SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS - The African Mirror

Aug

06

2025

The global health system can build back better after US aid cuts – here’s how

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

WHATEVER emerges from the current crisis, it will look very different from the past. As someone who has spent a 25-year career in global health and human rights and now teaches the subject to graduate students in California, I am often asked whether young people can hope for a future in the field. My answer is a resounding yes. More than ever, we need the dedication, humility and vision of the next generation to reinvent the field of global health, so that it is never again so vulnerable to the political fortunes of a single country. And more than ever,…

Aug

05

2025

By SIMPHIWE GONGQA and SALLY MATTHEWS

Ubuntu matters: rural South Africans believe community care should go hand-in-hand with development

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

THE failure of many development initiatives has led some scholars, especially those associated with the post-development and decolonial schools of thought, to call for alternatives to development. The idea of development is a very influential way of explaining inequalities between different parts of the world. Most people think of some parts of the world as ‘developed’ and others as ‘developing’ and believe that those in the ‘developing’ world need to follow in the footsteps of those ahead of them on a universal path to development. However, critics of development reject this way of thinking. They believe that development damages the…

Aug

02

2025

By ADRINO MAZENDA; CATHERINE ALTHAUS and MASSIMILIANO TANI

8 policies that would help fight poverty in South Africa’s economic hub Gauteng

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

POVERTY goes beyond income. It often arises when health, education and opportunities fall short of meeting people’s needs. Individuals are classified as impoverished when they face deprivation in one-third or more of the indicators in a multidimensional poverty index. The index reflects the various influences on socioeconomic class. These include housing, sanitation, electricity, cooking fuel, nutrition and school attendance. The index is one of the most comprehensive measures of poverty. The fact that the multidimensional index captures multiple dimensions enables it to reflect overlapping disadvantages. And provides a fuller picture of well-being. Other monetary measures, such as income, aren’t as…

Dec

27

2025

By DEVIN LEIGH

Apongo was a rebel leader in Jamaica – a diary entry sheds light on his west African origins

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

FOR over three centuries, between 1526 and 1866, at least 10.5 million Africans were forcibly trafficked to the Americas in the transatlantic slave trade. Over half of them (with known places of departure) left from a 3,000km stretch of the west African coast between what are today Senegal and Gabon. Scholars trying to uncover the lives of these diasporic Africans are forced to work with historical records produced by their European and American enslavers. These writers mostly ignored Africans’ individual identities. They gave them Western names and wrote about them as products belonging to a set of supposedly distinct “ethnic”…

Aug

01

2025

By JOVIAL RANTAO

SOUTH AFRICA’S WAR ON CORRUPTION: The SIU success story and blueprint for change

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

JOVIAL RANTAO CORRUPTION has been described by many South Africans as one of the biggest threats to building the country that millions who fought apartheid dreamt of. The scourge has siphoned billions meant to provide a better life to Nelson Mandela's nation, bringing the country to the verge of hopelessness. However, there is hope – found in institutions that continue winning victories against graft and citizens dedicating their expertise to fight criminals who loot state coffers. Hope is embodied by the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), which has taken the war against corruption and won handsomely over the past decade. The…

Jul

31

2025

By REGIS MUSAVENGANE

Land reform in South Africa: how one community set up a successful game reserve

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

IN South Africa, most of the arable land was taken from African people by colonial settlers. Ever since apartheid ended in 1994, people who were dispossessed of their land have been trying to get it back. When land is given back to an entire community, things can become complicated. For example, some people might want to divide it up into individual plots; others might want to use the land communally. Or individuals in positions of power might exploit their influence to secure personal gains. This underscores the need for inclusive dialogue and collaboration to make sure that the people who…

Jul

30

2025

By ONYEDIKACHI MADUEKE

Armed banditry is becoming a crisis in Nigeria: why fixing the police is key

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

ARMED banditry in Nigeria has escalated into a full-blown security crisis, particularly in the north-west and north-central regions. What began as sporadic attacks has now morphed into coordinated campaigns of terror affecting entire communities. In March 2022, bandits attacked an Abuja-bound train with over 900 passengers, killing several and abducting an unknown number. Earlier, in January 2022, around 200 people were killed and 10,000 displaced in Zamfara after over 300 gunmen on motorcycles stormed eight villages, shooting indiscriminately and burning homes. Between 2023 and May 2025, at least 10,217 people were killed by armed groups, including bandits, in northern Nigeria.…

Jul

28

2025

By LEILA DEMAREST and LINE KUPPENS

Young Nigerians learn about democracy at school: how it’s shaping future voters

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

DEMOCRATIC consolidation is a continuing struggle, in Africa as elsewhere. The turn to democracy gained momentum in Africa in the late 1980s and early 1990s but has petered out since. Can new generations turn the tide? The need to prepare young people to become democratically minded is well established. In Western societies, school-based civic education has been considered the means to do it since as early as the 1960s. The assumption is that better knowledge about the democratic functioning of the state promotes stronger democratic values and norms. It is also thought to increase trust in institutions and a willingness…

Jul

26

2025

By MALIK SAMUEL

When rebels rule: ISWAP’s formula for winning support in Nigeria’s northeast

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

This story was originally published by The New Humanitarian.By Malik Samuel IN Nigeria’s northeast, the jihadist group Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) is the Islamic State Central's most successful regional affiliate, combining a ruthless insurgency with an elaborate governance and tax system that has enabled it to withstand sustained military pressure. While modelled on the administrative system of ISIS-central, based in Syria and Iraq, ISWAP has adapted the framework to the Lake Chad Basin. At the heart of its governance model is a network of formal departments known as dawawin – essentially ministries – tasked with overseeing military operations,…

Jul

22

2025

By FISAYO AJALA

Boko Haram conflict: Nigeria’s army is failing the widows of dead soldiers

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

NIGERIAN soldiers’ widows have been reported as lacking support from the army, and even experiencing sexual harassment while claiming their late husbands’ benefits. Their concerns echo the findings of our recent study as military sociologists. The research focused on Nigerian widows who lost their husbands in the Boko Haram conflict, and the extent to which the Nigerian Army fulfilled its responsibilities towards them. Boko Haram is officially known as Jamaat Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati Wal-Jihad (JAS), meaning “people committed to the propagation of the Prophet’s teachings and jihad”. The Islamic State’s West African Province is its splinter group. They are Islamist…