Governance

Achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals will require good governance – from the local to the global level.

Brief history of ARV treatment in South Africa

In the 90s, South Africa became an epicenter of the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. HIV is mostly a sexually transmitted disease. Intravenous drug users are at risk too, however, and so are people who need blood transfusions. HIV/AIDS initially spread fast among the...

Extreme weather

Lessons to be learnt from Nepal’s recent excessive rains

While extreme weather is increasingly considered normal, Nepal still cannot protect its people properly.

Illicit drugs

How opium became a pillar of the British Empire

Britain’s East India Company ran a highly profitable, but brutally exploitative narco-state in the Gangetic plains and exported highly addictive opium to China.

Slavery

The forgotten Arab slave trade

The transatlantic slave trade had a devastating impact on Africa and affects the continent to this day. The fact that the Arab slave trade also took a terrible toll on millions of Africans is often overlooked.

Constitutional law

Pakistan’s Supreme Court has been defanged

Why Islamabad’s military-backed government will get a chief justice of its own choice

Fiction

A story is always part of the currents of its time

The novel “Desertion” by Nobel Prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah is set in Zanzibar. It is a tale of resistance to social and cultural norms and of the power of love, interwoven in historical, political and cultural contexts.

Regional integration

What ECOWAS can learn from the EU integration process

The Economic Community of West African States is in crisis. It should aim to foster economic integration of its member states. The integration process of the European Union might give an idea of how that could be achieved.

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Governance

In West Africa, authoritarian attitudes go back to colonial rule

The British and French forms of domination in West Africa were not identical, but ultimately quite similar.

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Constitutional law

Judicial independence under attack in Pakistan

Islamabad’s military-backed government wants to pass a constitutional amendment which, according to critics, would put at risk citizens’ fundamental rights.

Sovereign debt

Zambia’s difficult quest for debt restructuring

Hichilema government achieves slow, but steady progress towards making burden of sovereign debt bearable.

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Fake News

Combating disinformation in South Africa’s elections

During the recent elections in South Africa, disinformation spread rapidly, discrediting political parties and misleading voters. Fact-checkers and journalists used AI tools to counter false narratives and provide reliable information to the public.