West Africa

Context Matters in Fighting Ebola: Lessons From West Africa for the DRC

There seems to be no end in sight to the Ebola outbreak that has swept through the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) since last August. By 19 June, nearly 1500 peoplehad died. Uganda is on high alert after three positive cases, two ...

Joburg Post·over 4 years ago

Why Abandoning the CFA Franc Would be A Risky Operation

The controversy over the CFA Franc gets revived on a regular basis by African politicians and intellectuals. The currency gives rise to both passionate debate and simplistic, sweeping political declarations. The CFA franc is one of two r...

Joburg Post·over 4 years ago

Double Vision: Capturing the Culture of Twinhood in West Africa

Land of Ibeji is a spellbinding photography project by French-Belgian duo Bénédicte Kurzen, a Lagos-based photojournalist, and Sanne De Wilde, a photographer specialising in genetics. The project explores the subject of twinhood among th...

Alice Bucknell·over 4 years ago

Plant diversity makes West Africa’s shea trees bear more fruit

Shea trees are grown widely in semi-arid parts of Africa for their fruit and seeds. From Senegal in the west to Uganda in the east, they are found in agro-forestry systems called parklands – landscapes where trees are left to grow in cu...

Aoife Delaney Researcher·over 3 years ago

Ghana’s politics has strong ties with performing arts. This is how it started

Towards the end of the Kwame Nkrumah era in 1966, a number of highlife artists wrote songs critical of him as Ghana’s president. But during the period leading up to independence in 1957 and the early years of independence, most Ghanaian ...

Edmund John Collins ·over 3 years ago

Has ECOWAS made West Africa a safer place? Yes, but its track record is lumpy

Recent events in Palma, a town in the volatile Cabo Delgado province in the north of Mozambique, have taken bloodshed in the region to new levels. Dozens of people were killed when hundreds of Islamist militants stormed the town on Wed...

Benjamin Maiangwa ·almost 3 years ago

The Sahel’s jihadists don’t all govern alike: context matters

The Sahel region, a belt of largely semi-arid countries below the Sahara, continues to be confronted by jihadist insurgents with various affiliations. “Jihadist insurgents”, broadly defined, rely on religious rhetoric for political mo...

Natasja Rupesinghe and Mikael Hiberg Naghizadeh·over 2 years ago

Ebola strikes West Africa again: key questions and lessons from the past

Medical staff check each others protective suits. Photo by SUMY SADURNI/AFP via Getty Images Ebola in Guinea is indeed distressing. The last in West Africa occurred between 2014 and 2015 and affected Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea...

Mosoka Fallah·about 3 years ago

Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger want to leave Ecowas, a political scientist explains the fallout

Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have sent Ecowas, west Africa’s main political union of 15 countries, a formal notice of their withdrawal from the bloc.

The Conversation ·about 2 months ago

West Africa bloc urges Burkina, Niger and Mali not to withdraw

The West African regional bloc ECOWAS has pushed the junta-led Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali to reconsider their decision to quit the political and economic alliance.

Neo Poho·about 2 months ago