A dominant narrative about industrial development in African countries is that it’s a lost cause. This needs to change, contends Wim Naudé. This is because new technologies, vibrant entrepreneurship and a growing middle class are capable of bringing about industrialisation, as long as governments don’t create stumbling blocks.
In the wake of the 1967 Biafra civil war - the first major refugee crisis in independent Africa - the focus was on providing rural camps to house people seeking safety. This approach has gone through a major overhaul in the intervening decades as the UNHCR came to accept that many more refugees were living in cities than in camps. Cristiano D'Orsi sets out why the camps versus city debate remains contentious.
|
Workers pack coffee sachets at the Dormans coffee factory in Nairobi, Kenya.
EPA/Daniel Irungu
Wim Naudé, United Nations University
With an outdated story that gives up on manufacturing, Africa will fail to close the huge digital gap it still faces.
|
Dagahaley – one of three camps that make up Kenya’s sprawling Dadaab refugee camp.
Dai Kurokawa/EPA
Cristiano D'Orsi, University of Johannesburg
Many African countries host large numbers of asylum seekers. But should they be held in camps, or be allowed to integrate into cities?
|
Health + Medicine
|
Ian Hughes, University College Cork
Discussing the mental health of leaders such as Donald Trump is controversial. But it's vital to understanding how disordered leaders rise to power.
| |
Christopher D. Lynn, University of Alabama
An anthropologist works in American Samoa, taking advantage of the island's longstanding tattoo culture to tease out the effects tattoos have on the body's immune function.
|
|
|
Politics + Society
|
Francois Cleophas, Stellenbosch University
The springbok emblem was introduced under white rule in South Africa and by retaining it, it remains a burden for many South Africans who followed the Rugby World Cup.
| |
Ho Wai Yip, The Education University of Hong Kong
When police sprayed Kowloon Mosque with blue dye during protests, the people of Hong Kong rallied again to help clean it up.
|
|
|
Science + Technology
|
Toby Brown, McMaster University
The first ever Canadian-led large project on one of the world's leading telescopes will investigate how the birth and death of galaxies are affected by their environment.
| |
Luthfi T. Dzulfikar, The Conversation
Indonesia's unhealthy obsession with research output is driving scientists to commit unethical acts to produce research that are more publishable. What can the research community do to stop this?
|
|
|