Health ministers attending the World Health Organization’s 72nd Regional Committee for Africa in Lome, Togo have approved an eight-year strategy aimed at curbing disease and responding quickly to health emergencies.

More than 400 people participated from 47 countries, including about 30 health ministers, who attended the top annual health gathering in person, while others joined online.

After a week of discussions about some of Africa’s most pressing health issues, countries adopted a new strategy for creating more resilient public health systems for responding to infectious and chronic diseases, such as diabetes. The World Health Organization says early diagnosis and care could save the lives of many of the millions who die from the diseases.

The plan also commits countries to reach critical targets by 2030 to strengthen their ability to prepare, detect, and respond to health emergencies.

The WHO regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, says the ministers also have launched a new campaign to curb sickle cell disease. She notes it is one of the most common, yet least recognized illnesses in the region. However, like childhood tuberculosis, she says it has been pushed to the sidelines for far too long.

“As we have seen with COVID-19, the impact of sickle cell disease extends well beyond health, posing significant economic and social costs for patients and their families. We cannot afford to continue ignoring the threat, so greater investments, and stronger collaboration and partnerships, need to be prioritized,” said Moeti. “Childhood TB also does not typically receive much attention, even though one in every three TB cases among children globally occurs in our region.”

She says both require timely diagnosis and treatment, as do other diseases, such as monkeypox, that go largely ignored until they make headlines elsewhere.

Currently, she says 406 cases and seven deaths have been confirmed across 11 African countries. While these are far fewer cases compared to other geographic regions, she says there is a need to increase the response.

She notes there is a shortage of monkeypox vaccine and whatever is available is being used in wealthier countries, where the epidemic is raging. She says no monkeypox vaccines or antivirals are available in African countries.

“We are making a plea that the situation that African countries have experienced with COVID-19 vaccines should not be repeated. And we are still hopeful that with advocacy being carried out and the discussions with countries that are helping to produce the vaccines that we may obtain vaccine supplies for African countries. This is not the case up to today,” Moeti said.

Moeti says there is better news regarding COVID-19 coverage. She notes vaccination rates are going up among health workers, older people, and those at risk of severe illness, hospitalization, and death. While there is still much to be done, Moeti says she believes it is possible for African countries to catch up with the rest of the world.
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A recent announcement by China that it is forgiving 23 loans for 17 African countries may be motivated by accusations of “debt-trap diplomacy,” say some analysts.

Critics have long accused Beijing of practicing debt-trap diplomacy, suggesting it deliberately lends to countries that it knows cannot repay the money, thereby increasing its political leverage. China vehemently rejects this, alleging it’s a way for the U.S. to discredit Beijing, Washington’s main challenger in the quest for influence in Africa.

China’s decision to forgive the zero-interest loans is, in part, aimed at countering the debt-trap narrative, said Harry Verhoeven, senior research scholar at Columbia University in New York.

“It is not uncommon for China to do something like this [forgive interest-free loans] … now obviously it is connected to the overall debt-trap diplomacy narrative in the sense that clearly there’s a felt need on the part of China to push back,” Verhoeven told VOA.

China’s announcement did not specify the countries or the amount of loan forgiveness, but analysts say that since 2000, China has regularly forgiven loans that are nearing their end but have a small balance.

“This is not a loan cancellation per se, but the cancellation of the remaining unpaid portion of interest-free loans that have reached maturity, that is if a loan was supposed to be fully paid off over 20 years, but it still has an outstanding balance, they cancel that outstanding balance,” Deborah Brautigam, director of the China Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, told VOA.

China’s motivations

Brautigam’s research shows that between 2000 and 2019, China canceled at least $3.4 billion of such debt in Africa.

While this applies to the Chinese government’s interest-free loans, it is not the case with the country’s interest-bearing commercial loans, which can be restructured but are never considered for cancellation, analysts explained.

Verhoeven said the sums of money involved in the 23 loans forgiven would likely be modest, but the politics of such gestures are noteworthy because “for many years the Chinese would kind of shrug at various aspects, various lines of criticism, pertaining to their engagement in different African countries.” But with the debt-trap allegations, “China has belatedly woken up to the fact that this is a bit of a PR [public relations] nightmare,” said Verhoeven.

China has also been playing a role in restructuring the external debt of some African countries such as Zambia, which became the first African country to default on its debt during the pandemic. China, along with France, is chairing a committee to deal with debt relief efforts. The move, welcomed by the International Monetary Fund, is ongoing.

China is Zambia’s biggest creditor. Lusaka owes some $6 billion to Chinese entities. In July, Zambia’s finance ministry announced it was canceling $2 billion of undisbursed loans from its external creditors, $1.6 billion of which are from Chinese banks. The move stopped construction of infrastructure projects largely funded by a Chinese bank, the South China Morning Post reported.

Shahar Hameiri, a political economist from the University of Queensland in Australia, agreed that the latest move by Beijing in forgiving African nations’ interest-free loans was probably just “a goodwill gesture.”

“The bigger loans are likelier to be restructured, if repayment problems loom, as we saw in Zambia,” Hameiri wrote in an email to VOA.

US ‘debt trap’ claim

Senior officials in the U.S. have regularly warned developing countries, particularly in Africa, about the dangers of Chinese loans, and a 2020 State Department document, titled “The Elements of the China Challenge,” referred to China’s “predatory development program and debt-trap diplomacy.”

On a visit to the continent this month, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, touched on the idea that “the wealthy and powerful have extracted Africa’s natural resources for their own gain. And it continues today through bad deals and debt traps.” She did not mention China by name.

Africa’s view

African politicians themselves have had mixed reactions to the debt-trap theory, with some, such as Ethiopia’s ambassador to China, Teshome Toga Chanaka, refuting the idea, saying, “A partnership that does not benefit both will not sustain long.”

Others, including Kenya’s new president-elect, William Ruto, and Angolan opposition presidential candidate Adalberto Costa Jr., have expressed concern over taking Chinese loans.

China’s response

The debt trap allegations have infuriated Beijing, which says Western private lenders are responsible for the bulk of poor countries’ debt and charge much higher interest rates.

The U.S. allegation against China “is simply untenable,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said this month.

Chinese state media constantly run articles aiming to debunk the narrative.

Debunking the narrative

A number of economists and researchers are also saying the debt-trap narrative against China is unfounded.

“The debt-trap idea is that Chinese banks had ulterior motives: deliberately lending to countries when they knew those countries couldn’t repay,” Brautigam said. “The reality is that like bondholders, which hold the majority of Africa’s debt, Chinese banks lent to countries that looked quite promising. All of these creditors have belatedly realized that risk profiles can shift dramatically in a short period of time.”

China restructured or refinanced about $15 billion in African debt between 2000 and 2019, Brautigam’s research has found. She did not find that China had been involved in any “asset seizures.”

Echoing Brautigam, Hameiri wrote in an email to VOA, “There is scant evidence that China has pursued ‘debt-trap diplomacy’ – i.e., the idea that it would on purpose issue loans to ensnare recipients in unsustainable debt, in order to seize strategic assets or exercise control over their governments.”

Problematic loans

Chinese lending has at times been problematic, Hameiri wrote, because “in a frenzy to issue loans, Chinese lenders often spent little time considering debt sustainability. Hence, Chinese lending has contributed to debt problems in a number of countries, although it is not necessarily the only or even the primary cause as in Sri Lanka.”

Some critics blamed China for the crisis in Sri Lanka earlier this year, when the cash-strapped government – which had defaulted on its debt – was deposed by mass protests. Beijing also is Colombo’s biggest bilateral creditor; however, Sri Lanka’s largest foreign lending source is in sovereign bonds sold in several countries.

Verhoeven said the growth in sovereign bonds has been an important factor in African nations’ debt too and rejected the Chinese debt-trap narrative.

“When it comes to China, the debt-trap narrative suggests … this is being done on purpose,” to get countries to vote with China in the U.N. General Assembly and to reduce Western influence, he said.

There “is little actual evidence that China’s been doing this for political gain,” Verhoeven said, “which is not to in any way say that Chinese lending is all fine, or that it’s always responsible or the best thing for countries to do, far from it.”

Since China has now been burned several times regarding its lending, with several countries defaulting on the loans, plus its own economic difficulties at home, “there’s certainly a sense that the good old days of 10 or 15 years ago where [it] could sort of give out loans left and right … are over,” said Verhoeven.
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Amid protests that turned deadly, persistent drought and election controversies, Somaliland’s media are coming under attack.

Arbitrary arrests, threats, beatings. Somaliland’s journalists are bearing the brunt of a spike in attacks, media associations say.

In a recent incident, police in Hargeisa, the capital of the breakaway region, detained two Horyaal 24 TV journalists — Abdinasir Abdi Haji Nur and Ahmed-Zaki Ibrahim Mohamud — on August 11, as they reported on violent protests over claims that elections could be delayed.

According to journalists in Hargeisa who spoke with VOA over the phone, police initially held the pair at the criminal investigation department before transferring them to the Mandera prison on August 15. The pair, who were accused of taking part in the unrest, were finally freed on Wednesday.

The Somali Journalists Syndicate, which tracks violations, says members of the police and national intelligence often perpetrate hostilities against the media, and that in many cases, no one is held accountable for attacks. 

Abdalle Ahmed Mumin, secretary-general for the Somali Journalists Syndicate, believes the media are attacked to silence reporting on issues of national interest. 

Media outlets and journalists who cover corruption, human rights abuses and other violations are continuously targeted, he said, impeding their work.

“The attacks against the journalists and the detention and raid on media houses have also increased,” he said. “This is because Somaliland is facing various crises. Number one, the humanitarian crisis in Somaliland because of the drought, has forced the government to become unable to respond to this crisis. Secondly, the election dispute and the latest deadline is expiring on November. That’s why the authorities have now resorted to attacking journalists to stop [these] critical voices.”

The federal police did not respond to VOA’s request for comment. But in July, a police spokesperson announced that an officer had been arrested over allegations that he had assaulted a journalist in Mogadishu.

Muthoki Mumo, the Sub-Saharan Africa representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists or CPJ, says journalists have a duty to cover issues of public interest such as protests, and that their work should never be equated with criminal activity.

The CPJ is concerned by recent actions against the press, including a ban on the BBC, that point to an increasingly hostile environment, she said.

“The impact of these violations is to send a message of fear to the broader media community,” she said. “These violations create an environment where journalists might choose to self-censor rather than risk their livelihoods or liberty in telling the truth. In such an environment, it is the public that ultimately suffers for lack of access to diverse and critical sources of information.”

Part of the problem, says veteran human rights defender Ahmed Yusuf Hussein, is that a press law protecting journalists has yet to be enacted.

“The press law, which was of special importance to the media and journalists, has not been given its importance and it has not been forwarded to the legislatures to pass it into the law,” he said.

Journalists also face danger in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, where a video journalist for media house M24 needed emergency surgery on Sunday after being hit by a bullet that witnesses say was fired by police.

Ahmed Omar Nur was shot while covering an attack on the Hayat hotel in Mogadishu. Colleagues who witnessed the incident say the shot was fired from the direction of a group of elite police officers.

Nur is recovering. But others have not been so lucky.

Somalia is one of the deadliest countries for journalists in the world, with more than 50 killed since 2010, according to Reporters Without Borders. The media watchdog describes Somalia as “the most dangerous country for journalists in Africa.”
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As a third of the vote results are released, Angola’s ruling party, the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola, or MPLA, has taken a commanding lead over its main political challenger, the National Union for the Liberation of Angola, UNITA.

The provisional presidential results show the ruling party garnered 60% of the vote, with 33% of the vote counted.

The candidate of the ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola party, known by its Portuguese acronym MPLA, incumbent President Joao Lourenco, 68, who is seeking a second five-year term, is ahead of the main opposition party candidate, Adalberto Costa Jr., 60, of the National Union for the Liberation of Angola, or UNITA. The opposition party received 33% of the vote.

At a news conference, UNITA vice presidential candidate Abel Chivukuvuku dismissed the earlier result, showing it was losing the Wednesday election.

He said UNITA would publish its own results, collected from the polling stations across the country.

Experts say this is a close election, as the opposition’s popularity among young people has grown in the past years, as millions are frustrated due to unemployment and lack of equal opportunities.

This is Angola’s fifth general election since independence from Portugal in 1975 and the ruling MPLA has been in power for nearly five decades. 

 

The electoral commission has seven days to announce the winner of Wednesday’s vote.
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