Profile in News-Decoder

The News-Decoder team chatted with me about how I got interested in international affairs. News-Decoder fosters global understanding by building a borderless community of young people keen to extend their horizons, learn about international affairs and challenge assumptions.

Check out the full profile here and see an excerpt below.

What international issue is of greatest interest to you today? Why?

I am most interested in sustainability, an issue that is multi-faceted in nature.

Sustainability focuses on crafting a present that leads to a stronger future.

In public policy, I think a lot of the most pressing issues we face today — from the refugee crisis to climate change to the recent Ebola epidemic — are the result of short-sighted policy decisions instead of long-term, sustainable strategic planning.

At the moment, I’m most interested in how sustainability plays a role in the business world and in crafting mutually beneficial relationships between communities and corporations.

I currently work in the shea industry, where sustainability is one of the big buzzwords of the moment.

When women shea collectors, for example, have a more sustainable source of income, companies not only achieve a number of global development indicators on economic empowerment, gender equality and food security, but they also improve their supply chains and incentivize the production of high quality products that attract consumers.

I strongly believe that the private sector has an enormous role to play in crafting a more sustainable future, especially when it comes to poverty alleviation.

Supporting African Luxury Markets (Infoboxx)

My latest column for Infoboxx on supporting African luxury markets

As more African consumers become a part of the global middle class, the continent’s appetite for luxury products grows. While countries such as Egypt and Morocco have traditionally attracted luxury retailers, more companies are setting up shops below the Sahara as the oil, mineral and telecommunications industries boom in Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya, among other countries. Accra, Lagos, and Nairobi are ranked the continent’s fastest growing cities for dollar millionaires.

Nigeria boasts the world’s second fastest growth in champagne consumption while the never-ending construction of luxury real estate developments in Trasacco, Cantonments and Airport neighborhoods suggest that Accra has more than its fair share of nouveau riche. The taste for the finer things reflects worldwide growth in the luxury market, which reached €224 billion in 2014. 

The luxury industry includes a wide array of products from personal luxury goods such as clothes and jewelry to home furnishings to transport and travel. But when it comes to these goods, where is the source? Many Africans appear far keener to spend money on European vacations and luxury clothes and accessories than to support the growth of high-quality homegrown brands.

Read more. 

The Racial And Generational Politics Behind South Africa’s #FeesMustFall Protests (OkayAfrica)

i recently wrote about South Africa's recent student protests for Okayafrica.

Nelson Mandela famously said, “Education is the most powerful tool we have to change the world.” But he also urged a newly independent South Africa to recall, “if the ANC does to you what the apartheid government did to you, then you must do to the ANC what you did to the apartheid government.”

Last week’s images of South African students squaring off against police have brought Mandela’s famous edict to the forefront and, for many South Africans, prompted memories of 1976, the year of the infamous Soweto uprising.

Read more. 

Building Cities Without Slums (Infoboxx)

I'm looking forward to starting as a columnist for Ghananian multimedia publication Infoboxx. Check out my first piece, "Building Cities Without Slums" here. See an excerpt below.

Slums are not a phenomenon of the developing world. As the Industrial Revolution created millionaires in cosmopolitan New York City, London and Paris, it also generated vast legions of urban poor. But with smart policymaking, these cities were able to enhance their residents’ quality of life. Whitechapel, once the poster child for Dickensian London, is now home to Whitechapel Art Gallery. In 1845, Victor Considerant wrote: “Paris is an immense workshop of putrefaction, where misery, pestilence and sickness work in concert, where sunlight and air rarely penetrate.” The Paris of today, a centre of art and refinement, was the product of Emperor Napoleon III and Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s expansive and ambitious public works programme.

With sufficient political will, the same is possible for African cities, where over 200 million people live in slums.

Read more.

On African Opposition to the International Criminal Court

In this picture, there are at least two African leaders who risk prosecution by the ICC. Guess who?

Now in its thirteenth year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) continues to face accusations that it is unfairly biased towards African countries. Created by the Rome Statute in 2002 following a century of well-documented atrocities ranging from the Holocaust to Srebrenica to the Rwandan Genocide, the ICC was founded on the noble principle that the world would never again allow genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression to go unpunished. The court, based in the Hague, has the authority to step in, investigate and prosecute such crimes in states "unable" or "unwilling" to do so themselves.

Distressed over the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and the traumas of apartheid, African countries were some of the earliest supports of the ICC; however, since 2006, African support for the court has wavered and has been replaced with accusations of selective prosecution and bias. 

Last year, at an African Union summit in Equatorial Guinea (a country that has its own fair share of human rights abuses), African heads of state and officials voted to grant sitting leaders and senior officials immunity from prosecution.

Earlier this week, the ruling party of South Africa, a country noted its famously progressive and rights-heavy Constitution, announced its plans to leave the ICC. Obed Bapela, an deputy minister and member of the African National Congress (ANC), said the ICC had “lost its direction” and the ruling African National Congress (ANC) wanted to withdraw the country from the court. According to Bapela, "South Africa still holds the flag of human rights, we are not lowering it.” This declaration comes on the heels of recent criticism following  Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir's visit to South Africa. Despite being the subject of an international warrant following accusations of genocide and war crimes,When al-Bashir was permitted to leave South Africa although thee was a South Africa court order to detain him.

Some points that African detractors of the ICC often raise and my counter-points:

1. "The ICC has only opened investigations in African countries." The ICC does not only investigate African war crimes. The court is also conducting preliminary examinations in a number of countries including Afghanistan, Georgia, Colombia, Honduras, and Korea. Moreover, of the 8 investigations that the ICC has opened, 5 of the 8 cases before the court (Uganda, DRC, Central African Republic, Ivory Coast and Mali) have been self-referrals. In Kenya, the Kibaki government agreed to the prosecution at the urging of the former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, a Ghanaian who mediated the end of Kenya’s post-election chaos. The court does not open investigations where credible national investigations or prosecutions are already taking place, but in many African countries, where there are often weak judicial systems, such credible investigations typically do not take place. 
2. "The ICC doesn't prosecute cases in Western countries." Only countries that are signatories to the Rome Statute can be prosecuted for war crimes. The United States is not currently a signatory to the Rome Statute. This line of thinking is therefore irrelevant. 
3. "The court is a neocolonial, imperialist puppet." Take a look at the court's composition. The chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, is Gambian. The president, Silvia Alejandra Fernández de Gurmendi, is Argentinian. Her predecessor, Song Sang-hyun, was South Korean. Sidiki Kaba, the former Minister of Justice of Senegal, is the current President of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Kaba was elected as a consensus candidate from the African States Parties. 
   
   In the case of Sudan, which has drawn the ire of many African heads of state, there is little doubt that crimes against humanity were committed in Darfur with al-Bashir’s knowledge and approval. In 2004, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the AU’s human rights body, found that Sudan's attacks on the civilian population qualified as war crimes and crimes against humanity.

For South Africa to oppose the ICC is to pander to pan-Africanism in the name of shielding dictators and heads of state who act without impunity. The ICC has admittedly had its fair share of stumbling blocks, but such experiences are typical of a new and growing organization. After all, Rome (and the Rome Statute) wasn't built in a day. Idealism must be coupled with patience. 

Despite the ANC's declaration, South Africa is still unlikely to leave the ICC. When the rainbow nation adopted the Rome Statute in 2002, it created the "ICC Act" (Act 27 of 2002). The preamble of the Act addresses South Africa's commitment to address atrocities in light of its history of apartheid:

MINDFUL that –
Throughout the history of human-kind, millions of children, women and men have suffered as a result of atrocities which constitute the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression in terms of international law;

the Republic of South Africa, with its own history of atrocities, has, since 1994, become an integral and accepted member of the community of nations; 

the Republic of South Africa is committed to – bringing persons who commit such atrocities to justice, either in a court of law of the Republic in terms of its domestic laws where possible, pursuant to its international obligations to do so when the Republic became party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.... carrying out its other obligations in terms of the said Statute.

In order to exit the ICC, South Africa would need to repeal its domestic law, after which its president would be required to write a letter of withdrawal from the Statute to the Secretary General of the United Nations and await its ratification. Given the long nature of this process, it is unlikely that South Africa will withdraw its support despite ANC declarations to the contrary. 

If African leaders truly want to stop cases from being tried in front of the ICC, they must develop more robust national judicial systems and demonstrate capacity through a strong African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples’ Rights, which has the power to prosecute regional cases. 

Saving Mirabel (Ayiba)

Originally published in Ayiba Magazine

Sexual assault is a traumatic event that disproportionately affects young women worldwide. The World Health Organization finds that one in every five women is a victim of sexual assault. Across the world, 35% of women have experienced either sexual or physical intimate partner violence and non-partner sexual violence. Women in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast report the highest rates of sexual violence.

In Africa, 5 – 15% of women report forced or coerced sexual experiences, but the vast majority of survivors do not receive treatment or seek justice due to social stigma or a lack of support from law enforcement. Since 2013, Lagos’ Mirabel Centre, Nigeria’s first sexual assault referral centre, has helped fill the gap by supporting survivors of rape and sexual assault. The Mirabel Centre provides medical examination and treatment services for survivors as well as counseling and information on the Nigerian legal system. All services at the Centre are free and confidential.

Nigerian NGO Partnership for Justice set up Mirabel with support from the UK Department for International Development (DFID), however in the next few months, the Centre may close as their funding comes to an end.

To help the Mirabel keep its doors open for years to come, visit their Go Fund Me page. It costs about $50 to help one survivor, and $5000 will serve 100 women. Every dollar raises helps test, feed, and counsel all who walk through the centre’s doors seeking support. Raising funds in excess of the campaign’s target will help the Mirabel ensure long-term stability.