Hi Quartz Africa readers! [insertSponsor]
Keeping it on
It’s easy to want to over-celebrate Cameroon’s Anglophone regions finally getting their internet back on after a 93-day shutdown by the government. Yes, we should be delighted and acknowledge the relentless #BringBackOurInternet campaign. But, in truth, the work to prevent shutdowns like this happening again should now be our focus.
African governments are not alone in using internet shutdowns as a means of controlling or preventing protests, but they are among the most egregious offenders. There were internet shutdowns in 11 countries last year, and while Cameroon has been the standout offender in 2017 so far, activists can not rest easy.
Many of the 2016 shutdowns were related to elections and in 2017, the major elections are happening in the second half of the year, with elections in Rwanda, Kenya, Angola, Liberia and possibly DR Congo.
There have already been mutterings from Kenyan government officials about election security threats and possible violence and there’s a real possibility Kenya, Africa’s leading technology hub, might consider a shutdown.
Ultimately, more has to be done to make it difficult for governments to even consider shutting down the internet as an option. One pan-African policy suggestion has been that after the end of a shutdown, governments should not be allocated an IP address for one year. Such a ban would also affect any transfer of addresses to government-owned entities in those 12 months, according to the proposals made to Afrinic, an agency that manages and allocates the registration of internet IP addresses.
The proposals also suggest that if an African government performs three or more shutdowns in a period of 10 years, all services provided to them be revoked, with no allocations offered for a period of five years.
We can debate the effectiveness of such proposals when you’re dealing with governments or leaders willing to hold on to political power at the expense of their country’s economic interests and progress. But that’s why we should see these as part of a wider concerted effort to change the attitude that the internet is a luxury or optional for ordinary citizens.
In the long term, telcos and technology companies know these shutdowns are bad for their businesses as well as society and will need to take a more aggressive position and stand up to governments.
Yinka Adegoke, Quartz Africa editor
Stories from this week
More African countries are betting on space programs. Despite developmental challenges, several African countries including Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, and most recently, Ethiopia have backed space programs over the years. The race to space shows the importance space technology holds for economic development, job creation—and military aspirations.
Ghanaians are the world’s leading applicants for US green cards. Around 7% of Ghana’s 25 million population applied to win the US visa lottery in 2015. Despite relative political stability, the climbing of the lottery applications in recent years point to the country’s economic struggle, which was affected by the crash in global commodity prices.
African governments starve local media of ad dollars to curb free press. Across Africa, state-funded advertising is usually the single largest source of revenue for commercial media outlets. In Kenya, for instance, the government’s decision to stop advertising with local media houses in an election year is indicative of a worrying trend to undermine freedom of expression, writes George Ogola.
South Africans—finally—get to play themselves in a film about anti-apartheid struggle. Kalushi, a new film about anti-apartheid hero Solomon Mahlangu, premiered this year to worldwide recognition. As Brian Browdie notes, what sets the biopic apart from previous movies is that the nationality of the people behind and in front of the camera are all South African.
New photography captures Iran’s hidden Afro-Iranian minority. German-Iranian photographer Mahdi Ehsaei spent three years in Iran’s southern province of Hormozgan documenting the stories of Iranians of African heritage. In an interview with Lily Kuo, Ehsaei says many Iranians don’t know black Iranians have lived there for centuries.
CHART OF THE WEEK
Some of the world’s biggest countries have managed to reduce extreme poverty—except Nigeria. The World Bank’s 2017 Atlas of Sustainable Development Goals shows 35 million more Nigerians were living in extreme poverty in 2013 than in 1990. As Yomi Kazeem explains, while population growth could account for the persistence of poverty, high-scale corruption and incompetence are also to blame.
Other Things We Liked
The “bench grandmothers” treating Zimbabwe’s mentally ill. One in four Zimbabweans suffers from some form of mental illness, yet there are only 13 psychiatrists in a country of about 16 million. Reporting from the capital Harare for The Guardian, Ranga Mberi writes about the Friendship Bench project, which trains grandmothers to listen to those suffering from depression and other mental disorders, and offer a word of encouragement.
Tanzania is burning GM corn while people go hungry. Despite the persistent drought, technicians and researchers at the Makutupora agricultural research center in Tanzania come together to burn bags of maize. The reason: outdated “biosafety” regulations that treat genetically modified crops as if they were little better than germ warfare, writes Mark Lynas in Little Atoms.
Keep an eye on
Pope Francis heads to Egypt (Apr. 28-29). The head of the Roman Catholic church heads to Egypt at a time when the country is under a three-month state of emergency following the attack on churches and a monastery. Pope Francis, who refused to cancel his trip, will meet religious and political leaders, and speak at an international conference on peace along with the grand imam of al-Azhar University.
Moody’s to decide on South Africa’s sovereign rating (Apr. 28). Following a cabinet reshuffle and protests across the country, credit rating firm S&P downgraded South Africa’s credit rating to junk status in early April. This week, Moody’s, which stalled and placed the country’s rating on review, is expected to announce its decision.
Our best wishes for a productive and thought-filled week ahead. Please send any news, comments, suggestions, African-sponsored tickets to space and Ghanaian US green cards to africa@qz.com. You can follow us on Twitter at @qzafrica for updates throughout the day.
If you received this email from a friend or colleague you can sign up here to receive the Quartz Africa Weekly Brief in your inbox every week.