahel and west African regions has been largely driven by the movement of livestock, and by environmental factors.

To date, around 30 countries have reported animal and/or human cases in the form of outbreaks or epidemics.

Why and how outbreaks occur

Rift Valley fever reemerges in cyclical patterns, with major outbreaks occurring in Africa every five to 15 years. The trigger for these outbreaks is closely linked to specific environmental conditions, like periods of heavy rainfall that create ideal breeding conditions for mosquitoes.

In east Africa, epidemics typically follow periods of exceptionally heavy rainfall or flooding in normally dry regions. For instance, the severe outbreaks of 1998-1999 were directly linked to intense rains caused by the El Niño climate phenomenon.

In the Sahel region, the relationship with rainfall is less predictable. Outbreaks can appear in unexpected, poorly monitored areas, and genetic analysis of viruses in Mauritania suggests that new strains can be introduced directly from other regions.

A key mystery is how the virus persists in the environment between these major outbreaks. It is believed to survive in the environment within a “wild reservoir” of animals – such as certain antelopes, deer, and possibly even reptiles – though this reservoir has not yet been fully identified.

Once an initial outbreak occurs, the virus can spread to new areas. This happens through the movement of infected livestock, the accidental transport of infected mosquitoes (for example, in vehicles or cargo), and when environmental conditions are conducive.

Clinical symptoms and treatments

Adult cattle and sheep may show nasal discharge, excessive salivation, loss of appetite, weakness, diarrhoea.

In humans, after an incubation period of two to six days, most infections are asymptomatic or mild, with flu-like symptoms lasting four to seven days. People who recover from the infection typically gain natural immunity.

However, in a small percentage of individuals, the disease can take a severe turn:

Eye lesions affect up to 10% of symptomatic cases. They appear one to three weeks after initial symptoms and can heal on their own or lead to permanent blindness.
Meningoencephalitis (inflammation of the brain and meninges) occurs in 2%-4% of symptomatic cases, one to four weeks after symptom onset. Mortality is low, but neurological after-effects are common.
Hemorrhagic fever (diseases that cause fever and bleeding due to damage to the blood vessels) occurs in less than 1% of symptomatic cases, usually two to four days after symptoms begin. About half of these patients die within three to six days.

There is no specific treatment for severe cases of Rift Valley fever in humans.

Surveillance, prevention and control

Veterinary surveillance with immediate reporting and monitoring of infection in animals is essential to control the disease. During outbreaks, controlled culling of infected animals and strict restrictions on the movement of livestock are the most effective ways to slow virus spread.

As with all mosquito-borne viral diseases, controlling vector populations is an effective preventive measure, though it is challenging, especially in rural areas.

To prevent new outbreaks, animals in endemic regions can be vaccinated in advance. A modified live virus vaccine provides long-term immunity after a single dose, but it is not recommended for pregnant females because it can cause abortions. An inactivated virus vaccine is also available, it avoids these side effects, but it requires several doses to provide adequate protection.

Threat, vulnerabilities and health risks

People at highest risk of infection include livestock farmers, abattoir workers and veterinarians. An inactivated vaccine for human has been developed. But it is not licensed yet and has only been used experimentally.

Raising awareness of risk factors is the only effective way to reduce human infections during outbreaks. Key risk factors include:

handling sick animals or their tissues during farming and slaughter
consuming fresh blood, raw milk, or meat
mosquito bites.

It is important to follow basic health precautions when Rift Valley fever appears. Wash your hands regularly. Wear protective gear when handling animals or during slaughter. Always cook animal products such as blood, meat and milk thoroughly. Use mosquito nets or repellents consistently.

Marc Souris receives funding from ANR (Agence Nationale de la Recherche, France) and IRD (Institut de Recherche pour le développement).

– ref. Rift Valley fever: what it is, how it spreads and how to stop it – https://theconversation.com/rift-valley-fever-what-it-is-how-it-spreads-and-how-to-stop-it-267309

October 22, 2025

Côte d’Ivoire’s elections have already been decided: Ouattara will win and democracy will lose

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Sebastian van Baalen, Associate Senior Lecturer, Uppsala University

Even before the ballot, the 25 October presidential polls in Côte d’Ivoire can already be described as a loss to democracy and democratic values. Incumbent president Alassane Ouattara is running for a fourth term. With his two main contenders barred from participating, the president will most likely win by a landslide.

Ouattara has previously claimed three electoral victories. The first, in 2010, was marred by widespread violence and a re-escalation of armed conflict that led to the loss of more than 1,500 lives.

His second electoral victory, in 2015, was carried on the back of a broad coalition that later broke apart. The third, in 2020, ended in a violent opposition boycott.

Accusations of constitutional capture by the incumbent have only increased since then. In this way, the otherwise divided political opposition is unanimous in condemning the president’s fourth-term bid.

Ouattara announced his candidacy for a fourth five-year term in office in August 2025. The political opposition has condemned the announcement and the international community has remained silent.

Ouattara and his supporters argue that he is eligible because the 2016 constitutional revision has reset the count and allows him a second term. His opponents insist that the constitutional limit is of one five-year term renewable once, and that Ouattara’s third and fourth-term bids are constitutional coups, which have precedents across the continent.

Undermining democracy

Regardless of the legal reasoning, Ouattara’s fourth-term bid is a loss for democracy at the hands of a politician who, in the run-up to the 2020 election, himself insisted that Ivorian politics was in dire need of a generational change.

In addition to the principle of adhering to a two-term mandate limit, the 2025 election undermines Ivorian democracy because the contest is heavily tilted in the incumbent’s favour. In September, the constitutional council confirmed that the two main opposition candidates, Tidjane Thiam and Pascal Affi N’Guessan, would be excluded from contesting the election on technical grounds.

Thiam is the new leader of the country’s oldest party, the Democratic Party of Ivory Coast – African Democratic Rally (PDCI), and was expected to give Ouattara a run for his money. He was excluded on the grounds that his renouncement of his French citizenship was finalised too late.

N’Guessan inherited the second major opposition party, the Ivorian Popular Front, from the polarising former president Laurent Gbagbo when the latter was indicted at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. This was for his alleged role in crimes against humanity in the wake of the 2010 elections.

Gbagbo, and his long-time collaborator Charles Blé Goudé, were both acquitted of all charges in 2021, and they have both gone on to found new political parties in Côte d’Ivoire, despite being ineligible due to criminal rulings against them in the Ivorian courts.

N’Guessan has been unable to mend the fractures within his party – between Gbagbo-loyal hardliners and his own support base of Ivorian Popular Front moderates – but with Thiam out of the race, he could have been a serious contender. N’Guessan was excluded because he allegedly lacked the number of patron signatures needed to support his candidacy.

Whether these technical knock-outs of the two main opposition candidates were due to negligence on their part or due to bureaucratic foul play by the regime is secondary to the fact that the absence of the two main opposition candidates casts a worrying shadow over the 2025 election.

The political climate is already polarised and rife with conspiracy theories about Ouattara’s corruption and more genuine allegations of his political divisiveness. The amputated political contest only serves to deepen the fault lines between the government and the opposition and spur further voter disillusionment. Such polarisation and disillusionment may also trigger violence, a serious risk in a country where elections are regularly marred by violence.

To complete the autocratic hat-trick, the National Security Council has banned public gatherings, citing concerns over public safety. It seems likely that the authorities were acting preemptively in light of the 2020 election, during which the political opposition called on its supporters to engage in street protests and “civil disobedience”. Those events left at least 83 people dead and 633 people injured in clashes between protesters and security forces and between rivalling communities.

Banning protests may easily backfire as opposition supporters take to the streets anyway. The opposition has called for daily protests during the brief official electoral campaign.

Silence from the international community

Despite this threefold blow to democracy playing out ahead of the 25 October vote, international reactions have been muted at best. Ouattara is a favourite among international partners such as France and the EU. Since coming to power, he has presided over continent-leading economic growth rates large-scale infrastructure investments, and an unlikely victory in the Africa Cup of Nations on home soil.

His popularity in Europe has been further galvanised by the virtual collapse of French influence in its other former colonies. Ouattara is now one of the few west African leaders still pursuing its diplomatic relations with Paris in a “business as usual” manner.

Afraid of rattling anti-French sentiment in yet another former colony, the French government has remained silent on Ouattara’s slow deconstruction of Ivorian democracy. The rest of the EU follows suit, as it has yet to establish a position in the sub-region independent of France’s unspoken leadership.

Both France and the EU are losing further credibility by lending support to Ouattara’s constitutional capture. Accusations of double standards and hypocrisy when insisting on democratic norms are central to the anti-French rhetoric of leaders such as Burkina Faso’s junta leader Ibrahim Traoré. By remaining silent on the slow death of democracy in Côte d’Ivoire, western leaders undermine their own position in the sub-region.

A similar impasse characterises the regional economic community, Ecowas, which is still coming to terms with the withdrawal of the three Sahelian states currently under military rule. With Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria the most important Ecowas members still insisting on its relevance and credibility, the regional bloc is unlikely to take a strong stand on Ouattara’s fourth-term bid or electoral foul play.

What the future hold

Much is still unknown with regard to Côte d’Ivoire’s upcoming election. Coalitions are forming among the opposition candidates left in the race.

Some of the excluded candidates are joining forces in a “common front” to call for street protests and demand their inclusion on the electoral list. And street protests are growing. More than 200 protestors were arrested on 11 October during a peaceful rally in Abidjan.

While street protests failed to sway the incumbent’s anti-democratic tendencies in 2020, recent events in Madagascar and Kenya indicate that governments ignore the popular appetite for change at their own peril.

Regardless of how the final days of the electoral campaign play out, democracy has already suffered a loss in Côte d’Ivoire. The most pressing question may not be about the outcome of the vote but about the more enduring marks on Ivorian electoral politics.

The incumbent, the opposition and the international community all share a responsibility to pave the way for a peaceful and constitutional transfer to a post-Ouattara era. We hope that democracy can recover, and a younger generation can gain more genuine influence.

Sebastian van Baalen receives funding from the Swedish Research Council (grant VR2020-00914, VR2020-03936, and VR2024-00989. He is a member of the Conflict Research Society steering council, a not-for-profit academic organization.

Jesper Bjarnesen receives funding from the Swedish Research Council (grant VR2024-00989).

– ref. Côte d’Ivoire’s elections have already been decided: Ouattara will win and democracy will lose – https://theconversation.com/cote-divoires-elections-have-already-been-decided-ouattara-will-win-and-democracy-will-lose-267798

October 22, 2025

Cancer drug quality in Africa is a worry: what we found in a 4-country study

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Marya Lieberman, Nancy Dee Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Notre Dame

The number of people receiving treatment for cancer has risen dramatically in the last decade in many African countries. For example, 10 years ago in Ethiopia and Kenya, cancer care was available to only a few thousand patients per year in a few hospitals. Today, over 75,000 people receive cancer treatment each year in each of these countries.

Over 800,000 people on the continent are diagnosed with this disease each year.

But medicine regulatory agencies in many countries don’t have the capacity to measure the quality of anticancer drugs. This is particularly problematic for two reasons. Firstly, the high cost of the drugs is an incentive to opt for unverified ones. And secondly, they are highly toxic.

The combination of high demand but low capacity for regulatory oversight in a market renders it vulnerable to substandard and falsified medical products. There have been disturbing reports of substandard or falsified products causing harm to patients in a number of countries, including Brazil, the US and Kenya. But no systematic studies of anticancer drug quality across low and middle income countries have been done. As a result little is known about the quality of the drugs being used to treat cancer in Africa.

I am a cancer researcher in the US and I develop technologies for finding substandard or fake medicines in low-resource settings. In 2017, I teamed up with Ayenew Ashenef at Addis Ababa University to test a device designed to evaluate quality of cancer medicines. We were dismayed to find that most of the drug in use at a hospital in Ethiopia was substandard. We then extended the study.

Our recent study investigated the quality of seven anticancer drugs in four African countries. The drugs were cisplatin, oxaliplatin, methotrexate, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, ifosfamide, and leucovorin. Most of these drugs are given to patients intravenously. They are used to treat breast cancer, cervical cancer, cancers of the head and neck, cancers of the digestive system, and many other types. Some are also used to treat autoimmune diseases such as lupus.

Members of our research team collected 251 anticancer products in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya and Malawi in 2023 and 2024. Products were collected both covertly and overtly from 12 hospitals and 25 private or community pharmacies, covering both public and private healthcare systems in each country.

We assessed the assay value – the quantity of the active pharmaceutical
ingredient in each dose – of the samples we had collected.

We found substandard or falsified anticancer medicines in all four countries. We discovered that 32 (17%) of 191 unique lots of seven anticancer products did not contain the correct amount of active pharmaceutical ingredient. Substandard or falsified products were present in major cancer hospitals and in the private market in all four countries.

Based on our findings it’s clear that oncology practitioners and health systems in sub-Saharan Africa need to be aware of the possible presence of substandard anticancer products. We also recommend that regulatory systems be strengthened to provide better surveillance.

The research

To measure the amount of active pharmaceutical ingredient present in a vial or tablet, we used high-performance liquid chromatography, or HPLC. This separates and quantifies molecules and is the “gold standard” method for testing the amount of active pharmaceutical ingredients in tablets, capsules and vials of medicine.

Before we prepared the medicines for analysis, we inspected the medicines and their packaging materials. Then we used the HPLC to measure the amount of active pharmaceutical ingredient present to see if it matched the claim on the label. Every pharmaceutical product has a target assay range that is defined in its pharmacopeial monograph. This is usually 90%-110% of the amount of active pharmaceutical ingredient claimed on the package. So, for example, if a vial claims to contain 100 milligrams of doxorubicin, it is still counted as “good quality” if it has 93 milligrams of doxorubicin, but not if it contains 38mg or 127mg.

Out of the 191 unique batch numbers, 32 failed assay – about one in six.

There were several manufacturers whose products failed assay at higher rates. There were no significant differences in failure rate for products collected in different countries, in hospitals versus pharmacies, or even for products that were tested after their expiration date vs before their expiration date.

Most countries in Africa use visual inspection to identify suspect anticancer medicines. Products can fail visual inspection if they are the wrong colour when reconstituted or contain visible particles, or if there are irregularities related to the packaging. One surprising result from our study was that products that failed high-performance liquid chromatography could not be distinguished visually from products that passed the test. Only three of the 32 failed products showed any visible irregularities.

Moving forward

The situation we uncovered is likely to be similar in other low income countries. Our hope is that the global research community can focus more attention on the quality of this class of medicines through increased research. This was done for antimalarials in the 2000s, and resulted in a turnaround in quality for those drugs.

We have shared our findings with regulators in the four countries where the samples were collected, and are working to build capacity for post market surveillance of these critical medicines.

Information about the quality of anticancer medicines is critical because cancer chemotherapy is a careful balance between killing the cancer and killing the patient. If the patient’s dose is too large, they can be harmed by toxic side effects of the drug. If the patient’s dose is too small, the cancer may continue to grow or spread to other locations, and the patient may lose their precious window for treatment.

Marya Lieberman receives funding from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Cancer Institute of the NIH under Award Number U01CA269195. The content is solely the responsibility of the author and does not necessarily represent the official views of NIH.

– ref. Cancer drug quality in Africa is a worry: what we found in a 4-country study – https://theconversation.com/cancer-drug-quality-in-africa-is-a-worry-what-we-found-in-a-4-country-study-262529

October 22, 2025

Côte d’Ivoire’s elections have already been decided: Outtara will win and democracy will lose

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Sebastian van Baalen, Associate Senior Lecturer, Uppsala University

Ouattara has previously claimed three electoral victories. The first, in 2010, was marred by widespread violence and a re-escalation of armed conflict that led to the loss of more than 1,500 lives.

His second electoral victory, in 2015, was carried on the back of a broad coalition that later broke apart. The third, in 2020, ended in a violent opposition boycott.

Ouattara announced his candidacy for a fourth five-year term in office in August 2025. The political opposition has condemned the announcement and the international community has remained silent.

Undermining democracy

Banning protests may easily backfire as opposition supporters take to the streets anyway. The opposition has called for daily protests during the brief official electoral campaign.

Silence from the international community

What the future hold

Much is still unknown with regard to Côte d’Ivoire’s upcoming election. Coalitions are forming among the opposition candidates left in the race.

Jesper Bjarnesen receives funding from the Swedish Research Council (grant VR2024-00989).

– ref. Côte d’Ivoire’s elections have already been decided: Outtara will win and democracy will lose – https://theconversation.com/cote-divoires-elections-have-already-been-decided-outtara-will-win-and-democracy-will-lose-267798

October 22, 2025

Raila Odinga: the Kenyan statesman who championed competitive politics and accountability

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By John Mukum Mbaku, Professor, Weber State University

Raila Amolo Odinga, who died on 15 October 2025, aged 80, ran five times for the Kenyan presidency but didn’t win. Yet he became a statesman of enormous influence, whose political and humanitarian achievements surpassed those of many African heads of state. He will be remembered as one of the most important figures in the struggle for multiparty democracy.

In this, he was like his father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga – who was the country’s first post-independence vice-president. Oginga was a patriot, a nationalist, and one of a small number of Kenyans who were instrumental in the struggle against colonialism. In 1960, Oginga turned down an opportunistic offer from British colonialists to become Kenya’s first prime minister. He argued that there could not be a meaningful transition to an independent Kenya while the popular Jomo Kenyatta was still imprisoned.

Odinga first captured national attention stage in 1982 when he was linked to a failed coup plot by a group of air force officers. From then on he was in and out of political detention and exile until 1992. He achieved much over the next three decades, but in my view, four things stand out in his rich political legacy:

1. Strong belief in the power of the people

His political career, which lasted over three decades, was driven by a strong belief in the ability of ordinary citizens to determine their own political and economic destiny.

This belief was evidenced by his lifelong support for and defence of multiparty democracy. To this statesman, competitive politics represented the most effective way for ordinary Kenyans to participate in the governing of their country. It was the means by which poor rural farmers, and families eking out a living on the margins of rich industrial centres like Nairobi, could force their governors to be accountable to them and the constitution.

Throughout his political career, Odinga exhibited trust and confidence in the ability of ordinary Kenyans to think for themselves. He extolled their capacity to choose their own leaders and to ensure that these leaders would not act only in their own self-interest.

It’s my argument that Odinga’s political philosophy was shaped and informed by what he learned from his father’s struggles and his own experiences with Kenya’s authoritarian political and opportunistic economic elites. Kenyans cannot and must not forget his eight years of imprisonment under the authoritarian regime of Daniel arap Moi (1982–1991); nor should they underestimate his support for the 2010 constitution, which transformed Kenya into a modern democracy.

2. Entrenching competitive politics

The early 1990s were a time of turmoil, not just in Kenya. Throughout Africa many grassroots movements were fighting for better governance. These included, among others, the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and the struggle against Nigeria’s brutal military dictatorship. In Kenya, a political movement – in which Odinga would play no small part – was underway to end decades of a repressive single-party system.

Odinga challenged one-party rule and fought for Kenya’s transition to a competitive political system. He saw this as a system in which politicians regularly renew the mandate granted them through free, credible and competitive elections. Through this process, Kenyans have been able to exercise their right to hold their leaders accountable.

The battle was won when arap Moi agreed to the first multi-party election in 1992. But the broader war for democratic governance, political accountability and respect for human rights had only begun. In this, Odinga would play an even bigger part.

It is no accident that he was vilified by a political elite that saw him as an agitator and threat to their political fortunes. Yet, it was that threatening political personality that contributed to the modernisation of political economy in Kenya and the rise of the country as a beacon of democracy in Africa.

3. A new constitution, less political conflict

The brutality that Odinga suffered under the Moi dictatorship shaped his belief in competitive politics, respect for human rights and passion for accountable governance.

This passion placed him at the centre of Kenya’s quest for a new constitution. The quest began in the mid-2000s but crystallised after the 2007-8 post-election violence.

Among other progressive changes, Kenya’s 2010 constitution introduced an independent judiciary. Courts were empowered to peacefully resolve conflicts, including those arising from contested elections. Odinga’s several petitions to the Supreme Court alleging election malpractices have, in my opinion, helped improve, entrench and deepen democracy in the country.

The petitions also gave the judiciary the opportunity to affirm and enhance its independence. Thanks to the reforms made to the independent electoral commission, the 2022 elections were transparent, peaceful and credible. The results were transmitted in record time. The changes in the electoral system made in response to the court’s ruling enhanced the courts’ role in the peaceful resolution of conflict in a democracy.

4. Spirit of political dialogue

Odinga spent more than three decades fighting to bring democracy, pluralism, social justice and peaceful coexistence to a country torn apart by violent ethnic rivalries for scarce resources. He taught Kenyans that, through dialogue and the help of democratic institutions, they could coexist peacefully. They could create a society in which governance and economic development would be people-centred.

Odinga fully understood the nature of democratic competition and peaceful coexistence. Even as a fierce political competitor, Odinga was always willing to seek compromise with his rivals in order to advance the interests of Kenya and Kenyans. This is seen in his decision to shake Kenyatta’s hand in the aftermath of the 2017 election.

Most recently, he surprised Kenyans by seeking reconciliation with President William Ruto after the competitive 2022 election. Observers believe this illustrates Odinga’s political philosophy: in politics, a door never shuts completely.

In a nutshell

Odinga contributed significantly to Kenya’s transformation into a modern democratic state. He was also one of Africa’s most important transformative leaders. A pan-Africanist who saw continental integration as an achievable goal, Odinga believed strongly in self-reliance and the need for Africans to manage their own affairs.

John Mukum Mbaku 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. Raila Odinga: the Kenyan statesman who championed competitive politics and accountability – https://theconversation.com/raila-odinga-the-kenyan-statesman-who-championed-competitive-politics-and-accountability-267640

October 21, 2025

Madagascar protests: how ousted president Andry Rajoelina’s urban agenda backfired

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Fanny Voélin, PhD candidate in geography, University of Bern

The youth-led protests that eventually brought down Madagascar’s President Andry Rajoelina were sparked, in part, by his attempt to use large-scale urban infrastructure projects as a means of consolidating power.

Rajoelina’s government placed urban mega-projects at the centre of its strategy to assert power and legitimacy. These projects enabled him to create and channel rents to key allies, while anchoring his rule in Malagasy history and territory. They were also meant to transform the spatial and political imaginaries of the state through monumental visions of modernity and development. By spatial and political imaginaries, I mean the contested ways leaders and citizens imagine space and power, and what a modern city and a legitimate government should look like.

Yet these projects did little to meet the needs of most Malagasy citizens. Those that might have done so, such as social housing schemes, were left unfinished or poorly realised.

By the time Rajoelina, who came into power via a coup in 2009, was re-elected for a third term in late 2023, his legitimacy was already deeply contested. Months of daily power and water cuts in the capital city, Antananarivo, combined with the launch of a highly energy-consuming cable car, sparked protests that ultimately led to his overthrow.

After three weeks of intense protests in major cities, Rajoelina fled the country. The army seized power, suspended the constitution, and dissolved key political and judicial institutions. It announced a transitional period.

It is not the first time since independence in 1960 that the military has intervened. Rajoelina was ousted by the same elite unit, the CAPSAT, that helped him seize power in 2009.

For the past four years, I have conducted doctoral research on the politics of urban planning and urban development in Antananarivo. Drawing on this work, this article shows how the very urban strategies through which Rajoelina sought to consolidate power contributed to his downfall. Once it became clear that urban infrastructure projects weren’t going to meet pressing social needs, they quickly generated disillusionment and anger.

Both my research and the regime’s collapse highlight the pitfalls of relying on large-scale infrastructure projects to gain political authority in a highly unstable and competitive political system.

Building power and legitimacy through the capital

Tapping into youth disillusioned with the approach of his predecessor, President Marc Ravalomanana, Rajoelina rose to power in 2009 through a coup.

At only 35, Rajoelina, a former DJ and head of print and media companies, embodied renewal and the hopes of the Malagasy youth. He led a transitional government until 2013. He was then elected into office in 2018. The opposition boycotted the 2023 elections amid growing popular discontent.

From the outset, Rajoelina placed large-scale infrastructure construction at the centre of his political agenda.

In Antananarivo, numerous “presidential projects” were launched. These included a cable car, an urban train, a new city, colosseums, stadiums and social housing. Most of them were painted in the regime’s orange colours. They were strategically located in highly visible areas of the capital and its periphery. In parallel, Rajoelina reworked the national history and territory by renaming key sites in the city.

As I have argued elsewhere, these initiatives played a crucial role in Rajoelina’s attempts to build political authority. Infrastructure development served as an important source of rents he used to secure the loyalty of key allies and further centralise power in the presidency.

The projects were also symbolic, combining elements of tradition and modernity. They were an opportunity for staging state spectacles that aimed at legitimising his increasingly authoritarian rule.

When symbols of power backfire

Yet the spectacle turned against its orchestrator. While some projects had long been contested, the disillusionment reached its peak in 2025. Presidential projects crystallised growing popular anger over the corruption of the regime and the deteriorating living conditions.

In February 2025, in the municipality of Imerintsiatosika, 30km west of the capital city, demonstrations erupted in response to the threat of land seizure and eviction. It is here that the new city of Tanamasoandro was planned to serve as a potential new capital.

In late August 2025, the cable car, finally put into operation for a few hours a day more than a year after its completion, reignited controversy over government spending priorities. The vast majority of the population can’t afford the cable car – 80% of the people live below the poverty line.

The cable car costs an estimated €162,000 (US$188,725) per month in electricity bills. This in a city where power cuts have become a daily occurrence.

Far from serving as a symbol of progress and modernity, the “longest cable car in Africa” came to embody Rajoelina’s disconnection from the needs of the population and the corruption of a regime perceived as serving only its elites.

The battle for urban space

The spark that ignited the current crisis was the violent arrest of opposition municipal councillors on 19 September. The councillors had demanded that the Senate address the water and electricity shortages and their severe impact on the population.

More than 50% of businesses reported electricity outages, with
6.3 outages in a typical month lasting an average of 3.9 hours each, costing firms an average of 24% of annual sales, according to a February 2025 World bank review of the country’s economy. About 20.5% of firms experienced an average of two water shortages a month. Power cuts lasted up to 12 hours a day over the weeks preceding the coup. Students, poor families, and street traders were hit hard as they could not afford generators.

Inspired by Gen Z uprisings around the globe, Malagasy youth took to the streets on 25 September. What began as protests over basic utilities quickly expanded into a broader contestation of Rajoelina’s regime. Artists, trade unions, civil society organisations and politicians joined the movement.

At the spatial heart of the protests were two of Antananarivo’s most politically symbolic squares. The garden of Ambohijatovo, renamed Democracy Square (Kianjan’ny demokrasia) by Rajoelina himself in 2009, had previously hosted 35,000 of his supporters against Ravalomanana. On 1 October, demonstrators managed to gain access to the square after confronting the police, marking an important symbolic victory for the movement.

Ten days later, on 11 October, protesters, now joined by elements of the army, took over 13 May Square (Kianjan’ny 13 mai), the symbolic centre of Malagasy political protests since the 1970s.

Rajoelina attempted to counter the movement. He called his supporters to gather at the Colosseum Antsonjombe, built during the transition (2009-2013). It was presented at the time as the “biggest socio-cultural venue in the Indian Ocean and in Africa”.

However, the colosseum, which was full at its inauguration in 2012, was now empty, illustrating the president’s isolation.

Protesters also targeted key symbols of the presidency. The headquarters of Rajoelina’s printing company was burned down. So were the cable car and the urban train stations. The urban trains had never been put into service.

What Rajoelina had intended as symbols of power and modernity had thus become symbols of failure. They exposed Rajoelina’s vanished legitimacy and the fragile foundations of a power largely built on representation.

The afterlife of urban infrastructures

Rajoelina’s case illustrates that infrastructure construction can be a double-edged strategy. It can be used to assert power in authoritarian contexts, but it risks backfiring when a regime lacks the means to realise its ambitions. Rajoelina’s urban projects initially captured the imagination of the youth and the wider population. But as they failed to meet pressing social needs, they quickly generated disillusionment and anger.

An official from the Antananarivo municipality told me in late 2022 the cable car, unilaterally imposed by the presidency, was a “thorn in the side” of municipal authorities and “risks becoming a white elephant”. The same could be said of all presidential infrastructure projects, inseparable from a regime that had fallen out of favour.

The case of Madagascar raises broader questions about the afterlife of urban infrastructure projects closely associated with fallen leaders. How will they be maintained, repurposed, or abandoned? What consequences will they have for urban and national governance, residents’ lives and hopes, and the imaginaries of power in the years ahead?

Fanny Voélin 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. Madagascar protests: how ousted president Andry Rajoelina’s urban agenda backfired – https://theconversation.com/madagascar-protests-how-ousted-president-andry-rajoelinas-urban-agenda-backfired-267654