Category: The Conversation – Africa

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Saheed Babajide Owonikoko, Researcher, Centre for Peace and Security Studies, Modibbo Adama University of Technology

Abubakar Shekau, the erstwhile leader of the terrorist group Jama’at Ahl al-Sunna li al-Da’wa wa al-Jihad (JAS), died in 2021. The west African group, also known as Boko Haram, then fell into obscurity while its breakaway faction, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), steadily rose.

Early 2025 saw Boko Haram resurging in the Lake Chad region, however, with attacks in Nigeria and Cameroon. Lake Chad is in west-central Africa, in the Sahelian zone. It is located at the conjunction of Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger.

As a security studies scholar tracking Boko Haram, I discuss reasons for this resurgence, and its impacts, and recommend possible responses from Lake Chad region countries.

Evidence of Boko Haram resurgence

On 15 May 2025, Boko Haram massacred close to 100 residents of Mallam Karamti and Kwatandashi villages in Nigeria’s Borno State. A report has it that Boko Haram attacked the residents because they were loyal to, and served as informants for, Islamic State West Africa Province.

On 5 September, it attacked Darul Jamal village in Borno State, killing about 60 people. A researcher specialising in Boko Haram at the Institute for Security Studies, Taiwo Adebayo, was said to have spoken with residents of the community who attributed the attack to Boko Haram, possibly because of information about the group being shared with the Nigerian military.

There are also reports that the group has extended its reach beyond Lake Chad to North Central region of Nigeria, where it is operating with bandits and possibly Lakurawa, the new terrorist group in that region.

In Far North region of Cameroon, the group has also been active. Reports shared on LinkedIn showed that in July and August 2025, it was responsible for 101 attacks out of 144.

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Read more:
Ansaru terror leaders’ arrest is a strategic change for Nigeria: what could happen next

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What explains the resurgence

Four factors explain why Boko Haram has become more active again in the Lake Chad region.

First, the rise of one of its leaders, Bakura Doro, and his efforts to sustain Boko Haram gains over Islamic State West Africa Province.

Doro was the Lake Chad Amir al-Fiya (zone commander) before Shekau’s death. He was announced as the leader in May 2022 after a violent takeover from Sahalaba, a cleric whom Shekau had reportedly designated as his successor in his will. Doro reinforced Boko Haram by fighting Islamic State West Africa Province, killing members and capturing its territories in Lake Chad.

He also shunned media propaganda, thus taking the public gaze away from Boko Haram while it grew unnoticed. Although reports said Bakura was killed in Niger in August 2025, the group denied it.

The second factor is that it received less attention from the Lake Chad militaries. Instead, attention was on Islamic State for its targeted attacks on military outposts since early 2025.

By July 2025, 15 outposts had been attacked. The Lake Chad region countries’ counterterrorism efforts focused on countering ISWAP, dangerously neglecting Boko Haram.

The third factor is the failure of reintegration programmes across the region. In Nigeria, for one, community rejection, unmet government promises, limited political will and a weak framework have caused many ex-combatants to return to the trenches.

The fourth factor is combat stress or fatigue among soldiers of the Lake Chad region countries. For instance, more than 1,000 soldiers resigned from the army between 2020 and 2024 in Nigeria. Nigeria’s total armed forces personnel was estimated at 230,000 in 2020.

The weakened commitment of the countries to the Multinational Joint Task Force adds to the problem. Nigeria established the force in 1994 to checkmate trans-border armed banditry around the Lake Chad Basin. In 1998, Chadian and Nigerien soldiers joined the task force.

Niger’s withdrawal in protest against Ecowas sanctions; Chad’s declining support; and strained Nigeria-Cameroon relations have limited the effectiveness of the task force.

All this gives insurgent groups impetus to intensify their attacks.

Implications of resurgent Boko Haram

To understand the implications, it is essential to distinguish Boko Haram’s ideology from that of Islamic State. While the latter primarily targets military forces and non-Muslim communities, Boko Haram’s violence is aimed at all, except its members.

The attempt by Shekau’s successor, Sahalaba, to align with Islamic State West Africa Province’s more selective attacks led to his death, leaving Boko Haram rigidly committed to ruthless attacks.

The result might be a worsening of humanitarian conditions and disruption of community resettlement programmes in the region.

According to a June 2025 report of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the region hosts 2.9 million internally displaced people and 272,000 refugees. I believe this figure may rise as violence escalates. But donor funding is shrinking.

Boko Haram’s blend of jihad with criminal activities such as robbery and kidnapping not only sustains its operations but may also attract disaffected youth, given the region’s fragile socio-economic conditions, especially the high rate of poverty and unemployment.

The competition between both insurgent groups, and between them and the military, places civilians in danger. Each actor seeks local support and intelligence, and communities risk severe punishment if perceived as loyal to the opposing side.

A constraint currently confronting Boko Haram is the shortage of weaponry. To bridge this gap, I believe it may focus its attacks on military outposts across the region. They may be encouraged by the successes of Islamic State’s attacks on the military outposts and the transfer of combat experience and technical expertise from former Islamic State fighters who have defected to Boko Haram. If it joins the attacks against military outposts in the area, the consequences will be fatal.

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Read more:
The Lake Chad Basin is a security nightmare. 5 guidelines for finding solutions

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What can be done?

The governments and militaries of Lake Chad region countries should pay attention to Boko Haram as much as Islamic State in their counter-terrorism efforts.

There is a need to improve security cooperation among the countries by luring Niger back into the Multinational Joint Task Force and ensuring members’ commitment to the force.

Enhanced welfare services from the countries to their citizens can reduce incentives to join Boko Haram and other insurgent groups.

Strengthening defection programmes is crucial to prevent former terrorists from going back to groups like Boko Haram. I recommend harmonising regional deradicalisation efforts to enhance their effectiveness.

Saheed Babajide Owonikoko 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. Boko Haram on the rise again in Nigeria: how it’s survived and how to weaken it – https://theconversation.com/boko-haram-on-the-rise-again-in-nigeria-how-its-survived-and-how-to-weaken-it-265691

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Anitia Lubbe, Associate Professor, North-West University

Across universities worldwide, a quiet revolution is underway. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT, Copilot, DeepSeek and Gemini are being used to produce essays, summarise readings, and even conduct complex assignments.

Generative artificial intelligence is a kind of AI that can handle a variety of creative tasks in diverse domains, such as arts, music and education.

For many university teachers, this raises alarm bells about plagiarism and integrity. While some institutions have rushed to restrict or support AI use, others are still unsure how to respond.

But focusing only on policing misses a bigger issue: whether students are really learning. As an education researcher, I’m interested in the topic of how students learn. My colleagues and I recently explored the role AI could play in learning – if universities tried a new way of assessing students.

We found that many traditional forms of assessment in universities remain focused on memorisation and rote learning. These are exactly the tasks that AI performs best.

We argue that it’s time to reconsider what students should be learning. This should include the ability to evaluate and analyse AI-created text. That’s a skill which is essential for critical thinking.

If that ability is what universities teach and look for in a student, AI will be an opportunity and not a threat.

We’ve suggested some ways that universities can use AI to teach and assess what students really need to know.

Reviewing studies of AI

Universities are under pressure to prepare graduates who are more than just knowledgeable. They need to be self-directed, lifelong learners who are independent, critical thinkers and can solve complex problems. Employers and societies demand graduates who can evaluate information and make sound judgements in a rapidly changing world.

Yet assessment (testing what students know and can do) tends to focus on more basic thinking skills.

Our research took the form of a conceptual literature review, analysing peer-reviewed studies published since the release of the AI tool ChatGPT in late 2022. We examined how generative AI is already being used in higher education, its impact on assessment, and how these practices align (or fail to align) with Bloom’s taxonomy.

Bloom’s taxonomy is a framework widely used in education. It organises cognitive (thinking) skills into levels, from basic (remembering and understanding), to advanced (creating and evaluating).

Several key patterns emerged from our analysis:

Firstly, AI excels at lower-level tasks. Studies show that AI is strong in remembering and understanding. It can generate multiple-choice questions, definitions, or surface explanations quickly and often with high accuracy.

Secondly, AI struggles with higher-order thinking. At the levels of evaluating and creating, its effectiveness drops. For instance, while AI can draft a business plan or a healthcare policy outline, it often lacks contextual nuance, critical judgement and originality.

Thirdly, the role of university teachers is changing. Instead of spending hours designing and grading lower-level assessments, they can now focus on scaffolding tasks that AI cannot master alone, thus promoting analysis, creativity and self-directed learning skills. Self-directed learning is defined as “a process where individuals take initiative to diagnose their learning needs, set learning goals, find resources, choose and implement strategies, and evaluate their outcomes, with or without assistance from others.”

Lastly, the opportunities AI presents seem to outweigh the threats. While concerns about cheating remain real, many studies highlight AI’s potential to become a learning partner. Used well, it can help generate practice questions, provide feedback, and stimulate dialogue (if students are guided to critically engage with its outputs).

All these challenges prompt universities to move beyond “knowledge checks” and invest in assessments that not only measure deeper learning, but promote it as well.

How to promote critical thinking

So how can universities move forward? Our study points to several clear actions:

• Redesign assessments for higher-order thinking skills: Instead of relying on tasks that AI can complete, university teachers should design authentic, context-rich assessments. For example, using case studies, portfolios, debates, and projects grounded in local realities.

• Use AI as a partner, not a threat: Students can be asked to critique AI-generated responses, identify gaps, or adapt them for real-world use. This transforms AI into a tool for practising the ability to analyse and evaluate.

• Build assessment literacy among university teachers: University teachers need support and training to create AI-integrated assessments.

• Promote AI fluency and ethical use: Students must learn not just how to use AI, but how to question it. They must understand its limitations, biases and potential pitfalls. Students should be made aware that transparency in disclosing AI use can support academic integrity.

• Encourage the development of self-directed learning skills: AI should not replace the student’s effort, but rather support their learning journey. Hence, designing assessment tasks that foster goal-setting, reflection and peer dialogue is crucial for developing lifelong learning habits.

By fostering critical thinking and embracing AI as a tool, universities can turn disruption into opportunity. The goal is not to produce graduates who compete with machines, but to cultivate independent thinkers who can do what machines cannot: reflect, judge, and create meaning. Assessment in the age of AI could become a powerful force for cultivating the kind of graduates our world needs.

Anitia Lubbe is affiliated with the Research Unit Self-Directed Learning.

– ref. Universities can turn AI from a threat to an opportunity by teaching critical thinking – https://theconversation.com/universities-can-turn-ai-from-a-threat-to-an-opportunity-by-teaching-critical-thinking-266187

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Charles Helm, Research Associate, African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, Nelson Mandela University

Rock hyraxes, known in southern Africa more often as “dassies”, are furry, thickset creatures with short legs and no discernible tails. They spend much of their time sunning themselves on rocky outcrops.

Another thing they sometimes do is drag their butts along the ground. Dog owners know that this behaviour can be a sign of parasitic infections; in hyraxes the reason seems to be less clear, but this action leaves distinctive traces in sandy areas.

Traces and tracks – ancient, fossilised ones – are what we study at the African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience through the Cape south coast ichnology project. Over the past few decades, we have found almost 400 vertebrate tracksites on this coast, some as old as 400,000 years, in cemented dunes known as aeolianites from the Pleistocene epoch. This epoch lasted from about 2.58 million years ago to about 11,700 years ago.

We’re building up a picture of the environment during that period and how the animals and plants of that time lived.

Among our latest finds are two fossilised traces that appear to have been made by rock hyraxes long ago. One is a tracksite and the other is a butt-drag impression with what may be a fossilised dropping in it.

The probable tracksite was brought to our attention from a site near Walker Bay on the Cape south coast by an ardent tracker, Mike Fabricius. It is around 76,000 years old. We found the probable butt-drag impression east of Still Bay on the same coast, and it is most likely around 126,000 years old.

The butt-drag impression is the first fossil of its kind to be described from anywhere in the world. In addition, these are the only possible fossilised hyrax tracks ever to be identified. In the world of palaeontology, anything this unusual is important and we feel privileged to be able to interpret them.

Interpreting the drag mark

Dating on our sites has been done through a technique known as optically stimulated luminescence, which works by analysing when materials like sand were last exposed to light.

The butt-drag impression is 95cm long and 13cm wide. It contains five parallel striations. Its outer margins are slightly raised, and within it there is a 2cm-high raised feature, 10cm by 9cm. Clearly something was dragged across the surface when it consisted of loose sand.

We considered possible causes other than hyrax buttocks. These included a leopard or an ancestral human dragging prey, or perhaps an elephant dragging its trunk. Firstly, however, these would be expected to leave tracks, and secondly in such interpretations the raised feature could not be explained.

But if it was a hyrax, it would make sense, because the buttock trace would have come after the tracks and wiped them out. And the raised feature might be a coprolite: a fused fossilised mass of hyrax droppings.

Old dung and urine

Rock hyraxes leave much more than just tracks and butt-drag traces. Because they prefer rocky areas, their tracks are not often found, but they polish rock surfaces to a shiny finish. This is similar to what buffalo on the North American prairie do, creating “buffalo rubbing stones”.

Hyraxes also leave deposits of urine and dung. Urea and electrolytes are concentrated in their urine, and they excrete large amounts of calcium carbonate. This becomes cemented and forms extensive whitish deposits on rock surfaces. Due to their communal habits, hyraxes often urinate in the same preferred localities over multiple generations.

Their urine and dung often mix to form a substance known as hyraceum – a rock-like mass that can accumulate into extensive, dark, tarry deposits. Hyraceum has been used as a traditional medication to treat a variety of ailments, including epilepsy, and for gynaecological purposes.

Hyraceum may be tens of thousands of years old, and can be regarded as a threatened, non-renewable resource. The middens, being sensitive to environmental changes and containing fossil pollen and other evidence of ancient life, form valuable natural archives for interpreting past climates, vegetation and ecology.

Thinking of hyraceum as a trace fossil, something which apparently has not been done before, can help in the protection of this underappreciated resource.

Although fossilised urine is globally uncommon, there is a word to describe it: “urolite”, to distinguish it from “coprolite” (fossilised poop). It seems that hyraxes contribute the lion’s share of the world’s urolite. At palaeontology conferences, students can be seen sporting T-shirts that brazenly state: “coprolite happens”. In southern Africa, a more appropriate term might be “urolite happens”.

Through appreciating the importance of butt-drag impressions, urolites, coprolites and hyraceum, and learning about the environment of rock hyraxes and other animals during the Pleistocene, we will never view these endearing creatures in the same light again.

Mathilde Stuart contributed to this research.

Lynne Quick receives funding from the National Research Foundation of South Africa African Origins Platform (grant no: 136507)

Charles Helm 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. World’s first known butt-drag fossil trace was left by a rock hyrax in South Africa 126,000 years ago – https://theconversation.com/worlds-first-known-butt-drag-fossil-trace-was-left-by-a-rock-hyrax-in-south-africa-126-000-years-ago-264633

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Cormac Price, Post-doctoral fellow the HerpHealth lab, office 218, Building G23. Unit for Environmental Sciences and Management, North-West University; University of KwaZulu-Natal

Black mambas (Dendroaspis polylepis) are Africa’s longest, most famous venomous snakes. Despite their fearsome reputation, these misunderstood snakes are vital players in their ecosystems. They keep rodent populations in check and, in turn, help to protect crops and limit disease spread. The species ranges widely across sub-Saharan Africa, from Senegal to Somalia and south into South Africa. They can adapt to many environments.

Zoologist Cormac Price, in new research with professors Marc Humphries and Graham Alexander and reptile conservationist Nick Evans, found that black mambas can be indicators of heavy metal pollution. We asked him about it.

How do black mambas indicate toxic pollution?

It’s about bio-accumulation. Bioaccumulation happens when chemicals, like pesticides or heavy metals, build up in an organism’s body. These toxins come from polluted environments, from waste products of human activities like manufacturing. They pollute water or soil and gradually accumulate in plants and animals.

If toxins are present in the environment, they may first be taken in by plants, and then by animals that eat the plants, and animals that eat those animals. Black mambas are quite high up the food chain, so a lot of the toxins would accumulate in their bodies. These poisonous substances can reach dangerous levels, causing health problems for whatever eats them.

We tested the presence of four types of heavy metals (arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury) in the bodies of black mambas.

All our samples were from the eThekwini Municipality (greater Durban area) in South Africa. Durban is a busy shipping container port and has a large industrial sector that includes chemicals, petrochemicals and automotive manufacturing. Alongside all this industry the municipality also has a network of conservancies and green spaces, known as the Durban Metropolitan Open Space System.

We chose to test for these metals because they are widely used in different industries and can cause drastic negative effects in the body. Mercury primarily damages the nervous system, arsenic can cause cancer and skin lesions, cadmium harms kidneys and bones and lead mainly affects brain development and blood functions. Because these metals accumulate over time and are difficult to break down, even low-level exposure can lead to chronic poisoning and long-term health problems.

Black mambas appear to be doing well in Durban and taking advantage of the abundance of rodents, which they eat. Wherever there is human settlement there will be waste and discarded food which rodents take full advantage of. Black mambas can also be quite site-specific when not disturbed, living in the same refuge for many years, giving a clearer indication of pollution levels at that specific site. This makes the snakes potentially good bioindicator species.

A bioindicator species is one that helps us understand the health of an environment. Because they are sensitive to changes like pollution or habitat damage, their presence, absence or condition can reveal if an ecosystem is in good condition or is experiencing increases of pollution or degradation.

The pollutants can be detected and calculated from a non-invasive, harmless scale clipping. Snake scales are composed mostly of keratin, the same sort of protein that produces human hair and nails. To clip a very thin slice of snake scale is as harmless as clipping a human finger nail.

We collected 31 mambas that had already been killed by vehicles, people or dogs, and tested muscle and liver samples from them for toxins. We also took scale clippings from 61 live snakes.

This was the first time in Africa that a species of snake was tested to see if it could be used as an indicator species of heavy metal pollution.

What did you find?

We found that the heavy metal concentrations in scales correlated with those found in the muscle and liver samples. For three of the four metals, scales were as accurate for testing as muscle and liver samples. So the harmless testing method is as good as the more invasive one.

For arsenic, cadmium and lead, the snakes were accumulating significantly lower concentrations of these toxins in the open, natural sites of the Durban Metropolitan Open Space System compared to more industrial and commercial areas. Mercury was less significantly different due to its more volatile nature and its capacity to travel through the environment.

What made you test mamba scales in the first place?

In 2020, I attended a conference on amphibians and reptiles, where a friend of mine presented his work on heavy metal pollutants in tiger snakes in the city of Perth, Australia.

I’ve also been working with Nick Evans of KZN Amphibian & Reptile Conservation for some years, on urban reptile ecology. Nick began collecting scale clippings, and I began to realise, while looking through the literature, how novel this was on a continental scale. Snakes had never been tested as a potential bioindicator species of heavy metal pollution in Africa previously.

Marc Humphries is a professor of environmental chemistry, and I was aware of his work on lead exposure in Nile crocodiles at St Lucia, a wetland in South Africa. When he expressed interest in examining the scale clippings, we were thrilled. Graham Alexander’s expertise in snake behaviour in general and specifically snakes in Durban was also instrumental in the success of this research.

How can this help fight pollution?

The fight against pollution is in the hands of the municipality and city managers. What the snakes are doing is warning us of the increasing danger these pollutants pose to environmental health and ultimately human health. They are also showing us how important open spaces are to the overall environmental and human health of the city of Durban. The snakes are telling us a story; what people in authority decide to do with this story rests with them.

Nick Evans of KZN Amphibian & Reptile Conservation made valuable contributions to the research and was a co-author on the article.

Cormac Price 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. Toxic pollution builds up in snake scales: what we learnt from black mambas – https://theconversation.com/toxic-pollution-builds-up-in-snake-scales-what-we-learnt-from-black-mambas-265802

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Jaco Greeff, Professor in Genetics, University of Pretoria

Television nature programmes and scientific papers tend to celebrate the perfection of evolved traits. But the father of evolution through natural selection, Charles Darwin, warned that evolution would produce quirks and “blunders” that reflect a lineage’s history.

Our recent study from the Kruger National Park in South Africa shows how true this is. Our team of behavioural ecologists found that the behaviour of certain fig wasps, long considered textbook examples of precise adaptation, is far from perfect.

Previous research on fig wasps, but also other parasitoid wasps in general, has focused almost exclusively on design perfection. The aim of our work was to investigate a case where we expected to see “imperfections” due to necessary compromises and the legacy of history.

Our study focused on Ceratosolen arabicus, a tiny wasp (about 2.5mm long) that pollinates sycamore figs. We will call them “pollinators” for simplicity.

For years, researchers have admired how pollinating fig wasps such as C. arabicus adjust the percentage of their offspring that are male (their sex ratios) with near mathematical precision to maximise their reproductive success.

But a previous study suggested that when a pollinator shares a fig with another species of wasp it might incorrectly “adjust” its sex ratio as if it was with a female of its own species.

For our research, we allowed the pollinator to lay eggs on its own or together with a gall wasp (Sycophaga sycomori) or a cuckoo wasp (Ceratosolen galili). These species, like the pollinators, crawl into figs to lay their eggs and may elicit the incorrect response.

We then used a statistical approach to determine how well various hypotheses explained the variation in the data. The hypotheses we tested were:

• that the pollinators’ sex ratio remained unchanged by the presence of the other species

• various degrees of effects, for example, that each of the species affects the sex ratio differently.

We found that the other two species of wasps do indeed interfere with the pollinators’ neat sex ratio production mechanism. Pollinators lose up to 5% of their potential grandchildren when they share a fig with a gall wasp, and 12% when they share it with a cuckoo wasp.

Still, the pollinators have survived for millions of years and are not expected to go extinct because of this loss of grandchildren.

Given such a “flaw” in a trait that seemed perfect, biologists should expect to see many “design errors” in life if we look for them. We have to be open to that possibility so that we see what’s actually there and not what we expect to see.

How things work

In each fig, one or a few pollinator mothers lay all their eggs. The mother or mothers’ offspring hatch inside the fig and mate inside. When the mother or mothers’ offspring mature, they mate within the fig, meaning brothers routinely mate with sisters. This means brothers will compete among each other for mating opportunities. In contrast, mated females leave their “birth” fig and disperse to start the cycle anew. But importantly, females compete with unrelated females to find new figs to lay their eggs in.

Therefore, a lone mother should produce just enough sons, about 10% of her total brood, to ensure all her daughters get mated. The rest can be daughters.

The wasps have a simple trick to control the sex ratio directly: unfertilised eggs become sons, while fertilised ones become daughters.

When two mothers lay eggs in the same fig, each must produce more sons, around 25%, because now their sons have to compete with those of the other mother. But if a mother shares a fig with another species, this logic does not apply because competition for mates and mating opportunities for her sons do not change. Therefore, her sex ratio should stay the same as if she were alone.

But it does not.

Pollinator mothers use two simple mechanisms to adjust their sex ratio in response to the presence of other pollinators, but these mechanisms are also triggered by other species.

Let us explain the first mechanism using a gin and tonic analogy.

Imagine a bartender making a G&T: first, he pours a tot of gin (sons) and then fills the rest of the glass with tonic (daughters). Now, imagine two bartenders unknowingly making a G&T in one glass. They both add a tot of gin and then top up with tonic. The result is a stronger drink with more gin.

Pollinator mothers do something similar. They tend to lay male eggs first, and then gradually switch to laying females. We call this the ladies-last effect. But when other species like the cuckoo wasp are present, this pattern still changes the sex ratio because the second species shrinks the glass’s total size. As a consequence the pollinator ends up laying fewer daughters. This can be seen in the figure moving from right to left along the x-axis.

The second mechanism works differently but leads to the same problematic outcome. It relies on an active adjustment of the sex ratio. Although the G&T analogy breaks down, this is like each bartender adding more than a tot of gin when he realises there is a second bartender mixing a drink in the glass.

Similarly, when a pollinator detects another pollinator, she increases the number of sons. But when another species is present, she still behaves as if she is competing with her own kind, increasing her number of sons, as can be seen in the figure moving upwards along the y-axis.

Since both mechanisms continue operating inappropriately when other species are present, the sex ratios become erroneously skewed. Specifically, the sex ratio of a single mother shifts from 10% sons when she is alone, to 16% when she is with a gall wasp, and to 26% when she is with the cuckoo wasp. It should have remained at 10%.

All that glitters is not gold

As an isiZulu proverb says: “Ikiwane elihle ligcwala izibungu”, literally translated to: “The nicest-looking fig is usually full of worms.” Pollinator sex ratio adjustment has been touted as a prime example of how perfectly natural selection can optimise the design of biological systems. But this is an oversimplification.

In reality, the history of a trait and compromises between a trait’s various functions can direct evolution to imperfect solutions. For instance, here evolution did not “design” separate “solutions” for with-own-species and with-other-species scenarios.

Instead, evolution seems to have optimised it for the average condition, an imperfect, but workable, compromise. The cost in number of grandchildren due to this compromise is astronomical because pollinators in the Kruger National Park frequently share a fig with another pollinator, galler or a cuckoo wasp.

Such trade-offs are likely common in nature. Evolution tends not to redesign from scratch; rather, it tinkers with what is already there. As a result, we often get solutions that work well enough, rather than perfectly.

So next time you marvel at a natural wonder, remember: the story is rarely one of flawless design. It is a story of imperfect compromises, shaped by what evolution could do with what it had. And that story is far richer and more real than any Hollywood ending.

Jaco Greeff received funding from the National Research Foundation. Any opinion, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and therefore the NRF does not accept any liability in regard thereto.

– ref. Nature’s not perfect: fig wasps try to balance sex ratios for survival but they can get it wrong – https://theconversation.com/natures-not-perfect-fig-wasps-try-to-balance-sex-ratios-for-survival-but-they-can-get-it-wrong-260852

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria

All that’s left of a famous settlement called the Old Location in Windhoek, Namibia, is a graveyard and a monument to remember the residents who were killed while protesting their forced removal in 1959.

But a new open source book documents how the spirit and culture that drove resistance are kept alive by those who lived there.

After the Old Location massacre the national liberation movement Swapo would be founded to fight for independence.

The Windhoek Old Location tells the residents’ stories with historical images by Dieter Hinrichs and words by Henning Melber. We asked Melber more about the site.

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What is a township and can you give us a brief history of this one?

Townships were established in southern African settler colonial societies by white minority regimes. They created reserves for ethnic groups classified as “tribes” to separate whites from other local communities in cities and towns.

In Namibia, the Old Location was the main residential area for Africans in the capital, Windhoek. The settlement was established from 1903 during German colonial rule. After the first world war German colonies were handed over to allied powers and South Africa was entrusted with the administration of its neighbour, turning it into a province-like entity.

Following South Africa’s apartheid doctrine, Black Namibians were physically separated by ethnic classification. The Old Location was then just called a Location. Residents were from various local ethnic communities, living together peacefully and sharing a common identity in daily life.

But since the late 1950s the residents were relocated to a new, ethnically subdivided township that had been demarcated further from the capital’s “white” city centre where many worked as underpaid labourers. The so-called Coloureds and Rehoboth Basters would then be separated and moved to a new suburb, Khomasdal.

When the Location’s “Native Advisory Board” was asked for a name for the new destination, it suggested Katutura. Through ignorance of the meaning of this Otjiherero word (“A place where we do not stay”), the proposal was adopted.

Towards the end of 1959, boycotts and demonstrations in protest of the forced removal were organised, mostly by women. On 10 December some 13 people were killed and many more injured in a clash with the police. The day is remembered as Human Rights Day/Namibian Women’s Day.

Residents who refused to move were deported to reserves. All homes were demolished. This destruction followed South Africa’s policy to raze established communities to establish white suburbs. The Location was closed in August 1968.

A year earlier, in August 1967, the first clash between South African soldiers and armed fighters of the liberation movement Swapo took place in the north of the country. The trauma of the forced removals from the Old Location was a turning point for a liberation struggle that would last until independence in 1990.

What role does memory play in telling this story?

The Old Location’s history has so far been preserved mainly in archives and people’s memories. We wanted it to be available in the public sphere. The book documents resilience and the determination to resist apartheid. It also highlights the unique social interaction in the Old Location.

It includes many personal memories. Bience Gawanas, chancellor of the University of Warwick, was born in the Old Location in 1956. Her father was a motor mechanic who owned a shop and filling station. He opposed the forced removal. In her preface she stresses the need

to tell our stories to bring back the values of humanity and community in our lives…

Uazuvara Katjivena, who published his grandmother’s story of the German genocide in Namibia, emphasises in his postscript:

Documenting aspects of what happened then and the lives we had under apartheid … are an important reminder that we did not surrender.

The voices of former residents recall a community nurtured by a spirit of extended family and solidarity. Zedekia Ngavirue, the Location’s first social worker, was involved in the resistance. Years later he said:

It was, indeed, when we owned little that we were prepared to make the greatest sacrifices.

For many, the Old Location was a place of security and harmony. Daniel Humavindu remembers:

The Old Location created a great family in which residents looked out for each other.

According to former resident Petrina Rina Tira Biwa:

The segregation we experienced when we moved to Katutura was not there.

“On Saturdays,” stressed educator and activist Ottilie Abrahams, “you are at the football field. Everybody used to go there, like a religion.”

And former resident Anna Campbell remembers two of the Location’s most famous bands, Johannes Mareko’s and Laydon’s:

It was safe to attend the dances. We also had films.

Why are the photos so important?

The book’s photos offer an authentic face and they capture the atmosphere of the time. They were taken mainly in 1959 and 1960 by young German photographer Dieter Hinrichs. After training in Germany he took a temporary job in a Windhoek photo studio. In his spare time he took the photos that today offer a rare glimpse into Black social realities of the time.

They show ordinary daily life and cultural activities. Dancing competitions were a weekend entertainment. Church events created togetherness. Every year the Location’s Coon Carnival would invade the Windhoek inner city.

Alongside these photos are others of the loss and pain that characterised the move to Katutura. In contrast, family portraits staged in the atelier of the local photo shop reclaim individual pride and dignity.

Aerial views contrast the motley Old Location with the soulless drawing board design of Katutura. The photo gallery in the book reveals humanity, an essential antidote to the dehumanisation of apartheid.

What happened after the bulldozers?

Katutura became a kind of open-air prison, where access was controlled and people were under constant observation. But they did not capitulate. Their struggle took new forms.

Katutura became the operational base for organised underground activities of the resistance. The Swapo Youth League was constituted there.

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Read more:
Namibia celebrates independence heroes, but glosses over a painful history

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Those forced to live at “a place where we do not stay” entered new forms of social interaction. A thriving music scene blending local township tunes with pop culture kept alive the spirit of the Old Location. But much of its genuine social fabric faded.

What do you hope readers will take away?

That history matters. That the heroic narrative of a patriotic national historiography under a former liberation movement as government is not the whole story.

The often-nameless heroines and heroes deserve recognition. History hasn’t got just one truth to offer. Memories are mixed and even contested. Accounts of ordinary living conditions must be part of history.

So, the book attempts to restore a significant element of the struggle for liberation in formation. But also remembers the many forms of oppression under apartheid. It’s important to us that the book is in the public domain.

I hope the book can motivate a younger generation of Namibian scholars and activists to explore the country’s culture of resistance. Those still alive to remember get fewer.

Henning Melber 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. Windhoek’s Old Location was a place of pain, but also joy – new book – https://theconversation.com/windhoeks-old-location-was-a-place-of-pain-but-also-joy-new-book-266151

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Brooks Marmon, Post-doctoral Scholar, Mershon Center for International Security Studies, The Ohio State University

Edson Sithole was born in what was then Southern Rhodesia in 1935. He was the first black person in southern Africa to obtain a Doctor of Laws degree. He was the second black person in the country (which became Zimbabwe in 1980) to qualify as a lawyer, and co-founded Rhodesia’s African Bar Association in 1973.

Sithole was an anti-colonial nationalist. He was “disappeared” alongside his secretary, Miriam Mhlanga, in downtown Salisbury (present-day Harare) 50 years ago. Brooks Marmon, a historian of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle, has compiled and edited a forthcoming collection of Sithole’s writings, speeches and interviews.

Who was Edson Sithole? Why does he matter in Zimbabwe’s history?

He was one of the most prominent pan-African nationalists who had not gone into exile, a major legal and intellectual force behind multiple Zimbabwean liberation movements.

Despite his important intellectual and organisational contributions to Zimbabwe’s independence struggle, he is best remembered today for the sensational nature of his elimination from the political scene. He left the Rhodesian press club at a downtown hotel in Salisbury on 15 October 1975, and was never seen again.

The 50th anniversary of Sithole’s elimination is an apt time to recover his political voice. Sithole was a prolific writer but much of his work appeared in periodicals that were banned and silenced by settler authorities.

What’s new in this collection?

The contributions in the book highlight four themes: Sithole’s views on pan-Africanism; his experience as a political prisoner; his views on intra-nationalist factionalism; and his search for a settlement with white Rhodesians.

Sithole’s voice is supplemented by my own biographical account of his political life.

Given Zimbabwe’s struggles with political pluralism, the section on factionalism is especially illuminating. A recurring theme is Sithole’s rivalry with one of the leading protagonists of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle, Joshua Nkomo. Coupled with Sithole’s overlooked membership in several breakaway liberation movements, a holistic view of his independent character emerges.

This was particularly notable in an era in which an absolute commitment to unity was a key facet of the defining ideology of the struggle, pan-Africanism.

What role did he play in the liberation struggle?

Sithole was an executive member of four Zimbabwean liberation movements. In 1964 he became the publicity secretary of Zanu-PF, Zimbabwe’s current ruling party, then known as the Zimbabwe African National Union. He was that party’s chief spokesperson 60 years ago this November when the colony’s small white minority unilaterally declared its independence from Britain.

The last decade of Sithole’s life was spent trying to end this rebellion and usher in genuine independence under majority rule.

When the Conservative British government appeared poised to reach a settlement favourable to continued white domination, Sithole co-founded the African National Council (ANC) in December 1971. Its opposition to the tentative accord forced the British government to abandon that effort to reconcile with their settler “kith and kin” in Rhodesia.

White minority rule dragged on for eight more years and thousands lost their lives in the struggle to affect a change, including Sithole.

Sithole’s intellectual profile was particularly impressive as he spent more than half of his adult life as a political prisoner. He was first detained in 1959 at the age of 23. He completed a master’s degree in law from the University of London via correspondence during that first stint of restriction. During a second period of imprisonment, he completed most of his work toward a Doctor of Laws from the University of South Africa.

Why was 1974 such a pivotal year?

In April 1974, the hardline Estado Novo regime in Portugal was overthrown in a military coup. It soon became clear that Portugal would dismantle its colonial empire, including Mozambique and Angola.

This development transformed the political scene in southern Africa. White Rhodesia was deprived of a major European ally and a secure border on its eastern flank. At the end of that year, all four of Zimbabwe’s major liberation movements united under the banner of the African National Council in Zambia.

For some of the most prominent Zimbabwean nationalists, such as Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, the Portuguese revolution resulted in their release from prison, culminating in their ascent to political power in independent Zimbabwe in early 1980.

Sithole, however, experienced no fruits of détente. Instead he became enmeshed in a political struggle with both the settler state and his erstwhile nationalist colleagues.

In early June 1975, intra African National Council violence erupted between factions loyal to its head, Abel Muzorewa, whom Sithole backed, and Nkomo, a long-time foe of Sithole, who had headed the Zimbabwe African People’s Union.

Nearly a dozen people were killed and Sithole was manhandled by Nkomo loyalists.

Near the end of the month, Sithole released a document which claimed that Nkomo and prime minister Ian Smith had reached a secret deal to elevate Nkomo to the head of the African National Council. Days later, Sithole developed severe stomach cramps. He declared that the settler state had poisoned him, an allegation backed by a Zambian doctor who treated him.

Tensions increased. The last month of Sithole’s life was consumed by attempts to derail any possible attempt by Nkomo and the Zapu element in the African National Council to reach an accord with the Rhodesian state.

What’s known about his abduction?

On Sithole’s last day as an independent man – 15 October 1975 – he held a press conference which accused the settler state of favouring Nkomo, whose faction had recently been allowed to hold a massive open-air meeting.

Two detectives visited Sithole at his office that afternoon and took a statement.

That evening, he made the short drive to the Ambassador Hotel in his blue BMW for drinks at the Quill Club.

Sithole left the hotel around 7pm, where a witness outside saw him met by two white and two black men who identified themselves as belonging to Rhodesia’s Special Branch. They escorted Sithole and his secretary into a grey Mazda van, a make typically associated with the renegade state’s security apparatus.

International media accounts identified Detective Inspector Winston Hart and Detective Section Officer George Mitchell as the two white men. As recently as April 2023, an interview with Hart about his service in Rhodesia popped up on YouTube.

Sithole was never seen again, although persistent rumours claimed that he had been seen in various government detention centres.

Sithole was just one of tens of thousands of individuals who died during Zimbabwe’s independence struggle.

Unlike South Africa, Zimbabwe did not embrace any formal transitional justice mechanism following independence. After Mugabe was voted into power, he announced:

We will be interested to get some evidence as to what happened to Dr. Sithole. (16 March 1980 issue of the Zimbabwean Sunday Mail)

Nothing substantial ever came out of the inquiry.

Brooks Marmon 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. Edson Sithole: new book uncovers the work of a thinker, lawyer and Zimbabwean freedom fighter who ‘disappeared’ – https://theconversation.com/edson-sithole-new-book-uncovers-the-work-of-a-thinker-lawyer-and-zimbabwean-freedom-fighter-who-disappeared-265765

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Barnaby Joseph Dye, Lecturer, King’s College London

Dams have been emblematic of the World Bank’s approach to development for many decades. From the bank’s early years in the 1960s and 1970s, large-scale infrastructure projects such as dams, power plants and transport networks were central to its strategy for economic growth and poverty reduction. This reflected a top-down modernisation paradigm.

But the controversial social, economic and environmental impacts of dams sparked widespread criticism. This prompted internal scrutiny and a reduction in funding by the 1990s. Notable examples included the bank’s withdrawal from India’s Narmada Dam and Nepal’s Arun III hydropower project. Both followed large-scale protests.

From 2007, the bank’s support for dams began to rise again, reflected in an increasing portfolio of projects. There were two main drivers. Hydropower gained renewed appeal as a low-carbon energy source. And infrastructure-led economic growth regained prominence in development policy. Yet, earlier debates were not erased: questions about social, environmental and political consequences continued to influence decision-making.

This begs the question of whether anything has changed. Does the World Bank approach dams differently today? Did past protests and policy reforms have a longer-lasting effect?

We are researchers examining the politics of development, with a focus on dam decision-making in Africa and South Asia. In a recent book chapter we show that debates over dams are far from settled. Reforms have strengthened planning, impact assessment and mitigation. But change has been gradual, contested and layered, reflecting the deeply political nature of large-scale infrastructure projects.

In the book chapter we trace how the World Bank’s approach to dams has shifted over decades. We ask whether reforms have genuinely altered how dams are built and their impacts.

The answer is nuanced. Reforms have improved planning, impact assessment and mitigation. These changes have indeed reduced negative social and environmental effects. But they have been introduced gradually, in layers, without fully replacing older practices.

Some negative impacts continue to be overlooked, and compensation schemes are often inadequate. The balance of trade-offs has shifted. Yet decades of reform have not resolved the tensions surrounding dam-building. These remain hotly debated both within and outside the bank.

This reveals the World Bank as a dynamic institution, shaped by debates and contestations. These take place within the organisation and from governments, communities and civil society. Policy-making and implementation are inherently contested processes. Both require careful negotiation, oversight and engagement.

Our findings highlight the importance of critical engagement and independent research to influence how large-scale infrastructure projects are planned and executed. And to bring alternative perspectives into institutional decision-making.

The evolution of dam-building

In the mid- to late 20th century, the World Bank championed large dam projects as engines of economic growth. The bank supported hydropower and irrigation infrastructure across Asia, Africa and Latin America. These projects often prioritised technical and financial feasibility over social and environmental issues.

The consequences were significant: widespread displacement, ecological damage and resistance from affected communities and advocacy groups.

Civil society, academic research and internal bank discussions increasingly criticised this approach. By the 1990s, development thinking began to shift. Greater emphasis was placed on participation, environmental safeguards, and social inclusion. Concepts such as sustainable livelihoods, social capital, and community-driven development gained traction. Participatory development approaches became more prominent.

The bank increasingly positioned itself as a “knowledge bank”. It began to emphasise data collection and local consultation alongside financing.

New mechanisms were introduced to embed participation and safeguard considerations. These included social and environmental impact assessments and stakeholder consultations. Yet these processes often operated within existing frameworks that continued to prioritise economic and engineering objectives. The result was that technical and financial considerations largely remained central.

Participation or performance?

In theory, local consultation and stakeholder engagement have become integral to the World Bank’s approach to dam development. In practice, however, these processes often serve more as legitimising tools than as genuine mechanisms for power redistribution.

For example, in Nepal, the World Bank’s subsidiary, the International Finance Corporation, promotes sustainable hydropower through stakeholder-based discussions and training programmes. Yet these initiatives frequently exclude key local actors. The focus instead remains on government agencies, industry representatives and international donors.

Similarly, at the Rusumo Falls Dam in Tanzania, resettlement action committees comprising affected communities were established to liaise with project authorities and advise on compensation. The committees provided a formal avenue for local input. But they had limited power to challenge national governments or alter major financial and infrastructural decisions.

In essence the bank co-opts critical voices while proceeding with its own priorities. Local communities can voice concerns. But their influence over the trajectory of development projects remains constrained.

Where change comes from

Scholars have often attributed shifts in World Bank policy to external pressures. These include civil society advocacy, intellectual debates on development and evolving global norms.

These factors certainly play a role. But our research highlights the importance of internal dynamics within the institution.

Competing factions within the bank generate tensions that drive both reform and continuity. For example, financiers focus on lending targets. Engineers prioritise large-scale infrastructure. Others advocate for social and environmental protections.

This internal contestation helps explain why new World Bank dam policies often fail to produce the expected outcomes. Policy evolution is gradual. New priorities layered onto existing frameworks. The result is a mixture of change and continuity.

Far from being a monolith, the World Bank is an institution shaped by ongoing internal debate. Different interests, factions and ideas rise and fall in influence over time.

Rethinking participation

Dams are a microcosm of broader development debates. They demand political choices and trade-offs between infrastructure needs, financing, environmental sustainability, social equity and economic impact.

The World Bank reflects these tensions internally, with competing priorities and factions shaping how decisions are made.

For those interested in meaningful reform, the challenge is to embed more inclusive governance and decision-making. Participation must go beyond token consultation. It should involve genuine power-sharing with affected communities, stronger accountability mechanisms and real influence over project outcomes.

Barnaby Joseph Dye has received multilple grants and a scholarship from the UK’s Research Councils (mainly Economic and Social Science Research Council) and the British Academy. He is a member of the British Labour Party.

Udisha Saklani received funding from the UK Research and Innovation Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) under grant number ES/P011373/1, as part of the Global Challenges Research Fund. She also acknowledges support from the Margaret Anstee Studentship awarded by Newnham College, University of Cambridge.

– ref. Dams for development? Unpacking tensions in the World Bank’s hydropower policies – https://theconversation.com/dams-for-development-unpacking-tensions-in-the-world-banks-hydropower-policies-260947

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Sioux McKenna, Professor of Higher Education, Rhodes University, South Africa, Rhodes University

The Sorbonne University, founded in Paris in 1253 and known globally as a symbol of education, science and culture, has just announced that, starting in 2026, it will stop submitting data to Times Higher Education (THE) rankings. It is joining a growing movement of universities questioning the value and methodology of these controversial league tables.

Rankings companies add together various indices that purport to measure quality. The indices include research outputs, the results of reputation surveys, the amount of money they receive in research grants and donations, and how many Nobel prize winners they have ever employed.

Nathalie Drach-Temam, president of the Sorbonne, stated that

the data used to assess each university’s performance is not open or transparent

and

the reproducibility of the results produced cannot be guaranteed.

This echoes wider concerns about the lack of scientific rigour of ranking systems that claim to measure complex institutional performance through simplified metrics.

The problem is that the general public believe that the rankings offer an indication of quality. As a result rankings have enormous influence over the market. This includes the choice of where to study and where to invest funding.

The university’s decision aligns with its commitment to the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment, an agreement signed by over 700 research organisations, funders and professional societies, and the Barcelona Declaration, signed by about 200 universities and research institutes. Both advocate for open science practices to make scientific research, data, methods, and educational resources transparent, accessible and reusable by everyone without barriers. And both recommend “avoiding the use of rankings of research organisations in research assessment”.

The Sorbonne joins a growing list of high-profile institutions abandoning rankings. Columbia University, Utrecht University and several Indian institutes have opted out of major ranking systems. In the US, 17 medical and law schools, including Yale and Harvard, have withdrawn from discipline-specific rankings.

There are five major rankings companies and at least 20 smaller ones. On top of these are a similar number of discipline specific and regional rankings. Together they make up a billion dollar industry. Yet the rankings are accessible without charge.

The rankings industry has increasingly targeted African countries. It sees the continent as a new market at a time when it is losing traction among high profile institutions in the global north.

There has been a rapid increase in snazzy events run by rankings organisations on the continent. These events are very expensive and often quite luxurious – attended by vice-chancellors, academics, consultants and others.

As an academic involved in higher education teaching, I believe that chasing the rankings can harm Africa’s fragile higher education system. There are two main reasons for this.

Firstly, the rankings metrics largely focus on research output, rather than on the potential for that research to address local problems. Secondly, the rankings fail to consider higher education’s role in nurturing critical citizens, or contributing to the public good.

The Sorbonne’s decision reflects a growing body of opinion that the rankings industry is unscientific and a poor means of measuring quality.

Nevertheless, many vice-chancellors are not willing to risk the cost of withdrawing. Rankings might do a poor job of indicating quality, in all its nuanced forms. Nevertheless, they are very good at shaping public opinion. And even if a university chooses to stay out of the ranking by refusing to hand over its data, the industry continues to include it, based only on limited publicly available data.

The ranking industry

Rankings themselves are available for free. The ranking industry derives most of its revenue from reselling the data that universities provide. Universities submit detailed institutional data to ranking companies without charge. That information is then repackaged and sold back to institutions, governments and corporations.

This data includes institutional income. It often also includes contact details of staff and students. These are used for “reputation surveys”. In the case of QS University Rankings, “reputation” makes up more than 40% of the rankings.

This business model has created what can be described as a sophisticated data harvesting operation disguised as academic assessment.

Mounting criticism

Academic research has extensively documented the problems with ranking methodologies. These include:

• the use of proxy metrics that poorly represent institutional quality. For example, while many university rankings do not include a measurement of teaching quality at all, those that do, use measures such as income, staff to student ratio, and international academic reputation.

• composite indexing that combines unrelated measurements. The metrics that are collected are simply added together, even though they have no bearing on each other. Our students are repeatedly warned of the dangers of using composite measurement in research, and yet this is at the heart of the rankings industry.

• subjective weighting systems that can dramatically alter results based on arbitrary decisions. If the system decides to weight reputation at 20% and then make university income worth 10%, we have one order of institutions. Switch these weightings to make the former 10% and the latter 20% and the list rearranges itself. And yet, the quality of the institutions is unchanged.

Rankings tend to favour research-intensive universities while ignoring teaching quality, community engagement and local relevance.

Most ranking systems emphasise English-language publications. This reinforces existing academic hierarchies rather than providing meaningful assessment of quality.

Where new rankings are being introduced, such as the Sub-Saharan Africa rankings, or the Emerging Economies rankings, or even the Impact rankings, they sadly still have the problem of proxy measures, and composite and subjective weightings.

In addition, many of the ranking companies refuse to reveal precise methodological detail. This makes it impossible to verify their claims or understand on what basis institutions are actually assessed.

Researchers argue that rankings have thrived because they align with the idea of higher education as a marketplace where institutions compete for market share. This has led universities to prioritise metrics that improve their ranking positions rather than activities that best serve their students and communities.

The emphasis on quantifiable outputs has created what scholars call “coercive isomorphism” – pressure for all universities to adopt similar structures and priorities regardless of their specific missions or local contexts.

Research shows that striving for a spot in the rankings limelight affects resource allocation, strategic planning and even which students apply to institutions. Some universities have shifted focus from teaching quality to research output specifically to improve rankings. Others have engaged in “gaming” – manipulating data to boost their positions.

Looking forward

Participation in methodologically flawed ranking systems presents a contradiction: universities built on principles of scientific research continue to support an industry whose methods would fail basic peer review standards.

For universities still participating, Sorbonne’s move raises an uncomfortable question: what are their institutional priorities and commitments to scientific integrity?

Sioux McKenna 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. University ranking systems are being rejected. African institutions should take note – https://theconversation.com/university-ranking-systems-are-being-rejected-african-institutions-should-take-note-265914

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Nicodemus Minde, Researcher, United States International University

Tanzania has conducted regular polls since the first multiparty elections in 1995. But they have often failed to meet democratic standards. The opposition has been persistently excluded and restricted, and media freedoms and civil rights have been suppressed. This pattern has come to be identified as electoral authoritarianism.

Tanzania’s ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), will seek to extend its dominance on 29 October 2025. It has been in power since independence in 1961, making it one of Africa’s longest-serving ruling parties.

I have studied Tanzania’s political party dynamics for a decade and in my view CCM’s candidate, Samia Suluhu Hassan, is destined for a landslide victory after the disqualification of two major opposition parties. Samia became president following the death in office of John Magufuli in 2021.

Chama Cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema) was disqualified for refusing to sign the election code of conduct. The party’s chair, Tundu Lissu, faces treason charges for calling for electoral reforms. The presidential candidate of the second-largest opposition party, ACT Wazalendo, has also been disqualified following a petition filed by the country’s registrar of political parties.

This makes the election significantly different to the last poll, held in 2020. That year, opposition parties participated, despite electoral flaws. This time, the ruling party goes to the polls virtually unchallenged. It will be looking for a seventh consecutive election victory.

The campaign is now dominated by CCM at all levels. There are indications that voter turnout will be low, with little public enthusiasm, especially knowing that a CCM victory is certain. Since 2010 the voter turnout has been shrinking. The elections in 2010 and 2020 experienced notably low voter turnout, with rates of 42.7% and 50.7%, respectively.

Tanzania continues to experience a decline in democracy, accompanied by heightened political repression and restrictions on political rights and civil liberties. The country’s status in the Freedom House democracy index dropped from the Partly Free category in 2020 to the Not Free category going into 2025.

Polling

Tanzanian general elections include three main categories: presidential, parliamentary, and councillor seats. They take place across the mainland and Zanzibar, Tanzania’s semi-autonomous state.

The 2025 elections feature 272 constituencies, 222 of which are mainland and 50 of which are in Zanzibar. Eight new constituencies were created in the mainland earlier this year.

The Independent Electoral Commission announced that a total of 37.7 million people had registered as voters in the 2025 elections, compared to 29.8 million at the last election: a 26.55% increase. According to the commission this reflects a rise in population but critics allege a scheme to manipulate the vote during the elections.

The electoral commission has cleared 16 presidential candidates. Samia, a native of Zanzibar, is running for her first full term. Her running mate, Emmanuel Nchimbi, has deep roots within CCM.

Chadema has called for electoral reforms, a stance which has brought charges of treason and incitement against Lissu.

ACT-Wazalendo’s candidate Luhaga Mpina was barred from running after the attorney general said his party had not followed nomination procedures.

With Chadema and ACT-Wazalendo out of the presidential race in mainland Tanzania, Chama Cha Ukombozi wa Umma (Chaumma), a fringe party that has benefited from the defections of some Chadema members, has emerged as the only challenger.

Its presidential candidate and running mate are Salum Mwalimu and Devotha Minja, who defected from Chadema earlier this year.

Chaumma’s apparent campaign resources have led some to conclude that it is surreptitiously backed by the ruling party. Chaumma and the 15 other fringe parties run the risk of legitimising an already flawed electoral process.

In Zanzibar, incumbent Hussein Mwinyi of CCM is seeking another term. He faces competition from Othman Masoud of ACT-Wazalendo. This will be the first general election in Zanzibar without opposition icon Seif Shariff Hamad, who died in 2021. He was a perennial presidential candidate in Zanzibar, always claiming that he had won but never becoming president.

In 2010 a government of national unity was formed in which he became the first vice president in a gesture aimed at reconciliation.

Campaign issues

The CCM is promising to deliver a strengthened economy, infrastructure development and improved healthcare. It has also pledged a new constitution. This last promise is part of the rhetoric previously peddled during political campaigns.

When Samia took office in 2021, she initiated reforms that promised improvements in governance. These are long forgotten.

Chadema’s “No Reforms, No Elections” position continues to shape public discourse. The call has focused minds on the governance and human rights issues facing Tanzania. These include attacks on media freedom, the targeting of government critics, and gross violations of human rights and abductions.

It has had an effect too on international opinion of Tanzania. Several international organisations including the African Commission on Human Rights and the European Parliament have voiced their concern about the deteriorating human rights situation in Tanzania.

ACT-Wazalendo has resolved to pursue reforms by participating in the election, with the rallying call of Linda Kura (protect the vote).

What’s different (and what’s not) this time

There is a new electoral framework for the 2025 election.

Three new electoral laws were passed. These are the National Electoral Commission Act (2023), the Presidential, Parliamentary, and Local Government Elections Bill (2023), and the Political Parties Affairs Laws (Amendment) Bill (2023). These changes led to the establishment of a new electoral body, the Independent National Electoral Commission, with the promise of reforming the electoral system.

A multi-stakeholder engagement recommended changes to enhance the electoral body’s independence. On this basis, a government task force recommended the creation of an “independent” committee, chaired by the chief justice, to vet applications of electoral commissioners.

Despite these changes, the executive branch still maintains significant influence over the electoral structure and decision making. The president still has the powers to appoint the chair, vice chair and commissioners of the electoral body.

With the opposition pushed aside and a controlled electoral process under way, CCM’s victory is all but certain. The key question now is the future of Tanzania’s democracy.

Nicodemus Minde is affiliated with the Institute for Security Studies.

– ref. Tanzania’s ruling party has crushed the opposition – the elections are a mere formality – https://theconversation.com/tanzanias-ruling-party-has-crushed-the-opposition-the-elections-are-a-mere-formality-265771