Latest Posts Page

China Ventures into the Middle East.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 8:00

Mainly for reasons of energy sources, the last decade has seen China investing heavily in the Middle East and North Africa. The Silk Roads have sought the improvement of ports and other regional infrastructure, rendering the countries of the Gulf, Egypt and Iran the main destinations of Chinese investment.
Despite all this, the premises for involvement at the political-military level are yet to be found.

A new piece has emerged on the Middle East chessboard: China. Its economic expansion in the last twenty years has caused an exponential increase in Chinese dependence on imported oil and natural gas, amounting to 69,8% and 45,3% of its total needs. As a result, the Middle East has changed from being a marginal zone of the world to one that has been central to the strategy of Beijing since 2008.

The document which still guides Chinese politics in the Middle East is the 2016 China’s Arab Policy Paper which sets out the principle of the ‘1+2+3’, indicating sectors of economic cooperation in order of priority: energy (1), infrastructure and commerce/investment (2), the nuclear sector, aerospace and renewable energy (3). Today, half of the crude oil imported by China comes from the Middle East and North Africa.

Chinese investments amounted to 242 billion dollars between 2005 and 2020 and commercial exchange with Arab countries was worth 317 billion dollars in 2019. In recent years, the Chinese Silk Road project has further accelerated the economic integration of the two regions. The ancient continent is still by far the major economic partner of the Middle East, but rapid Chinese expansion generates fear, most of all in European governments, but also in Washington.

To complete the picture, a report by the ‘Arab Barometer’ shows that the Arab populations would much prefer greater involvement of their countries with China rather than with the United States or Russia. The various sub-regions of the Middle East show very different levels of integration with China. The Maghreb, for example, remains on the margins of Chinese action, despite the efforts of the North African governments for greater cooperation in the sectors of infrastructure. The case of Libya is symbolic of the Chinese approach in the Middle East.

Agreements with Gadhafi had brought 18.8 billion of Chinese investments to the North African country which, in turn, provided 3% of Beijing oil requirements. China, nevertheless, has never had an active role either in the territory or diplomatically. Contacts with the Tripoli government have brought about the recommencement of petroleum exports and the signing of the memorandum of the Silk Roads in 2017.

Egypt has stood out among other North African countries ever since, in 2014, President al-Sisi signed 25 cooperation agreements with Beijing, among which was the ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ for the Silk Roads. Good relations between the two countries facilitate the smooth entry of China into the largest Egyptian infrastructure projects: the new administrative city and the exclusive economic zone of the Suez Canal.

On the other side of the Red Sea, the monarchies of the Persian Gulf are in the front line of cooperation with China. The plan which all these countries have adopted to emerge from the yoke of petroleum require massive foreign investment and Beijing is the only power with sufficient available capital. The United Arab Emirates are to the fore with 4,000 Chinese companies in the country, growing commercial exchange and agreements already signed for the development of 5G.

Lastly, Iran is the leader among the regional partners of the Blue Empire. International sanctions in past decades have brought Teheran and Beijing ever closer. Many experts saw in the Nuclear Pact an attempt by Iran to lessen Chinese influence in the country, but the agreement is already on the rocks and Iran has returned to the arms of China. As proof of the deep relations between the two countries, Xi Jinping and Rohani have recently signed a 25-year partnership involving billions in investments in the energy, transport, tourism, telecommunications and infrastructure sectors.

Analysts have shown that the Middle East is the only region of the world where investments in the Silk Roads were not halted in the past two years. The so-called Belt and Road Initiative is, in fact, the cornerstone of Beijing’s interests in the Middle East since it depends not only on the influx of Chinese goods into Europe but also the political destiny of Xi Jinping. The main overland corridor is planned to traverse Iran and Turkey and reach Eastern Europe.

Even more relevant is the maritime corridor which will connect the Indian Ocean with the Mediterranean, passing through the Red Sea. The maritime corridor has placed the Gulf countries at the centre and has brought huge investments to the maritime infrastructure of the region. Among the most important ports is that of Djibouti, acquired and enlarged by the Chinese colossus of maritime transport, COSCO.

Along the coasts of the peninsula we find Jebel Ali and Khalifa in the Emirates, already maritime hubs in the region, Duqm (Oman), built with Sino-Oman funds to the tune of 10.7 billion dollars and the port of Jizan (Saudi Arabia), whose construction was handed to a Chinese company. Finally, there is the exclusive economic zone of the Suez Canal that is attracting Chinese companies from Porto Said to Ain Sokhna, on the opposite end of the Canal.

This swarming of port projects in a relatively small and sparsely inhabited region is accentuating remarkable competition between the Gulf monarchies. In parallel, the governments of the Gulf are trying to attract Chinese investment in the futuristic cities under construction. One of these is Neom, the Saudi megalopolis costing 500 billion dollars, now halted by Covid-19, is due to attract investment from Beijing
and also the future Silk City in Kuwait, an explicit reminder of the Chinese project.

Flourishing economic relations between the Middle East and China have encouraged forecasts concerning a future political and military commitment of the Blue Empire in the region. The much-discussed withdrawal of the United States from the Middle East, no longer considered essential, seems to leave China with the role of policemen in one of the most unstable areas of the world.

The construction of the first military base outside Djibouti and the deployment of some warships between the Gulf of Aden and the Mediterranean lend credence to this belief. Nevertheless, Beijing has no desire to become entangled in the political and military plots of the Middle East. As various Chinese analysts emphasise, the attention of the country is concentrated on tensions in the Indian Pacific and the population would not understand such deep involvement
in such faraway theatres.

For that matter, following the principle of non-involvement in the internal affairs of other countries, China has kept out of all the conflicts in the region. The management of the Libyan dossier is a meaningful example of the defence of economic interests while avoiding political-military involvement.

Add to this the fact that, among the reasons for American involvement in the Middle East – to combat terrorism, defend Israel and the protection of petroleum-related economic interests – only the last of these applies to China. Even so, the management of such assets is rendered easier by their concentration in politically stable states, such as the Gulf states, Egypt and Iran, as well as by being in geographically restricted areas, such as the exclusive economic zones, the multi-purpose ports and the large cities of the Gulf. In conclusion, there is no sign on the horizon of a wave of Chinese imperialism in the Middle East.

Corrado Cok/CgP

The Pan-African Green Wall.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 8:00

From a green wall of trees to a mosaic of ecosystems. From the moment it was conceived to now, The Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel (GGW) – has been radically transformed.
The objective, however, has stayed the same: to curb soil degradation and to combat poverty.

In June 2005, the Heads of State and government from the Community of Sahel and Sahara States (CEN-SAD) met in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, and for the first time ever, they agreed to jointly combat desertification through a specially dedicated project. Former Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade became its spokesman. In January 2007 the African Union formally adopted the initiative in Addis Ababa. A few years later, in 2010, the GGW received its very own dedicated Pan-African Agency during a meeting in N’djamena, and Chad was tasked with coordinating and harmonizing the efforts of each member State.

The initial project focused on the reforestation of a 15 km wide, and 8,000 km. long, strip from Senegal to Djibouti (from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea). The green wall involved the planting of trees to help curb desertification and the impoverishment of populations. Still, many criticized the effort – especially civil society, based on the evaluation of similar experiences in Algeria and China. But previous reforestation steps had not taken into account such factors as the quality of the soil or the use of native plant species, which are better able to adapt to the climate and the amount of water available. The failure to select species on the basis of adaptability meant that tree mortality was high. Meanwhile, the poor or non-existent involvement of local populations in the GGW’s design made it difficult to maintain green areas. Both in Algeria and China, similar projects moved towards an integrated system of afforestation, agricultural and pastoral development.

In 2011 the French Centre for Desertification Studies (CSFD) published a paper about the first phase of the GGW, entitled “The African Great Green Wall project. What advice can scientists provide?”, dedicated to the first version of the wall. In the study, scientists disputed the expression ‘stopping the advance of the desert’, pointing out that it was not so much a matter of the Sahara’s advance as it was about the degradation of the semi-arid zone due to an overexploitation of resources and low rainfall.The French scholars also stressed that if the project was to take root and work in the long term, it would have to necessarily focus around the needs of the local population. Indeed, the Wall’s initial route would have crossed inhabited, agricultural and pastoral areas. Hence it would need to engage the inhabitants to manage the natural resources.
To succeed, the GGW project, according to the Studies Centre, should have targeted aspects such as: preserving biodiversity and ecosystem services, integrating different economic activities, considering the conditions of access to land and resources, and ensuring lasting
benefits to the population.

In 2012, the GGW adopted the ‘harmonized regional strategy’, still in force today. Its aim was to standardize procedures and establish guidelines for the member States. The GGW was born out of an African Partnership, backed by international solidarity, which aims to reverse the erosion course in Africa’s more arid regions. According to the document, the project aims to conserve, develop and manage natural resources and ecosystems; strengthen infrastructure and rural area potential; to diversify economic activity and improve the living conditions for the communities, reflecting an integrated and multi-sector approach.
Today, the GGW has become a mosaic of sustainable development efforts involving agricultural projects, pastoralism, and the planting of trees, shrubs and plants, able to ensure additional income for the local populations. The initiative involves, at various levels, 22 countries surrounding the Sahara: from the North to the Sahel belt, up to Benin, Togo and Ghana, which had been excluded at first. (M.G.)

Music. Djibouti, Modern Notes.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 8:00

The New York music house Ostinato Records recently released a Groupe RTD album – a Djibouti band composed of civil servants – the first to take modern music beyond the borders of the country in the Horn of Africa.

The international diffusion of modern music in the Horn of Africa came late on the scene as compared with the new African music which – after the appearance of lone figures like Miriam Makeba or Manu Dibango who came to the fore in the sixties and seventies – began to take on the appearance of a collective phenomenon in the early eighties. It was not until 1986 that the first record of modern Ethiopian music entered international circulation: Ere Mela Mela by Mahmoud Ahmed published by the Belgian label Crammed. But the situation of modern Ethiopian music was really resolved only in the late nineties when, in France, the Éthiopiques series was launched.

In Somalia, modern music had to wait even longer, up to a few years ago: it gained international popularity after a collection of excerpts from the seventies and eighties entitled Sweet as Broken Dates, issued in 2017 by the New York label Ostinato Records. However, not all of the Horn of Africa had been affected: again this year, Ostinato Records has taken on the publication of the first album, The Dancing Devils of Djibouti, which takes the modern music of Djibouti beyond the borders of that small country (with less than a million inhabitants) facing the southern mouth of the Red Sea.
In this case, there is no compilation of vintage material but a special recording by a band that is active today, the Groupe RTD.

Brilliant Musicians
One of the reasons why modern Djibouti music remained unknown abroad was that the republic of Djibouti, the former French Somaliland which became independent in 1977, is one of the few countries in the world where musical activity is totally controlled from above: practically all the professional music bands belong to the state. Besides being something entirely new in popularising the music of the Horn of Africa, the album produced by Ostinato Records also represents a historical event of its genre, since, up to now, foreigners were not allowed to work with Djiboutian musicians. We may say the record is the result of the work of several years.

“The Dancing Devils of Djibouti” by Groupe RTD is the first-ever globally-released album to come from Djibouti. Courtesy of Janto Djassi

In 2016, the record label contacted the management of Radiodiffusion-Télévision Djibouti, the national television organisation, to discuss the possibility of overcoming the obstacles that prevented the circulation of Djibouti music outside the country. Ostinato Records was also interested in accessing the radio-television archives, among the largest and best-preserved of the continent, with thousands of tape recordings of Somali and Afar music, the main ethnic components of the population.
In 2019, it was the first label to be given permission to access the archives. During the course of the negotiations, Ostinato Records realised that the radio-television organisation had a band called Groupe RTD (an acronym for Radiodiffusion-Télévision Djibouti), with official duties at presidential and national ceremonies, and was also a brilliant band playing modern music. Ostinato then opened further negotiations at the end of which it obtained three days of recordings by Groupe RTD at the radio studios.

Influences
With one female and two male voices, saxophone, guitar, keyboard, bass, drums and percussions, The Dancing Devils of Djibouti is a fresh testimony to the vivacity of the music of this corner of the Horn of Africa and the multiplicity of influences it feeds upon. Naturally, there is the music of nearby Somalia and Ethiopia, and there is also a connection between Groupe RTD and the Sweet as Broken Dates collection, as the saxophonist Mohamed Abdi Alto can also be heard on one of its tracks, and another track of which was composed by guitarist Abdirazak Hagi Sufi, originally from Mogadishu: both musicians, co-leaders of Groupe RTD, were active on the Somali music scene before moving to Djibouti. Abdi Alto follows jazz models while Hagi Sufi loves Jamaican music.

Groupe RTD records in studio in Djibouti. The group also performs as the national ceremony band for official events. Courtesy of Janto Djassi

The Groupe RTD is internationally influenced by such music as reggae, which is very popular in the Horn of Africa; its popularity in the area of Somalia is, of course, facilitated by its affinity with traditional rhythms (often modernised in reggae style) such as the dhaanto. Much of the music of the Horn of Africa betrays oriental accents and here the vocalist Asma Omar shows sensitivity to the styles of Bollywood musical films. Geopolitically strategic, the position of Djibouti, a commercial crossroads, renders it receptive to the most powerful cultural export product of the Indian sub-continent.

Marcello Lorrai

The Economy of Francesco. Young People, A Commitment, The Future.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 8:00

Inspired by St. Francis of Assisi and by Pope Francis, 2,000 young adults met online to discuss making the economy more responsive to human dignity and more respectful of creation. The Economy of Francesco project, sponsored in part by the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, hosted a virtual global meeting Nov. 19-21. Below the Final statement and Common commitment

We young economists, entrepreneurs and change makers of the world, summoned to Assisi by Pope Francis, in the year of the COVID-19 pandemic, want to send a message to economists, entrepreneurs, political decision makers, workers and citizens of the world, to convey the joy, the experiences, the hopes and challenges that we have gained and gathered up in this period by listening to our people and to our hearts. We are convinced that a better world cannot be built without a better economy and that the economy is so important for the lives of peoples and the poor that we all need to be concerned with it. For this reason, in the name of the young people and the poor of the Earth,

We ask that:

1. the great world powers and the great economic and financial institutions slow down their race to let the Earth breathe. COVID has made us all slow down, without having chosen to do so. When COVID is over, we must choose to slow down the unbridled race that is suffocating the earth and the weakest people who live on earth;

2. a worldwide sharing of the most advanced technologies be activated so that sustainable production can also be achieved in low-income countries; and that energy poverty – a source of economic, social and cultural disparity – be overcome to achieve climate justice;

3. the subject of stewardship of common goods (especially global ones such as the atmosphere, forests, oceans, land, natural resources, all ecosystems, biodiversity and seeds) be placed at the centre of the agendas of governments and teaching in schools, universities and business schools throughout the world;

4. economic ideologies should never again be used to offend and reject the poor, the sick, minorities and disadvantaged people of all kinds, because the first response to their poverty is to respect and esteem each person: poverty is not a curse, it is only misfortune, and it is certainly not the responsibility of those who are poor;

5. the right to decent work for all, family rights and all human rights be respected in the life of each company, for every worker, and guaranteed by the social policies of each country and recognized worldwide by an agreed charter that discourages business choices based solely on profit and founded on the exploitation of minors and the most disadvantaged;

6. tax havens around the world be abolished immediately, because money deposited in a tax haven is money stolen from our present and our future and that a new tax pact be the first response to the post-COVID world;

7. new financial institutions be established and the existing ones (the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund) be reformed in a democratic and inclusive sense to help the world recover from poverty and imbalances produced by the pandemic; sustainable and ethical finance should be rewarded and encouraged, and highly speculative and predatory finance discouraged by appropriate taxation

8. companies and banks, especially large and globalized ones, introduce an independent ethics committee in their governance with a veto on the environment, justice and the impact on the poorest;

9. national and international institutions provide prizes to support innovative entrepreneurs in the context of environmental, social, spiritual and, not least, managerial sustainability because only by rethinking the management of people within companies will global sustainability of the economy be possible;

10. States, large companies and international institutions work to provide quality education for every girl and boy in the world, because human capital is the first capital of all humanism:

11. economic organizations and civil institutions not rest until female workers have the same opportunities as male workers because, without an adequate presence of female talent, businesses and workplaces are not fully and authentically human and happy places;

12. Finally, we ask for everyone’s commitment so that the time prophesied by Isaiah may draw near: “They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Is 2, 4). We young people can no longer tolerate resources being taken away from schools, health care, our present and our future to build weapons and fuel the wars needed to sell them. We would like to tell our children that the world at war is finished forever.

All this – which we already experience in our work and in our lifestyles – we ask knowing that it is very difficult and that perhaps many consider it utopian. Instead, we believe it is prophetic and therefore that we can ask, ask and ask again, because what seems impossible today will seem less so tomorrow thanks to our commitment and our insistence. You adults who control the economy and businesses have done a lot for us young people, but you can do more. Our times are too difficult to ask for anything but the impossible. We have faith in you and that is why we ask much of you. But if we asked for less, we wouldn’t be asking enough.

We ask all this first of all from ourselves and we are committed to living the best years of our energy and intelligence so that the EoF can increasingly bring salt and leaven to everyone’s economy.

Egypt. Mons. Claudio Lurati: “Called to witness with our lives”.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 8:00

A great opportunity to rediscover the reasons for a presence. A multicultural community. Dialogue with Islam. Speaking with the new Catholic Latin Rite Bishop Mons. Claudio Lurati.

The Catholic Church in Egypt is very small numerically: 300,000 members out of a population of 100 million inhabitants the majority of whom are Muslims. A characteristic of the Church is that it includes communities of seven different rites: Coptic (the largest), Latin, Armenian, Maronite, Syro-Catholic, Chaldean and Greek-Melkite.

Mons. Claudio Lurati, bishop of the Catholic Latin community in Egypt.

“Being such a small community in a country deeply marked by a Muslim presence is a great opportunity to rediscover the reasons for a presence that does not depend on numbers or its works, important though they may be” says Mons. Lurati. “We find the reasons for our presence in the person of Jesus whom we are called to witness to by our lives, marvelling at seeing our witness reaching the most improbable people and places and at the way meaningful relations are built up along with endless possibilities of walking together even with those who are different from us”.
The newly-appointed bishop continues: “The Catholic Church, which is not only Latin, is a reality that impresses by its inter-nationality. It is composed of people from all over the world. Its inter-nationality gives it a unique profile which must be put to good use. While in every Christian situation the challenge is to live unity in multiplicity, for us this is especially required. It is also the most powerful instrument for testimony we have at hand”.

The first school of catechesis
The evangelisation of Egypt originated in the preaching of St Mark the Evangelist, precisely in Alexandria in Egypt. Christianity spread rapidly. In Alexandria, which had become the See and second only to Rome in importance, was founded what was considered the first School of Catechesis of Christianity in the II century. Its teachers included: Athenagoras, Clement, Dydimus, Origen and such illustrious visitors as St Jerome. In the IV century, monasticism began to spread.

Alexandria. The cathedral of Saint Catherine.

In the V century, the Coptic Church (Coptic means Egyptian), together with other Eastern Churches of the Latin and Greek Church, separated, rejecting the conclusion of the Council of Chalcedon convoked in 451, in which monophysitism, the heretical Eutychian doctrine which recognised in Jesus a single, divine nature, denying his human nature, was condemned. The coming of the Arabs saw Egypt subjected to a progressive process of Arabisation and Islamisation which, starting in the IX century, made Christians a persecuted minority, though always very much present. From the XIII century, the pastoral care of European Catholics who had settled in the country was entrusted to the Friars Minor in the Holy Land.
It was not until 1839 that the Apostolic Vicariate of Egypt was erected, subject directly to the Holy See. In 1951, it assumed the title of Alexandria of Egypt and, on 30 November 1987, the Apostolic Vicariates of Heliopolis in Egypt and Port Said were added to it.

A sense of respect

Mons. Claudio Lurati, 58, is Italian and belongs to the congregation of the Comboni Missionaries. On 30 October last, he was consecrated bishop of the Catholic Latin community in Egypt. The Latin Church has around 70,000 members. The Apostolic Vicariate has jurisdiction over the faithful of the Latin Rite in all of Egypt. The seat of the Vicariate is the city of Alexandria, where the cathedral of Saint Catherine is located. The Vicariate has 30 parishes in all of Egypt, 167 priests and religious men, and 250 religious women.
He says that the Catholic Church in Egypt, with its involvement in education and charitable works, enjoys respect and prestige. “The Church has founded a number of schools – highly regarded for their educational standards and in which 50% of the students may be Muslim – and charitable works such as dispensaries, medical centres and initiatives for the training of women and assisting immigrants and refugees, mostly from Sudan and Eritrea”.
There is, of course, in Egypt, a powerful presence of the Orthodox Coptic Church. “The Coptic Church has great riches to be shared and we are especially attentive to it, though we may find this difficult since it mostly uses the Arab language. As in the past, there is a high degree of collaboration socially, in public health and education. We celebrate Easter following the Orthodox calendar, with a few exceptions. It would certainly be good to reach agreement on this among all the Christian communities of the world”.

Pope Francis with Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb, the grand imam of Al-Azhar University.

Egypt is increasingly becoming central to the Catholic Church regarding relations with the World of Islam. In his recent encyclical Brothers All, Pope Francis makes explicit reference to the Sheikh of al-Azhar. “In recent years, the highest Islamic religious authority in Egypt, the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Ahmad al-Tayyib, has shown himself to be one of the more active partners in dialogue with the Catholic Church, so much so that he signed the document of Human Brotherhood in Abu Dhabi in February 2019 and is quoted in the Encyclical, with some opinions almost shared, as if they had been written perhaps by two authors rather than one. Come to think of it, this is staggering”, Mons. Lurati says.
The bishop continues: “There is also the historical legacy of the visit of St Francis to the Sultan. That visit has hardly left a trace among Muslim historians of the time but, in the memory of the Christian West, it remains a great gesture of approach, an unarmed and free encounter. After that experience, St Francis wrote his Unstamped Rule and instructed his friars to “go among the Saracens, to be “subject to all human creatures for love of God”. Here there is also a lesson for us living as a minority in a Muslim country, and so formed for a religion that is different from ours. Being here as a minority and obedient to that world, allows us to come to know it since obedience is the path to knowledge”.

Egypt is a country that is experiencing economic and political tensions. “What immediately meets the eye is an enormous ferment, a commitment to creating infrastructure. Changes are also under way in the centre of gravity of Egyptian social life. A new capital is being built about 30-40 km from Cairo. We do not make political statements but we must be attentive to the situation to keep up to date. I may add that, during this period, the Christians, after the dangers posed by the Muslim Brotherhood, are breathing a sigh of relief. We need to keep in mind that, in 2013, after the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood, about 250 Christian structures were attacked such as churches, schools, etc. For the next four years, there were many very painful terrorist attacks against Christians and others. It seems to me that things are more
under control at present.
The episcopal motto of Mons. Lurati is ‘Quaerite Primum Regnum Dei’– ‘Seek first the Kingdom of God’. “It is both the fruit of experience and an aspiration. In my religious and priestly life, I have always done what I was asked and, on the few occasions when I had other things in mind, things turned out differently. However, to have the Kingdom of God as one’s first horizon has made me more free and rendered more gratuitous and abundant what came afterwards. I hope this attitude will continue to inspire me and place me ever more at the service of this Church”.

Genevieve Devey

Namibia. The Okavango Delta threatened by fracking.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 8:00

A junior Canadian company will start drilling oil in the next coming weeks in an area which supplies the environmentally sensitive Okavango Delta with water, and thereby threatens potentially the living conditions of the bushmen and of the elephants.

The junior Canadian company ReconAfrica listed on the Canadian TSX Venture Exchange, is planning to start drilling oil and gas wells into the environmentally sensitive, protected areas which supply the Okavango Delta with water.
Maps from the Namibian and Botswana ministries of mines confirm that the company has been awarded prospecting licences in the area by both governments. It claims to have made a major discovery and has acquired the rights to drill in more than 35,000km2 of north-east Namibia and north-west Botswana.

According to the findings of experts from the prospecting company Worldwide Geochemistry presented by ReconAfrica to investors in Frankfurt, last October, the area hosts potential reserves of more than 100 billion barrels of oil, which is the equivalent of one third of the world’s largest reserves in Venezuela or in Saudi Arabia.
On its website, ReconAfrica also says that it owns 90% of the Namibian side of the shale deposit, with the government-run Petroleum Company of Namibia owning the rest.
Part of the reserves are conventional but in order to exploit the shale deposits, ReconAfrican plans to use the much controversial fracking technology. ReconAfrica’s CEO Scot Evans told indeed industry sources in June 2020 that he had hired fracking pioneer Nick Steinsberger to run the Namibian drilling project, claiming that that hydraulic fracturing is “a technique now utilised in all commercial shale plays worldwide”.

Evans is by no means a tenderfoot in the oil industry. He is indeed the former vice-president of the Houston-based oil services industry giant Halliburton whose former chairman was the U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney. The company has been involved in several controversial operations. In the early 1990s, Halliburton was found to be in violation of federal trade barriers in Iraq and Libya, having sold these countries dual-use oil drilling equipment.
Then, its subsidiary KBR was issued a contract in 2003 to conduct oil well firefighting in Iraq which, critics say, was awarded due to Cheney’s position as US Vice President. On that same year, Halliburton admitted in SEC filings that KBR paid a Nigerian official $2.4 million in bribes in order to receive tax favourable treatment.
Environmentalists are extremely concerned. The drilling location sits along the banks of the Kavango River, along the border between Namibia and Botswana, inside the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area which covers 520,000 square kilometers and encompasses 36 protected areas including several national parks. Three of them (Khaudum, Manghetti et Bwabwata) are close to the drilling zones targeted by ReconAfrica.
And the drilling location is in the area of the Namibian headwaters of the Okavango Delta and the World Heritage Tsodilo Hills in Botswana is one of Africa’s most sensitive environmental areas.

ReconAfrica’s concessions are overlapping several wildlife migration corridors of these parks which represent the world’s largest transborder conservation area. Any oil spill would pose a direct threat for the Kavango River and all the living beings which depend from it, all the way to the Okavango Delta in Botswana which is the sanctuary of many species including buffalos, hippos, springboks, white and black rhinos, zebras, wildebeests, hyenas, leopards, hyenas and cheetahs in addition to 500 species of birds and 85 of fishes The area is also home to Africa’s largest migrating elephant population – around 250,000- as well as endangered African wild dogs and sable antelopes.
The first human inhabitants of the area, the San people, known as bushmen, who have been living in the area for at least 40,000 years are also risking to lose one of their last refuges of the Kalahari. Indeed, ReconAfrica plans to drill also near the World Heritage archaeological site of Tsodilo Hills in Botswana, which according to UNESCO holds 4,500 rock paintings. University of Cape Town social scientist Dr Annette Hübschle is concerned that the fracking project may impact the way of life of the San communities in the area.
The Namibia’s Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism claims that an environmental impact assessment (EIA) that was done to cover the drilling of three wells by Recon Africa, yet affected communities and civil society are still in the dark about this development, say critics.

Furthermore, the area is important for Namibia’s and Botswana’s tourism economies. The Okavango River, is the sole provider of water to the Okavango Delta, Botswana’s most visited tourist attraction. Altogether, this lifeline in the desert supports more than a million people in the region with food, employment and water. In such context, the use of the hydraulic fracturing may have negative impacts, including poor air and water quality, community health problems, safety concerns, long-term economic issues and environmental crises like habitat loss, warns the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists.
According to Surina Esterhuyse from the Centre for Environmental Management, at the University of the Free State (South Africa), fracking which consists in pumping in sand, water and chemicals under high pressure to crack open the formation’s micro-fractures and release the trapped oil and gas, produces wastewater which may be radioactive and highly saline while some of these chemicals may be toxic.

Accordingly, if the fluids migrate to freshwater aquifers, they can contaminate groundwater and surface water. Fracking in the headwaters of the Okavango delta within the Kavango-Zambezi transfrontier conservation area could affect negatively the water quality there and the Okavango river water in Botswana and Namibia.
Moreover, Chris Brown, the CEO of the Namibian Chamber of Environment, an industry-funded environmental organisation that helps liaise between mining companies and affected communities, is wondering if ReconAfrica should be allowed to drill yet since it does not seem to have followed legal requisites such the public participation and environmental review processes. Browne considers that there needs to be public consultation over such an important issue.
An additional problem is that neither Namibia, Botswana or South Africa are party to an international treaty on the transboundary management of shared water resources.
This increases the risk of a dispute between neighbouring countries over the resource or the damages caused to the environment.

Confronted with the critics, the Namibian Mines Minister, Tom Alweendo told The Namibian daily that he did not see any problem with drilling for oil and gas in such sensitive and fertile land areas. Moreover, in September, he blamed the Windhoek-daily which had warned about the dangers for the environment of Recon Africa plans to drill oil and gas wells in the Okavango area, saying that “The article is written to cast doubt on how the government manages environmental issues”.
Despite ReconAfrica,’s CEO’s own admission that fracking would be used to exploit the oil deposits, the Minister told the Windhoek paper that the Canadian company people “are not going to do hydraulic fracturing but a conventional drilling method”. Yet, the paper reminds that Alweendo has for years earned a reputation of disregarding environmental concerns

François Misser

The hyena, the goat, the leopard and the hare.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 8:00

The hyena’s home was near a river, and he owned a little canoe of which he was exceedingly proud. Most hyenas are very greedy and this one was no exception. He also happened to be very hungry, for he had not eaten for several days.

So early in the morning he climbed into his canoe and paddled across the river to see what he could find on the other side. Like the rest of his family, he was a thief and seldom made his living by honest means.

He dragged the canoe into the reeds next to the river and tied it securely. Then he went in search of something to eat. Before long he came to a little footpath that led towards a forest. After following it for some time, he came to a village. He approached it stealthily, because he was a coward as well as a thief. To his joy he found it deserted, the occupants being away at a beer drinking party.

“I am indeed fortunate,” he said, pushing open the door of a hut.
Inside he found a large basket of meal, and rubbed his paws together with joy. “This will provide many meals for me,” he chuckled as he dragged it outside.

He then went to the next hut, where he broke down the door and found a goat tethered to the centre pole. This he took, and tied it to the basket of meal before exploring the contents of the third hut. In it he found a leopard, also tied up, and he added it to the goat and the basket of meal. He picked up the basket and, dragging the goat and the leopard after him, hastened back to the place where he had left his canoe.

But once there his troubles began. The canoe was so small that he could carry only two of his new acquisitions at a time. How could he get all his booty over safely? If he were to take the two animals over on the first trip and then return for the basket of meal, surely the leopard would eat the goat! Should he take the leopard over first, then without doubt the goat would eat the meal! This was a matter far too complicated for the dim-witted hyena to work out.

He was sitting woefully on the riverbank, wondering what to do, when Kalulu the Hare sauntered by. “Good day to you, my friend,” the hare said. “What is troubling you, that you look so miserable?”

“Oh, Kalulu,” replied the hyena, “I am greatly puzzled as to how to get my three purchases over the river, for my canoe is too small to take everything over at the same time. If I take the goat and the leopard first, surely the leopard will eat the goat while I return for the meal! And if I take the goat and the meal over together, the goat will eat the meal while I return for the leopard. Kalulu, I am greatly perplexed!”

Kalulu never failed to turn the problems of others to his own advantage, so after a moment’s thought he said, “Why, Hyena my friend, that is easy. First you must take over the goat and the leopard. But bring back the leopard with you when you return for the meal. In that way both the goat and the meal will be safe.”

“What a true friend you are, Kalulu,” said the hyena gratefully, and at once followed the hare’s advice.
He took the goat and the leopard over on the first trip, and brought back the leopard on his return to fetch the meal.

But while he was away, Kalulu filled a bag that he carried over his shoulder with meal from the hyena’s basket.
He was strolling away when the hyena returned and exclaimed, “Oh, Kalulu, a thief has stolen half my meal!”

“No,” answered Kalulu, “it was not a thief who took your meal. I took it as payment for the excellent advice I gave you just now. Surely you must admit that this is only just and fair!” And with a low bow he continued on his way, leaving the hyena to ponder on the ways of justice.

Folktale from Zambia

Herbs & Plants. Piliostigma thonningii. A multipurpose medicinal plant.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 8:00

Piliostigma thonningii, common name ‘camel’s foot’, is a leguminous, deciduous tree with a single stem, native to tropical Africa.
It grows in open woodland, savannah regions, and wooded grassland in low to medium altitudes. It is a multipurpose tree of vast importance for health.

This evergreen species is a good shade tree that fixes nitrogen in the soil and plays vital ecological roles in nutrient cycling from this deep soil. It grows to about 5 m in height with a rough, dark brownish, grey bark surface. Its leaves are conspicuous, simple, two-lobed, and leathery; resembling a camel’s foot. This explains why the plant’s common name is ‘camel’s foot’. It is a dioecious plant having the male and female flowers occurring on different trees in most cases. If on the same tree the male flowers occur first and then female flowers later so that self-pollination is not possible. The fruit pods are large, thick, green when unripe and turning reddish brown on ripening; they are non-splitting and measure about 30-70 mm long.

The Piliostigma thonningii (Schum.) Milne-Redh, (Fabaceae Family), is a multipurpose tree of vast health importance and almost all its parts, including the bark, root, and leaves, are used in traditional medicine to treat and manage multiple disease conditions, including cough, bronchitis, wounds, chronic ulcers, diarrhoea, toothache gingivitis, leprosy, smallpox, yellow fever, and chest pain.
The stem bark infusion is used for the cure of coughs, pneumonia, worms, colds, chest pains, internal abscesses, haematuria, and snakebite. It is also administered for the treatment and management of diarrhoea, dysentery, as well as gum infections. An infusion obtained from a mixture of the bark and leaf is used in the treatment of malaria. The bark decoctions are rubbed on or used as a vapour for the treatment of rheumatism, muscular pain and bone inflammation.
The decoction is also taken as an antiemetic. The powdered stem bark is externally applied as a treatment for wounds, ulcers and skin infections. Due to its pain-relieving activity, the stem bark is used for the treatment of sore throat, toothache, gum problems, earache, stomachache and general body pain. In some communities, the bark sap or the powdered bark is boiled in milk or in soup and orally administered for the treatment of gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted disease condition. The ash obtained from burnt young Piliostigma thonningii wood is rubbed on the chest to relieve chest pains and congestions.
The fresh tender leaves and flowers of the Piliostigma thonningii tree can be chewed to treat stomachache, dementia, coughs, snakebite, and to quench thirst. A leaf decoction is added to bath water to alleviate body stiffness. Chewing of boiled leaves of Piliostigma thonningii is known to relieve toothache.

To hasten healing, the ash obtained from burnt leaves is rubbed on snakebite wounds after scarification. The inhaled steam from boiled leaves in water is used to treat and manage respiratory problems. Leaf preparations are also used for the treatment of diarrhoea, dysentery, worms and other intestinal problems.
Pounded leaves are rubbed on the head in case of headache, whereas leaves boiled in water are rubbed on the back against lower back pain. The strained liquid from boiled leaves of Piliostigma thonningii is rubbed into incisions for the treatment of painful legs. Baths with leaf decoctions are known to relieve fever. A decoction of the leaves is used as a vaginal wash and enema for a mother giving birth and the decoctions or infusions are taken in case of heavy menstruation. Leaf decoctions are used as a wash on fractures and the residue is used to massage the affected part to hasten healing. In case of bone inflammation, a steam bath using the leaves decoction is taken. Leaf infusions are used as anti-emetics.
Leaf sap or infusions are applied for the treatment of eye problems and the paste made from ground young leaves and flower buds is diluted with water and drunk against palpitations.

The roots of Piliostigma thonningii are widely used to treat prolonged menstruation, haemorrhage and miscarriage in women and for the treatment of coughs, colds, body pain, and sexually transmitted diseases. Root preparations are applied on wounds and ulcers, as a haemostatic agent, and promotes quicker healing. The root also has the ability to treat diarrhoea, dysentery, worms and other intestinal problems. The root preparations are used against snakebites and as an antidote to poisons. The root heated in fat is used as a poultice in case of a painful spleen. The roots decoction is used to treat rheumatism and also taken in case of heavy menstruation and a painful uterus; it is given to a mother who has given birth.

Powdered dried flowers are eaten in food, smoked, or its infusion drunk to alleviate cough. The scrapings of the fruit are applied as a dressing on wounds to promote healing. The powdered fruit is used as an ingredient in preparations used in the treatment of cough, bronchitis, and headache.The phytochemicals present in Piliostigma thonningii, including flavonoids, tannins, kaurane diterpenes, alkaloids, carbohydrates, saponins, terpenes, and volatile oils, may be responsible for its incredible medicinal potential.
Apart from the medicinal uses, the pods and seeds of Piliostigma thonningii have been used as a source of food in some communities. In fact, the powder made from the dry pod pulps is used for making nutritious porridge. The pulp has a sweet flavor and is eaten mainly by children and travelers. Unripe pods can be used as a substitute for soap.

Richard Komakech

Djibouti. The Catholic Church, a tiny seed of hope.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 8:00

Especially present socially with its work among street children, immigrants and, more recently, the disabled.

The church is a tall building and modern with an elliptical facade in grey stone and crowned with a very high cross. The construction of the Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady Mother of the Good Shepherd in Djibouti City was commenced in 1957 by the Alsatian architect Joseph Muller, on the spot where the church of Saint Joan of Arc once stood. The church was consecrated on 12 January 1964 by Cardinal Eugene Tisserant, then Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals. The very structure of the church itself is meant to be a sign of Christian presence where 97.8% of the population are Sunni Muslim.

Mons. Giorgio Bertin, Bishop of Djibouti.

The Catholic Church has been present in Djibouti since 1885, with the arrival of the first French Capuchin missionaries. Catholics now number between five and seven thousand, almost all foreigners. The Catholic community is mostly present in Djibouti City where, in fact, two thirds of the entire Djibouti population live.
“We are just a tiny presence, a tiny seed of hope. In Djibouti City, there is only one parish with four chapels where the main activity is that of the school. The Christian community is composed mostly of foreigners”, Mons. Giorgio Bertin, a Franciscan, tells us. He has been the Bishop of Djibouti since 2001 and is also Apostolic Administrator of Mogadishu.
Djibouti (23,200 km² ; 950,000 inhabitants), a small country much of which is covered by semi-desert, seeks to extract as much economic benefit as possible from its geo-economic location on the trade routes to and from the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal, and also from its geopolitical position at the crossroads of influence on the Horn of Africa and on the Arabian peninsula. Mons Bertin comments: “Various international actors have taken positions in Djibouti for the purpose of pursuing their political, military and economic aims. Their presence ensures a considerable income for the country. If we take the example of China, with its large presence in neighbouring Ethiopia where it has various economic projects, it is in its interests to have a presence here to guarantee access to the continent”.

China has a military base in the country.

The Bishop continues: “Djibouti is a militarised area. In recent times, much has been said about the Chinese military base that has developed to become the largest in Africa. China pays $20 million a year to have the military base in the country. This is true but we must not forget that there are also six other military bases here. The ‘historic’ base belongs to France, the former motherland; then there are those of the United States, which pays $63 million annually for a 10-year lease of the area and afterwards, with the stated objective of combatting piracy, those of Italy, Japan, Spain, and Germany. The latter two are within the French base. Economically, the country lives off these bases that benefit the coffers of the state and provide jobs”.

Social Involvement
The Catholic Church in Djibouti is deeply involved socially. Caritas assists the poor and the migrants, offering free medical care in the Catholic clinic. For years it has been running a project in support of the communities of the hinterland, especially those affected by drought. Caritas is also involved with street children. Djibouti attracts immigrants mainly from Ethiopia and Yemen. A very large proportion of these are children aged from 6 to 18, who leave their homes to undertake a long and dangerous journey. When they reach Djibouti, they have to learn how to survive on the streets.

They are obliged to earn their living by collecting plastic bottles that they sell for a few cents, by washing cars or polishing shoes. They sleep in the open, often on the beach. They keep together in groups for protection. Many of them sniff glue and take marijuana in an effort to bear their inhuman living conditions. Djibouti Caritas opens its doors every morning to anything from 80 to 200 street children. They come covered in dust and sand, tired, wounded and hungry to the Caritas centres where they can wash, receive a change of clothes and some food, and have their wounds seen to in the infirmary.
The Bishop points out that activities have been reduced due to the Coronavirus. He says: “We lack sufficient volunteers for the service we offer the street children through Djibouti Caritas and so we have had to reduce our work. We decided to look after 80 children at the parish”.

One project very dear to Mons. Bertin is that of caring for the disabled. He tells us: “We are very committed to the disabled. The role of the Church is not simply to do things but to open people’s eyes, to reawaken the concern of and for the least in society. This is our mission! At first, we were thinking only of the physically disabled (the blind or deaf people) while the rest, the psychologically disabled, were a cause for shame to be hidden away. Nothing was being done for them. Today, in both Catholic and state schools, we are training teachers capable of teaching the disabled. We have plans for the future of the disabled: together with UNICEF, we have carried out a huge amount of work in the villages to discover them in the tents and register them. In one tent we found a child in chains. The mother told us: “I had to tie him up so as not to lose him, not to punish him. If you can help him I will untie him”. From that time on, those chains became ours until we were able to free him. We have also launched a project recently called ‘School for Everyone’, which is teaching forty disabled children from Djibouti and Ali Sabieh”.

Filippo Ivardi Ganapini

Pan-African Museum. Reclaiming History.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 8:00

Aimed at Africans and the diaspora, the Pan-African Museum of Heritage and Culture in Accra (Ghana) is a project in the name of black pride and memory. Opening in 2022.

The man who thought up the idea of the project is Kojo Yankah, former MP and minister in the government of president Jerry Rawlings (in power from 1981 to 2000), and militant of the National Democratic Congress, the largest party opposing the president of today Nana Akufo Addo. Journalist, writer and author of a dozen books on the theme of pan-Africanism and of ‘From Jamestown to Jamestown’, subtitled ‘Letter to an African child’, published in 2018, which tells the story of the painful struggles of the blacks for equality, justice and freedom.

The museum is the brainchild of Kojo Yankah, founder of the African University College of Communications (AUCC) in Accra (Ghana)

The first Jamestown is that of the ancient fortress of Accra (a prison in colonial times) where the slaves were held waiting to go to the second Jamestown in Virginia, remembered as the first point of disembarkation of slaves coming from Africa (Angola), on 20 August 1619.
“The idea of the Pan-African Museum of Heritage and Culture has been part of my mindset ever since I was in secondary school in the sixties – says Kojo Yankah – It was during that period that I was introduced to pan-Africanism, the era of Kwame Nkrumah, the father of independent Ghana. I have lived in that atmosphere all this time and those are the ideals that led me to found, in 2002, the African University College of Communications (School of Journalism and Creative Arts). In 1997, I was elected president of the Pan African
Historical Theatre Festival. It took many journeys to other African countries and the United States, Brazil and the Caribbean to convince me that we and people of black ancestry do not know ourselves because it was repeatedly said that we had no history until the arrival of the Europeans. When, in 1993, I was invited to the commemoration of the arrival of the first Africans in Jamestown, Virginia, I was inspired to write ‘From Jamestown to Jamestown’.

Art and Empires on the Shores of the Sahara at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

The idea of the Pan-African Museum is fundamentally a way of bringing together all my experiences, a logical consequence of the publication of my book in 2018. The following year, Ghana started the project ‘The Year of Return’ for people of African origin.”
Kojo Yankah insists in affirming that historical truth has been denied to people of African origin and Africans in general. “We have a rich history since humanity was created in Africa and civilisation began on this continent. This is our inheritance. It is important to reclaim our history, our patrimony and our inheritance. All these things were stolen from us. The museum will also request the return of works of art that were taken from Africa and are now in museums scattered across the world”.
The pan-Africanism which is the foundation of the project also includes Egypt and other countries of Northern Africa. Koyo Yankah says: “It has long been said (and the debate is still to be concluded) that North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa are two different entities with separate histories. Indeed, this is part of the deceit that we must uncover.
Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia and all the parts along the Nile were all existing black kingdoms until they were invaded by the Greeks and then by the Romans. Yes, there was an Arab invasion but this does not alter the fact that African civilisation was the first in the world. North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa have been arbitrarily separated by those who want to keep Africans divided”.

Last September, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo officially launched the project of Pan-African Heritage World Museum. “The time has come for all of us to take our heritage seriously. No one needs to tell us that we have a rich history made up of remarkable achievements in the arts, sciences and technology”. President Akufo-Addo, who was made the first patron of the museum, said it was considered as one of the most important projects of cultural and historical significance of the time and would be a centre of pilgrimage for people of African descent to unlearn and relearn the history, culture and civilisation of Africa from the creation of mankind till today.

The Ambassador of the Pan-African Museum is a young Ghanaian performer, the rapper Sarkodie.

The Museum will be built on a 75-acre site (300,000 m²). The building is to have a sculpture garden, a building for African kingdoms, an area for trees and other plants, an amphitheatre, a film studio, and a recreational area. The museum should be ready by 2022. It will cost around thirty million dollars to build. Kojo Yankah says that “the funds will come from grants, donations and other fund-raising activities. It must be said that fund-raising has already started in various places, both on the continent and in the diaspora, and both the technicians and architects assure us that the construction can be finished in two years if the funds are available”.The Ambassador of the Pan-African Museum is a young Ghanaian performer, the rapper Sarkodie. Asked why he chose this project, Yankah replied: “This project honours our traditions and our cultures but is dedicated to the youth; this is the reason I chose it”.

Antonella Sinopoli

GGW. Agroforestry Is Key.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 8:00

Any ecological rehabilitation of a territory must consider several factors, not the least of which is access to land. Farmers and shepherds, totaling some 232 million people living in the area surrounding the Sahara, are an integral part of the Green Wall, which aims to enhance community gardens, grazing areas, fruit groves, income trees, and beekeeping.

The GGW translated into practice consists of a series of integrated multi-sector activities that help increase local people’s incomes. In Ethiopia, the World Bank wanted to make some rural areas attractive to combat depopulation. Niger has adopted agroforestry systems that combine high stem plants and annual yields. FAO has introduced techniques and technologies to develop local capacities and skills, including a focus on native plants, useful for communities, as they provide timber, food, fodder and other commercial activities. In particular, FAO encouraged the cultivation of Arabic gum, fodder, seeds and oils from local species. FAO projects focused on agroforestry systems that enhance the supply of food, income and markets. “The main beneficiaries are women who engage in processing and selling plant-based products”, said Nora Berrahmouni, FAO’s Regional Head of action against Desertification projects in Africa.

The Pan-African agency’s motto ‘For the People and from the People’, reflecting its choice of a multi-sector, inclusive ecosystem approach that engages populations in an active, conscious and voluntary way. These are community farms that start in a village or group of villages. To date there are six active projects that need to be replicated. Horticulture, beekeeping and breeding of small animals are developed in the farms, each measuring about 3000 hectares. The sites are identified on the basis of such criteria as geography, social and cultural homogeneity of the population, rainfall parameters and the adaptability of the species to be included. In addition, the Agency’s territorial projects are largely aimed at women, whereas the actual reforestation programs involve the areas between villages. They provide for the cultivation of plants considered strategic, such as gum Arabica, moringa and spirulina, commonly called ‘algae spirulina’, which is a cyan bacterium rich in protein. Water management occurs through the conservation of rainwater and the construction of large wells.
In some cases, the projects introduce technologies such as the Vallerani System, a mechanical tool consisting of plough and tractor that allows for the processing and rehabilitation of arid and semi-arid soils. This technology also optimizes rainwater storage and usage. New technologies are not always embraced; many fear losing their jobs and being replaced by mechanical tools.

Yacouba Sawadogo with his Zai’s system.

In other cases, The GGW has borrowed techniques used by farmers and shepherds. In Burkina Faso, for example, the GGW adopted and exported the Zai’s system, which involves making small holes in the soil enriched with manure where water is collected, thus making the soil more fertile. It is a traditional technique and the famous Burkinabe farmer Yacouba Sawadogo made it famous. The Project has also adopted naturally assisted reforestation. It provides for the protection of native tree species that are normally cut or burned to fertilize land intended for agricultural production.
The main actors involved in the GGW have mentioned some difficulties in the pursuit of their targets. There has been insecurity in some parts of the Sahel, where conflicts have occurred in areas where water resources are scarce and the countryside has been neglected through abandonment. In order to avoid the conflicts within the communities affected by the projects, the pan-African agency has adopted the criteria of both sociocultural and geographical homogeneity. A system that risks excluding instead of including.

Those who challenged the first version of the GGW raised the issue of the right to access land. Nobody has offered an adequate answer. Mélanie Requier-Desjardins, a researcher specializing in the economic and social aspects of soil degradation, and who participated in drafting of the 2011 document ‘What suggestions might scientists have for the African Great Green Wall project?’, compiled by the French Scientific Committee on Desertification states: “In cases where the aspect of land has not been taken into account, the project has failed”. According to the Dr. Requier-Desjardins, it must also be clear that the ecological rehabilitation of a territory must correspond to the social one. “If some lands change from free to restricted access, inequalities are generated. For example, when the rehabilitated areas are allocated to farmers, who own many heads, shepherds who own merely a few animals lose out”.
In Senegal, the only country to have started reforestation along the 15 Km. wide belt, it was necessary to change course, said Youssef Brahimi, a former member of the UNCCD global mechanism. He added: “they started reforestation only to realize that the chosen path encompassed villages and communities. At that point they also included gardens, with the contribution of women”. The involvement of the populations became essential to ensure the project’s sustainability.

In fact, the harmonized strategy paper, issued in 2012, explicitly mentioned that all populations living in arid areas should be assured fair access to land resources for all populations living in arid areas. Brahimi participated in the drafting of the harmonized strategy: “Land security was promoted not only at the individual level but as a common good, through community management. We have felt pressure from institutions to develop national land legislation that would allow individuals to have a right to land. But we know that where there is a right of individual property, it encouraged some farmers to put the land up for sale. And, therefore, most projects focus on community resource management, and the establishment of management committees. Action against Desertification projects, for example, are implemented in community lands and in agreement with the municipalities and mayors. Local populations and administrations participate in identifying the land. “The presence of a management committee is important because it allows for the identification of land and formally register its utilization”, said FAO’s Regional Coordinator, Nora Berrhamouni.

A Model to Export
As for the inflow of private capital not all GGW partners have the same ideas. The Pan-African agency believes that private individuals should not be involved because “they would grab most of the hectares”. The FAO, however, has a different view sharing it in a document specifically intended for private individuals, who want to invest in land redevelopment activities. The African Union and the World Bank have also called for private capital. Nevertheless, in most countries, land belongs to the state, and it is the state that determines how it is to be used. The Agency’s scientific director explains what this means: “if oil is found in a reforested area, it is unlikely that the trees will stay there”.
The engagement of nomadic land users is another point that raised criticism at the launch of the project. “We often aim to shut down dedicated use areas, but without attempting to reconcile the different activities”, said Mélanie Requier-Desjardins, according to which the initial project did not take into account the logic of transhumance, while focusing on agricultural communities.
Abakar Zougoulou, scientific director of the pan-African agency, offers a simpler solution to engage nomadic populations: “Shepherds can use the undergrowth pasture and harvest forest products. They can produce straw and fodder to be stored and used in the dry season”. The FAO has focused on plants that are useful for pastoralists, integrating the interests of each productive activity, to avoid conflicts. In some cases, the solution, as noted by the Agency, has been to fence off spaces to discourage animals from entering.

Zougoulou added: “In some areas the nomadic pastoralists have started to practice agriculture and begun to settle. A part of the livestock continues the transhumance, because only pastoral mobility allows for proper management of the lands”. The Great Green Wall has become a symbol. So much so that, despite the many transformations, even now, the officially presented image is that of a green line that crosses the continent from side to side. The many protagonists agree in describing it as a model that can be exported. In its Action Against Desertification project, the FAO has already extended the approach for adoption in Caribbean and Pacific countries. And recently, the United Nations, along with FAO, C40 City Network and the Kew Royal Botanic Garden (in Britain), have sponsored the ‘Great Green Wall of Cities’, a plan to create urban forests from Africa to Asia covering half a million hectares by 2030. About 90 cities in 30 countries will be supported to create green areas.

Marta Gatti

Africa. Ubuntu, to live positively.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 8:00

In the African context, Ubuntu is a religious belief which concerns the need for humans to live together positively. This belief is found throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa.

Africa on the whole did not develop a written means of communication. African traditional religion is handed down orally. Unlike the other great ancient religions, for instance Hinduism or Buddhism, unless an outsider comes into contact with the practised belief, they have no means of appreciating its depth and beauty. According to anthropologists, modern humans originated in Africa about 160 thousand years ago. Therefore, African religious belief and the spiritual concept of Ubuntu can be seen as being a very ancient and precious set of insights into the human condition that needs to be known in its beauty as much as other ancient religions are appreciated.
Central to the African way of seeing life is the concept of the ancestors. Each person is worthy of respect because they are endowed with the life of their ancestor. Each person has dignity. Each person is more than herself/himself. This implies that the ancestral spirits imbue a group of people who live together with a spirit that brings harmony and peace of mind to the group.

The word Ubuntu encompasses this positive feeling of wellbeing when people live together. At this time, feelings of anger and disappointment are at bay and people are invigorated and consoled. Hope is built up for the future and life’s struggles can be faced more confidently and positively. The African outlook gives people hope, confidence and strength through its belief in the ancestors because each person is more than himself/herself.
In Africa, the ancestors are seen as having given to humans a set of rules which must govern their lives. Life is positive and a blessing as long as people abide by these rules. African culture is rich in customs and rituals that serve to preserve goodness and life. There is an endless subtlety in these customs. Even African people can find themselves confused when they move to another area which might not be far away geographically but have different customs.

Ubuntu is an anthropocentric way of looking at life. It is a participatory humanism in which each person is seen as being experienced through the person’s relationships with others and theirs with the person. This is what recognises and establishes person-hood. It flows directly out of the saying already mentioned that “people are made people through other people.” People experience their own worth and the worth of others by living in community. Being accepted and recognised by the other is the chief source of individual self-esteem and happiness.
The African outlook gives people hope, confidence and strength through its belief in the ancestors because each person is more than himself/herself. Ubuntu is also a social security system where there are reciprocal obligations that support and protect the individual and at the same time demand commitment in return. The African outlook describes a cosmos where all is in balance. When this balance is disturbed the resulting disharmony brings misfortune and suffering. In this outlook, some things in the cosmos have more power than others.

The African outlook is not interested in the different nature or the being of things. Rather it is interested in how different powers need to be kept in their hierarchy and balance. In the world of nature, human beings and the spiritual world form a unity or total community. These cannot be looked upon as separate categories because without one of them, none of the others exists. They all share in the vitality which is the true nature of all beings.The African healers and sangomas play a vital role in healing communities where there is a disruption of balance in the community. They divine the source of the disruption and they provide medications to protect the individual from the malign powers of others.

Africa brings to the rest of the world a sense that all of life has to be celebrated and shared in a communitarian fashion. The collapse of the world economic system and the subsequent suffering it has brought on so many millions of people, emphasizes the idea that too much individualism and greed, which is at the base of globalisation, needs to be checked and balanced by a more communitarian and human approach. This has been contained over many centuries in the wisdom which the belief that Ubuntu holds.

Jennifer Alt

Photo Gallery – Jubilee 2025. Pilgrims of Hope

Advocacy

Baobab

Youth & Mission