Overcoming barriers through technology and providing services to hard-to-reach rural areas
Helping to improve direct and immediate access to even hard-to-reach communities with real-time measurable data through mobile phone technology is how Viamo explains its service. According to its Sudan Country Manager, Rudiana M.E. Mustafa, Viamo’s digital campaigns include starting a dialogue between organizations, governments, programs and the people they work with to utilize important public service messaging. Viamo works cross...
What is the aim, vision of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s U.S.-Africa Policy Working Group?
Before her removal from the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) announced that she would launch an African Policy working group to hear from officials and experts who she works with and in Africa. Omar, as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, served as the vice chair of the Subcommittee on Africa. She was removed...
Africa occupies a ‘marginal place’ in U.S. foreign policy
In recent months, Africa has received much in the way of “optics” and symbolic gestures, but little in the way of substance. Africa is historically like a wealthy woman that gives her all to an abusive, unappreciative no-good man. While being interviewed by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), Kenyan native and Loyola University law professor, James Gathii, said Africa...
Burkina Faso: Out of the frying pan with France but into the fire with the U.S.?
The West African nation of Burkina Faso placed its former colonial master France on notice to remove their military from its soil. The move coincides with an uptick of anti-France and anti-West sentiment on the continent and among people in the landlocked country. French troops were in Burkina Faso under a 2018 security agreement that allowed French Special Forces...
African peace conference draws from Holy Qur’an
Highlights from the keynote address of Ambassador-at-Large Rashad Hussain at the Africa Peace Conference on January 17. Photo: mr.usembassy.gov “O you who believe, enter into complete peace. …” —Holy Qu’ran, Surah 2, Verse 108 The 3rd annual African Peace Conference 2023 at the Al-Mourabitoune Congress Palace in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania and hosted by President Mohamed Ould Cheikh El-Ghazouani...
U.S. responds to China foreign minister’s five-country Africa tour
China’s foreign minister’s first trip abroad, like all visits, began with a trip to Africa. It marked the 33rd consecutive year the continent was the destination of Chinese foreign minister’s annual first overseas visit. That trip was followed by a subsequent trip to Africa by the U.S. Treasury Secretary. The new Chinese foreign minister and former Chinese ambassador to the...
Africa and China’s growing alliance and the de-Westernization of the continent
China’s new foreign minister Qin Gang made his first trip abroad January 9-16 to the continent of Africa. His trip comes amid changes in how the continent views the West. It is the decoupling of Western hegemony is how Dr. Tony Monterio describes Africa’s growing dissatisfaction with the U.S.-led Western powers. He told Africa Watch that it was Gang’s first...
Will South Africa’s president survive ‘Farmgate’ until national elections?
South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, an anti-apartheid figure—once suggested as Nelson Mandela’s successor to the presidency—has been mired in a scandal that involves undeclared money. Recently, a stash of U.S. currency was discovered in the cushions of a couch on a farm owned by the president. According to several media reports, Ramaphosa declared he is innocent of charges that he...
Controversy ignites as comedian Kevin Hart says Blacks were kings in Egypt
“History is above all our studies the most attractive and best qualified to reward our research. As it develops the springs and motives of human actions and displays the consequence of circumstances, which operates most powerfully on the destinies of the human being.” —The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad According to Middle East Eye, some Egyptians have taken the term...
Blackouts in South Africa and recent summit designed to destabilize continent, says analyst
During a wide-ranging interview with Africa Watch, Redge Nkosi, the Pretoria-based founder and executive director of First Source Money and Public Banking of South Africa, he referenced the recent Biden administration-sponsored U.S.-Africa Summit and domestic issues happening in South Africa. He discussed the current president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, who has had trouble explaining why between $400,000-$5 million of...