Strategic low-cost energy investment opportunities and challenges towards achieving universal access (SDG7) in each African nation

Strategic energy planning to achieve universal access and cover the future energy needs in each African nation is essential to lead to effective, sustainable energy decisions to formulate mitigation and adaptation climate change policy measures. Africa can not afford a cost-increasing green energy transition pathway towards achieving SDG7. In this analysis, least-cost power generation investment options using energy systems analysis enhanced with geospatial data for each African nation are identified, considering different levels of electricity consumption per capita (Low, High) and costs of renewables (New Policies, Renewable Deployment scenarios). The power generation capacity needs to increase between 211GW (NPLs) and 302GW (RDHs) during 2021-2030 to achieve SDG7 in Africa, leading to electricity generation to rise between 6,221PJ (NPLs) - 7,527PJ (NPHs) by 2030. Higher electricity consumption levels lead to higher penetration of fossil fuel technologies in the power mix of Africa. To achieve the same electricity demand levels, decreasing renewables' costs can assist in a less carbon-intensive power system, although higher capacity is needed. However, Africa is still hard to achieve its green revolution. Depending on the scenario, grid-connected technologies are estimated to supply approximately 85%-90% of the total electricity generated in Africa in 2030, mini-grid technologies roughly 1%-6%, and stand-alone technologies 8%-11%. Solar off-grid and solar hybrid mini-grid technologies play an essential role in electrifying the current un-electrified settlements in residential areas. Natural gas will be the dominant fossil fuel source by 2030, while the decreasing costs of renewables make solar overtake hydropower. Higher penetration of renewable energy sources in the energy mix creates local jobs and increases cost-efficiency. Approximately 6.9 million (NPLs) to 9.6 million (RDHs) direct jobs can be created in Africa by expanding the power sector during 2020-2030 across the supply chain. Increasing the electricity consumption levels in Africa leads to higher total system costs, but it is estimated to create more jobs that can ensure political and societal stability. Also, the decreasing costs of renewables could further increase the penetration of renewables in the energy mix, leading to a higher number of jobs.

Removing the Cog in the Waqf Wheels: A Policy Formulation for Nigeria

The Nigerian state is the most populous African nation with a sizeable number of Muslims. While other countries with a significantly fewer number of Muslims benefit from the visible dividends of a thriving waqf institution, the same cannot be said of Nigeria. The institution of waqfs in the country is almost non-existent or, at best, described as comatose. Therefore, this study attempts to formulate workable prescriptions for waqf development in Nigeria. Data were gathered from relevant documents, such as related local regulations and the result of previous studies. Considering the normative characteristics for the functionality of waqf institution, the data were analysed using documentary enquiry, legal reasoning, descriptions, narratives, and critical studies on the waqf system in Nigeria. The findings indicate a dire need for dedicated legislation for waqf operations in the country that will expedite establishing a sound and well-functioning waqf system. This future law should incorporate the policy briefs contained in this paper.==================================================================================================== ABSTRAK – Menghilangkan Hambatan Perputaran Wakaf: Formulasi Kebijakan untuk Nigeria. Nigeria adalah negara di Afrika yang terpadat dengan jumlah Muslim yang cukup besar. Tidak seperti negara-negara lain yang bahkan jumlah penduduk Muslimnya jauh lebih sedikit, Nigeria hampir tidak bisa mendapatkan keuntungan apapun dari adanya sistem wakaf dalam Islam. Eksistensi lembaga wakaf hampir tidak terlihat di negara ini, atau, dapat dikatakan sedang mati suri. Oleh karena itu, kajian ini berupaya untuk menghilangkan hambatan-hambatan operasionalisasi wakaf dengan merumuskan formulasi yang dapat diimplementasikan untuk Nigeria. Data penelitian dikumpulkan dari studi dokumentasi seperti undang-undang dan peraturan terkait serta hasil-hasil kajian yang relevan. Dengan pertimbangan karakteristik normatif fungsi lembaga wakaf, analisis dokumen dilakukan dengan penalaran hukum, telaah deskriptif, naratif, dan studi kritis terhadap fungsi wakaf di Nigeria. Hasil kajian menyimpulkan bahwa ada kebutuhan mendesak bagi Nigeria untuk membentuk undang-undang khusus wakaf yang dapat mempercepat pembentukan sistem wakaf yang sehat dan fungsional. Formulasi policy brief dari kajian ini dapat digunakan sebagai bahan pembentukan aturan dimaksud.

Crippling the Will of a People: Morphostatic Structures of Violence and the Crawl-Space of Agency in the Lives of Eritrean Refugees

<p>In conjunction with an exposition of the larger historical and political context of the nation of Eritrea, this thesis examines the life narratives of five refugees hailing from the Horn of Africa. In doing so, certain institutional, relational, and embodied forms of violence are identified as permeating Eritrea’s socio-political fabric and thus also the inter- and intra-personal lives of the participants. Where morphostatic structures are deemed as those that constrain an individual’s capacity to pursue their ultimate concerns, it is maintained that violence in the form of extreme nationalism, routinised fear, and varying subjective affects partially accounts for the fact that an estimated 5,000 people are fleeing this small, modernising African nation every month. Following this, I argue that, by examining the life-narratives of Eritrean refugees, violence can be understood as transpiring at the interstices of an ongoing – albeit skewed – dialectic between, on one hand, morphostatic structures of violence appearing in institutional, relational, and embodied forms, and, on the other, a degree of mimetic agency that, when harnessed, acts as a crawl-space through which individuals – if they are to realise their ultimate concerns – must absent themselves relative to such structures of violence.</p>

Crippling the Will of a People: Morphostatic Structures of Violence and the Crawl-Space of Agency in the Lives of Eritrean Refugees

<p>In conjunction with an exposition of the larger historical and political context of the nation of Eritrea, this thesis examines the life narratives of five refugees hailing from the Horn of Africa. In doing so, certain institutional, relational, and embodied forms of violence are identified as permeating Eritrea’s socio-political fabric and thus also the inter- and intra-personal lives of the participants. Where morphostatic structures are deemed as those that constrain an individual’s capacity to pursue their ultimate concerns, it is maintained that violence in the form of extreme nationalism, routinised fear, and varying subjective affects partially accounts for the fact that an estimated 5,000 people are fleeing this small, modernising African nation every month. Following this, I argue that, by examining the life-narratives of Eritrean refugees, violence can be understood as transpiring at the interstices of an ongoing – albeit skewed – dialectic between, on one hand, morphostatic structures of violence appearing in institutional, relational, and embodied forms, and, on the other, a degree of mimetic agency that, when harnessed, acts as a crawl-space through which individuals – if they are to realise their ultimate concerns – must absent themselves relative to such structures of violence.</p>

Traditions Can Be Changed

Whether and to what extent African states and societies have been able to break away from colonial impact is a still contentious issue. Harald Barre considers newspapers and academic activism in Tanzania as forums in which the project of an independent African nation was shaped through heated debates. Examining the changing discourses on race and gender in the 1960s and 1970s, he reveals that equating difference with inequality in the national narrative was fiercely contested. Pervasive images rooted in colonialism were thus challenged and in some cases fundamentally transformed by journalists, students, (inter)national scholars, (inter)national events and the promise of an egalitarian socialist state.

Indigenous Governance Systems and Democracy in Ethiopia: Yejoka Qicha System of the Gurage People

Indigenous governance systems within the Eastern African nation of Ethiopia are often dismissed by Western political elites as undemocratic. We assessed the nature of and level of democracy in Indigenous governance systems in Ethiopia by focusing on the Yejoka Qicha of the Gurage people. We found that, while the Yejoka Qicha system includes democratic elements that can support national efforts to consolidate democracy, it also marginalizes some groups, such as women, from political and economic benefits. As such, we recommend the implementation of policies that eliminate the oppressive aspects of the Yejoka Qicha system, while also recognizing the role that these Indigenous governance systems can have in promoting democracy within Ethiopia.

Tourism-led and economic-driven nexus in Mauritius: Spillovers and inclusive development policies in the case of an African nation

This study investigates the dynamic linkages between tourism growth and economic growth in the African island nation of Mauritius using the spillover index framework based on the monthly data from 2003M11–2020M02. The Granger causality results reflect bidirectional static linkages between tourism-led economic growth (TLEG) and economic-driven tourism growth (EDTG). The dynamic spillover findings show a varying magnitude and direction of TLEG and EDTG hypotheses that are time-dependent. These relationships indicate distinct outcomes where tourism growth or economic growth is the net transmitter or recipient of shocks. The level of spillovers is influenced by economic events, climatic disasters and the coronavirus-19 pandemic crisis. Some inclusive and sustainable development policy implications are drawn for Mauritius and other tourism-dependent African countries.

Self-possession and the crisis of post-colony in Achebe’s A Man of the People

Chinua Achebe’s fourth novel, A Man of the People, portrays a wider range of significant female figures than any other fictional narrative by Achebe. The leading female characters defy literary marginalization because the text humanizes their personal predicaments and validates their choices. As a result, their collective voice is as important to the novel’s themes as the male voice expressed through the two protagonists, Odili Samalu and Chief Nanga. Achebe’s novel suggests that its unnamed post-independent African nation will not fulfil its potential without the tangible evolution of women’s self-ownership and leadership roles. What unifies the roles of leading female characters in the novel, such as Eunice, Mama, Elsie, and Edna, is their ability to seize possession, financially and emotionally, of fundamental elements of their own lives. The opposition between women’s aspirations in A Man of the People and the daunting familial and communal restrictions imposed on women mirrors colonial and postcolonial pressures placed on the newly independent African nation. While the nation may have transitioned politically from a colonial entity to an independent state, the female population is pressured to remain dependent and subject to the norms of patriarchy, a far more primal colonial order than that of Western capitalist domination. Even in the post-independence context, most women exist in a state of collective vassalage: they play subordinate and dependent roles in a post-colony stratified by (among other things) gender. In this context, one of A Man of the People’s notable achievements is to dramatize women’s fashioning of independent economic and social realities despite structures that sustain female subjugation. The novel’s theme of female self-possession is shared in the work of two Igbo and Nigerian-born female authors, Flora Nwapa and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Additional West African authors are considered as well.