Month: March 2024

NAIROBI, Kenya — Doctors at Kenya’s public hospitals began a nationwide strike Thursday, accusing the government of failing to implement a raft of promises from a collective bargaining agreement signed in 2017 after a 100-day strike that saw people dying from lack of care.

The Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacists and Dentists Union said they went on strike to demand comprehensive medical cover for the doctors and because the government has yet to post 1,200 medical interns.

Davji Bhimji, secretary-general of KMPDU, said 4,000 doctors took part in the strike despite a labor court order asking the union to put the strike on hold to allow talks with the government. And Dennis Miskellah, deputy secretary general of the union, said they would disregard the court order the same way the government had disregarded three court orders to increase basic pay for doctors and reinstate suspended doctors.

Miskellah said medical interns make up 27% of the workforce in Kenya’s public hospitals, and their absence means more sick people are being turned away from hospitals. Some doctors, however, have remained on duty to ensure patients in the intensive care units don’t die.

In an interview with broadcaster Citizen TV, Miskellah said doctors were committing suicide out of work-related frustration, while others have had to fund-raise to get treated for sickness due to a lack of comprehensive health coverage.

The impact of the strike was felt across the country with many patients left unattended or being turned away from hospitals across the East African nation.

Pauline Wanjiru said she brought her 12-year-old son for treatment on his broken leg, which had started to produce a smell, but she was turned away from a hospital in Kakamega county in western Kenya.

In 2017, doctors at Kenya’s public hospitals held a 100-day strike — the longest ever held in the country — to demand better wages and for the government to restore the country’s dilapidated public-health facilities. They also demanded continuous training of and hiring of doctors to address a severe shortage of health professionals.

At the time, public doctors, who train for six years in university, earned a basic salary of $400 to $850 a month, similar to some police officers who train for just six months.
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Windhoek, Namibia — A top Namibian health official tells VOA the southern Africa country is set to begin distribution of the HPV vaccine to adolescent girls in April as a preventative measure in the fight against cervical cancer.

Namibia has a population of about 1 million women ages 15 years and older who are at risk of developing cervical cancer.

Each year, about 375 women in Namibia are diagnosed with the disease, and the fatality rate is over 50%.

The Human Papillomavirus Vaccine, known as HPV, has been proven to greatly lessen the chance of getting cervical cancer.

Ben Nangombe, executive director at Namibia’s Ministry of Health and Social Services, says health workers will begin vaccinating about 183,000 girls between the ages of nine and 14 next month.

He says the ministry has been allocated $7 million to procure single dose vaccines for this purpose.

Mehafo Amunyela, who works at the #Be Free Youth Program in the capital’s Katutura Township, told VOA that vaccine hesitancy could be a hurdle to fully immunizing the target population. She said she hopes that through awareness campaigns, children and their families can be educated about the advantages of getting the vaccine.

“We saw the reaction of the public toward the COVID vaccine when it came out, but I think we need to be honest with ourselves and remember that the reason we don’t have illnesses like polio is because of vaccines, that they worked then, and they still do now,” she said.

The Cancer Association of Namibia says the vast distances between most towns and villages in Namibia could present another logistical challenge in the immunization program.

The association says to achieve the target of immunizing 183,000 girls, awareness campaigns should be undertaken in the different indigenous languages spoken in the country.

With the rollout of the HPV vaccine, Namibia is on the path to do its part in meeting the World Health Organization’s goal of vaccinating 90% of girls worldwide by 2030, with the long-term goal of eliminating cervical cancer within the next century.

Although cervical cancer is preventable and curable, the disease claimed 350,000 lives worldwide in 2022 according to the WHO. 
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Russia has rebranded its Wagner paramilitary group as an “expeditionary corps” now controlled by Moscow’s military intelligence arm, and the force is offering a “regime survival package” to autocratic regimes in Africa, Britain’s Royal United Services Institute says. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Abuja, Nigeria — The medical aid group Doctors Without Borders said this week that Nigeria’s northwest region is experiencing “catastrophic” levels of malnutrition and disease outbreaks as it copes with a decline in humanitarian support.

The aid group, known by its French initials MSF, said that while heavy conflict continues to affect both the northeast and northwest regions of Nigeria, the humanitarian needs of the northwest have yet to be met under the national response plan.

In a media statement, MSF said that the region has more than 500,000 cases of severe acute malnutrition and that 854 children admitted to its facilities last year died within 48 hours of their arrival.

MSF blamed the failure of authorities and donor partners to formally recognize the crisis in the northwest for delaying a much-needed response.

Abdullahi Mohammed Ali, the head of MSF’s Nigeria mission, said the aid group has been raising the alarm for a few years.

“But the region has never been included in the U.N. humanitarian response plan,” Ali said. “We’re deeply concerned given the seriousness of the humanitarian crisis in this region — a home to around 50 million people. The levels of malnutrition and outbreak of diseases are catastrophic in the context of persistent and relentless violence.”

Northwest Nigeria has been plagued by armed gangs of bandits who often kill, loot and take hostages. MSF said that last year alone, more than 2,000 people were killed in hundreds of reported attacks.

But humanitarian aid groups have largely focused their attention on the northeast, site of the long-running Boko Haram insurgency, where Nigerian forces are stepping up attacks against the Islamist militant groups.

Ali said the situation improved briefly in the northwest last year.

“We saw a little improvement in 2023, with a few actors mobilizing to provide support to vulnerable people,” he said, “but this is far from being enough, and medical aid is just a drop in the ocean.

“We would like to see a collective and concerted strategy by both the humanitarian community and the Nigerian government in order to scale up the humanitarian response plan,” Ali said.

MSF said it treated 170,000 children in the northwestern states of Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina and Kano last year for severe acute malnutrition — a 14% rise compared with the previous year.

Nigeria’s humanitarian affairs ministry did not respond to calls for comment.

An official who did not want to be named said the investigation of the humanitarian affairs minister, Betta Edu, has affected planned responses to humanitarian emergencies. President Bola Tinubu suspended Edu in January over alleged misappropriation of public funds. On Wednesday, Nigeria’s parliament asked the president to hasten the suspended minister’s probe.
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london — Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied he is seeking to oust Western influence in Africa, as new analysis suggests the Kremlin’s military intelligence arm has taken over activities of the disbanded Wagner Russian paramilitary group on the continent.

In a television interview broadcast in Russia on March 13, Putin dismissed claims that Moscow is seeking to displace France as the major partner of countries such as Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.

“We have not ousted anyone. It’s just that the African leaders of certain countries made agreements with Russian economic operators, wanted to work with them and did not want to work in certain areas with the French. It wasn’t even our initiative, it was an initiative of our African friends,” Putin said.

“We are not instigating anyone and do not seek to turn anyone against France. To be honest, overall, we do not have national tasks at the Russian state level there. We’re just being friends with them, that’s all,” the Russian president added.

‘Regime survival package’

In the past decade, analysts say Moscow has sought to extend its influence in Africa through the deployment of Russian forces — often under the guise of paramilitary fighters — and arms deals with African governments, in return for access to resources.

A recent analysis by Britain’s Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) suggests that Russia has rebranded the former Wagner paramilitary group as an expeditionary corps which is now under the control of Moscow’s military intelligence arm — known as the GRU — and is offering what it calls a “regime survival package” to autocratic governments in Africa.

“At a time when many Western states were trying to economically isolate Russia following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin saw the development of economic ties with Africa and the Middle East as a means to sanction-proof Russia, and he had a pitch for the leaders of these states,” the report said.

“It centered on the proposition that the ‘international rules-based order’ advocated for by the West structurally favored Western interests, whereas Russia’s emphasis on sovereignty would offer a mutually beneficial partnership. The reality — as Russian officials acknowledged internally — was a renewed Russian colonialism,” the RUSI report added.

Wagner rebranded

Wagner fighters have been deployed in several African countries, including Libya, Sudan, Central African Republic, Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali. They have frequently been accused of committing widespread human rights abuses.

In June 2023, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was struggling to make progress, Wagner’s chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, led a failed mutiny against Moscow, accusing the defense ministry of depriving his fighters of ammunition. Wagner was disbanded shortly afterward. Two months later, Prigozhin died in a suspicious plane crash.

That left a dilemma for the Kremlin: What to do about Wagner’s operations in Africa?

“After that so-called mutiny, the decision was made that it would be better to have it more in-house rather than outsourced,” said Oleksandr Danylyuk, an associate fellow at RUSI and a co-author of the report.

The analysis shows that Moscow has rebranded the Wagner group as the expeditionary corps of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, with a target of recruiting a further 40,000 troops to serve in the force. Its aim is to secure Russian interests overseas — including access to resources such as oil, gas and minerals — while also reducing Moscow’s vulnerability to Western sanctions.

Russia colonialism

“What they’re doing is just expanding colonialism in the Global South countries. And right now they are very much focused on African countries, but they have plans for Latin America as well, some Asian countries. They will also have political technologists, media experts, intelligence officers who are specialized in political warfare, economic operations. So, pretty much everything to be able not only to infiltrate those Global South countries, but also to establish pro-Russian regimes there,” Danylyuk told VOA.

The RUSI report says Russia helped to foment military coups in parts of Africa and is now seeking to displace Western influence.

Mali

France and other European nations sent troops to Mali in 2013 to help fight an Islamist insurgency. They were withdrawn in 2022 after successive military coups and a breakdown in relations between Paris and Bamako. A 12,000-person United Nations peacekeeping force also pulled out last year at the request of the junta government.

Several hundred Russian-backed fighters are now in Mali supporting the military junta under interim President Colonel Assimi Goita. Moscow also has backed military governments in Niger and Burkina Faso, and is supporting General Khalifa Haftar in Libya against the unity government under Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh.

‘Plausible deniability’

The pretense that Wagner was a private army separate from the Kremlin allowed Russia to deny involvement in its Africa operations. “Many of the operations being conducted were either at the expense of other states or violated U.N. Security Council resolutions,” according to the RUSI report.

“The problem for the Expeditionary Corps is that it risks the removal of this plausible deniability… It appears that Russia has finally decided to explicitly challenge the international system rather than pretend to comply with it.”

Western challenge

The authors of the report warn that Russia’s expansion of operations in Africa could have serious consequences for Europe and the West.

“Through persistent instability, Russia can push migration into Europe, creating the conditions… to pursue political destabilization,” the report warns. “Leverage over natural resources is also expanding. Perhaps most problematic, however, is how the pitch for values is giving Russia access to communities that interface with a range of extremist beliefs.”
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YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — The Central African Economic and Monetary Community, CEMAC, marks its 30th anniversary this week but by some measures has little to celebrate. The bloc says member countries conduct most of their trade with outside countries and have made little attempt to break down economic barriers between them, leaving CEMAC the least developed and poorest economic bloc in Africa.

Officials say the Central African Economic and Monetary Community remains the least integrated economic bloc in Africa, despite its very strong economic and social potential.

CEMAC officials say member countries conduct more than 80 percent of their foreign trade with Europe, China and Russia – and only 4 percent with each other.

The CEMAC countries — Cameroon, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Congo, Gabon and the Central African Republic — created the bloc in 1994 to promote the free movement of goods and persons across borders and promote regional integration. 

Sylvestre Michel Nkou is an economic adviser to the Congo government and CEMAC. He spoke during celebrations marking the economic bloc’s 30th anniversary in Yaounde Thursday.  

Nkou says CEMAC member states should emulate the Economic Community of West African States, in which civilians and merchants move from one country to the other without fear of police harassment, brutality or the confiscation of their goods. He says poverty will be reduced in central Africa and the economic bloc will cease to become the poorest on the continent when integration becomes a reality, not a political slogan.  

Nkou said CEMAC countries continue to erroneously believe that each state can develop on its own. He said CEMACs close to 70 million population constitute a large market which remains underused. 

Achingale Queen Anyifuet, an international relations scholar at Cameroon’s International Relations Institute, says insecurity, Boko Haram conflicts affecting Chad and Cameroon, political tensions and armed attacks in the CAR and the military juntas in Chad and Gabon have diverted the CEMAC leaders’ attention from economic development.  

“If you look at the rankings of ‘Ease to do Business’ countries in the world, the CEMAC region is far below,” saod Achingale. “Out of the 197 countries, Cameroon which is the first [among CEMAC states], is ranked 167, so there is a lot to do. We have to put in place programs that address the key roots of conflicts, we have to look at security, ensuring a stable environment which is very key to economic development. We need to promote peace, which is one of the objectives of CEMAC.”

Achingale said the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business report quantitatively measures the ease of doing business in countries around the world, focusing on business regulations and property rights protections. 

Thierry Ndong, an expert in regional integration and analyst working with CEMAC, says the regional economic bloc has also failed to create a regional airline, build roads linking capitals of CEMAC member states and create a regional stock exchange.

Ndong says a program to develop an economic zone in the border towns of Kye-Ossi, in Cameroon, Bitam in Gabon and Ebebiyin in Equatorial Guinea is among failed projects initiated by CEMAC officials. He says he is surprised that CEMAC keeps money to organize seminars to evaluate nonexistent projects that were initiated 15 years ago as a sign of economic integration without consulting the people who are the main beneficiaries.

CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadera, who is also the CEMAC president, is expected to address issues concerning the underdevelopment of the economic bloc in a March 16 message. 

 
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