What will Africa’s heavy haul railway system look like in 2030 as artificial intelligence, big data analytics and the Internet of Things moulds traditional sectors? This is the question that railway companies across the globe are grappling with as the 4th Industrial Revolution shapes the way we work, live, travel and transport freight.
With a view to answering this question, the International Heavy Haul Association (IHHA) has called on its member organisations to devise a roadmap ahead of a major industry conference to be held in Norway in June 2019.
In the build up to the event, the South African Heavy Haul Association (SAHA), will be bringing experts from across the continent together to debate the implications for Africa, where safety and security, infrastructure constraints and other challenges have impacted the movement of goods across borders.
Next week’s technical workshop, held from 4-6 September 2018, will bring together skilled professionals from the Southern African Railways Association (SARA), which has members in countries including Zambia and Swaziland.
“Are we ever going to have driverless, fully automated trains in Africa, considering our landscape? I’m hoping that by the end of the three-day workshop, delegates would have formulated a clear vision on how we can collaborate on ensuring African railways are future-proof,” says IHHA global chairperson Brian Monakali, who is also the General Manager of Capital Planning at Transnet Freight Rail.
“Due to South Africa’s position as the global chair of the IHHA, we are also expected to lead the discourse on how to revive African railways, promote intra-Africa trade and embrace new technology,” Monakali adds.
He says intra-Africa trade stands at roughly 12 percent compared to our counterparts America, Europe and Asia at 60-80%. This is due to because of a lack of interconnected railway systems, poor condition of our rail infrastructure, amongst other things.
Monakali says insights shared during the workshop will inform a working document that will be an input into the Development of a Global 2030 Vision for Heavy Haul, by IHHA member countries, and to be presented to the conference in Norway.
Monakali is available for interviews to talk about SAHHA and IHHA latest developments, Transnet’s involvement in this new journey and the vision development for Africa’s heavy haul railways.
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South African Heavy Haul Association press release

What does the future of Africa’s railways hold?

By <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/yirga-gelaw-woldeyes-408052" rel="author">Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes,</a> Lecturer of Human Rights, Curtin University.
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Abiy Ahmed has made a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/08/abiy-ahmed-upending-ethiopian-politics">raft of radical steps</a> since taking over as Ethiopia’s prime minister in April 2018. He has redressed some of the wrongs committed by his own party, brokered peace with Eritrea and released political prisoners. Abiy has also invited opposition political groups back into the country and <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/ethiopias-torn-orthodox-church-reunites-after-27-years-20180727">overseen the reunification</a> of a splintered Orthodox church.
Abiy’s approach is summed up by his philosophy of <a href="http://africanarguments.org/2018/04/18/ethiopia-a-nation-in-need-of-a-new-story-abiy-ahmed-ethiopiawinet/">medemer</a>, or inclusivity and unity. His reforms have led millions to believe that positive revolutionary change is on its way. But there’s one significant group he has yet to address: the rural majority.
More than 80% of Ethiopians <a href="https://www.indexmundi.com/about.html">live in rural villages</a> beyond the reach of mass media. So far, they have not been included in the ongoing national conversation. Yet, they contribute significantly to the economy by providing <a href="http://www.fao.org/ethiopia/fao-in-ethiopia/ethiopia-at-a-glance/en/">85% of all employment and 95% of agriculture outputs</a>.
Past governments exacted revenue from rural people but <a href="http://ethiopianbusinessreview.net/index.php/commentary/item/164-the-peasant-the-state-a-comprehensive-rural-policy-analysis">ignored their voices</a> in policy making. During Haile Sellasie’s rule, rural people had to pay a share of their produce to their chiefs in order to keep their land. Mengistu Haile Mariam’s <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2017/12/07/why-ethiopians-are-nostalgic-for-a-murderous-marxist-regime">marxist regime </a> introduced land reform based on its communist ideology but required rural people to fund and fight its wars.
The current government came to power with the promise of ensuring food security but it <a href="https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com.au/&amp;httpsredir=1&amp;article=1043&amp;context=africancenter_icad_archive">politicised ethnic identity</a> and is currently focusing on rapid economic growth through the commercialisation of agriculture.
Consistently, Ethiopian governments created their own policies without listening to rural people first. But there can never truly be any hope for the country’s future if the forgotten majority continue to be ignored.
<h2>The reality for rural people</h2>
Since the 2000s, Ethiopia has been praised for <a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/east-africa/2015/09/15/ethiopia-fastest-growing-country/">fast economic growth</a>. The government celebrates small holding farmers as the <a href="https://news.ilri.org/2015/10/30/whats-driving-ethiopias-fast-development-millions-of-smallholder-farmers-of-course/">drivers of its success</a>. But, so far, economic growth has not translated into a better life for the rural poor.
In 2015, some 18 million (20% of the total population) were affected by drought, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/23/ethiopia-struggles-with-worst-drought-for-50-years-leaving-18-mi/">the worst in 50 years</a>. This year alone, 7.4 million, <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/ethiopia/humanitarian-action-children-2018-ethiopia">mostly children and women, are in need of help</a>.
In addition to natural disasters, rural people are victims of an ill-conceived land policy. Land is controlled by the government. Farmers don’t own their land. They’re simply granted the right to use it. Land scarcity is a major problem. More than 60% of rural households survive on <a href="https://www.thereporterethiopia.com/content/experts-claim-rural-landlessness-exacerbating-poverty-food-insecurity">less than one hectare of land</a>. A lack of access has led to young people being <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X14001727">uprooted from rural areas</a>.
Yet, the government leases large tracts of land to private investors to spur economic growth. From late 1990s to 2008, almost 3.5 million hectares of land was rented to investors at <a href="https://theredddesk.org/sites/default/files/resources/pdf/Ethiopia_Rahmato_FSS_2011.pdf">very low prices for a period of up to 99 years</a>. The government <a href="http://images.mofcom.gov.cn/et/201509/20150922215452876.pdf">advertises</a> that 11.5 million hectares of land is currently prepared for private investment. Investors mainly focus on producing flowers, biofuel, and other export products. These in turn <a href="https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1029&amp;context=wh2ojournal">cause water shortages and environmental problems</a>.
In a country of 103 million, where the survival of 80% of the people depend on <a href="http://media.accademiaxl.it/memorie/S5-VXXXIX-P2-2015/GedamuGebre273-289.pdf">subsistence agriculture</a>, the priority given to private investors raises significant concerns.
Urban Ethiopians view foreign investors as a sign of progress. They see this land-grabbing as a sign of development. Yet the commercialisation of agriculture is being used to <a href="https://ig.ft.com/sites/land-rush-investment/ethiopia/">concentrate wealth</a> in the hands of a small ruling class. It has increased <a href="https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/292412/rr-life-time-food-price-volatility-ethiopia-year-1-140414-en.pdf?sequence=25&amp;isAllowed=y">food prices</a> for the poor.
In Gambella, 70,000 people have been <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2012/01/16/ethiopia-forced-relocations-bring-hunger-hardship">moved to new areas</a>. Many more are believed to have been moved off their ancestral lands to make way for the country’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/14/ethiopia-villagisation-violence-land-grab">vision of becoming the world’s leading sugar producer</a>.
Abiy has yet to address any of these issues. So far, he has shown no signs that he intends to change the government’s land policy.
<h2>Colonial mindset</h2>
One of the major hurdles facing the forgotten rural majority is the colonial mindset of many urbanites and people in power. The exclusion of rural people from the affairs of the state is not new. But it has intensified since 1974.
Traditionally, rural Ethiopians had institutions that influenced the power of their leaders. Leaders needed to fulfil and be accountable to tradition. They were respected more than feared.
But since the beginning of 20th Century, Ethiopian leaders sought to gain global legitimacy by bringing western institutions and knowledge to the country, excluding traditional knowledge and Ethiopian languages from higher education. Students learnt western history, culture and philosophy in English, and started to internalise the western gaze that <a href="http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001473/147348E.pdf">saw Ethiopian traditional knowledge and institutions as primitive</a>.
This colonial mindset, that has internalised western knowledge as progressive and Ethiopian knowledge as backward, is one of the major factors excluding rural people from reform and political debate. Rural people are seen as antithetical to progress, or simply ignorant of how things can be done better. For example, ten years ago the World Bank blamed Ethiopia’s <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-food-ethiopia/world-bank-urges-ethiopia-to-update-farming-systems-idUSL1868602920080618">“backward farming system”</a> for acute food shortages.
Across the country, rural people understand land not as a natural resource that can be converted into cash, but as a source of life, spirituality, culture, and identity. Any cursory study of land-grabbing in Ethiopia shows that government policy has resulted in ongoing violence against the livelihood and culture of rural people. Rural people still feed the majority of the population; protecting them protects the rest.
Everything Ethiopians are proud of today, from their ancient culture to their independence from colonialism, came from the culture of rural life. It is this rich cultural knowledge that should be drawn upon, rather than continually looking out to the west.
Despite all of Abiy’s inspirational reforms, there can be no true progress for Ethiopia without listening to the rural majority.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102204/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/yirga-gelaw-woldeyes-408052">Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes</a>, Lecturer of Human Rights, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/curtin-university-873">Curtin University</a>
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-abiy-wont-succeed-unless-he-listens-to-ethiopias-majority-its-rural-people-102204">original article</a>.

Why Ethiopia’s prime minister needs to listen to people living in rural areas

GENEVA (Reuters) &#8211; More crimes against humanity were committed in Burundi in 2017 and 2018, whipped up by rhetoric from top officials including President Pierre Nkurunziza, a U.N. human rights report said on Wednesday.
Burundi has tried and failed to stop the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Burundi, set up by the U.N. Human Rights Council in 2016, and refuses to cooperate with it. The commission said last year that officials at the highest level were responsible for crimes against humanity.
“The Commission has reasonable grounds to believe that crimes against humanity continue to be committed in Burundi,” the Commission’s latest report said.
“These crimes include murder, imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence of comparable gravity, and persecution on political grounds.”
Nkurunziza’s spokesman and Burundi’s human rights minister declined to make an immediate comment.
Burundi has been seized by violence since early 2015 when Nkurunziza said he would seek a third term, widely seen as a breach of the constitution.
Clashes between security forces and rebels left hundreds dead and forced about half a million to flee — rattling a region still haunted by the memories of the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda, which has a similar ethnic mix to Burundi.
In May this year a referendum changed the constitution in a way that could allow him to remain president until 2034.
“This climate of disregard for human rights continues to be fomented by repeated instances in which hatred and violence have been advocated by the authorities, including the Head of State and members of (the ruling party) CNDD-FDD,” the commission said.
The Commission said Nkurunziza’s policies, pouring resources into security at the expense of social services, increasing debt and the burden on women looking after families, had turned Burundi from a developing country to a humanitarian emergency.
“In the space of two years, the number of people ‘in need’, mainly in terms of health care, food, water, hygiene and sanitation, increased from 1 million to 3.6 million, representing more than 34 per cent of the population.”
Corruption and “misappropriation of public funds among high-level authorities” were further depleting state resources, it said.
Members of the National Intelligence Service and the police, including high-ranking officials, committed a large number of human rights violations, and the Imbonerakure, the youth wing of the ruling party, was playing a growing role, the report said.
Opponents of the government had been detained and tortured, often by the Imbonerakure, the commission said.
The number of summary executions appeared to have diminished since 2015, when they took place on a large scale, but the perpetrators took care to cover their tracks by weighing down the bodies and throwing them into rivers, it said.
Reporting by Tom Miles; Additional reporting by Nairobi newsroom; Editing by Catherine Evans

Why U.N inquiry believes Burundi is still committing crimes against humanity

(Reuters) &#8211; Amazon.com Inc (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O">AMZN.O</a>) on Tuesday joined Apple Inc (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AAPL.O">AAPL.O</a>) in the $1 trillion club, becoming the second member of the group after its stock price doubled in 15 months.
If the online retailer’s share price continues at its recent pace, it will be a matter of when, not if, Amazon’s market valuation eclipses that of iPhone maker Apple, which reached $1 trillion on Aug. 2.
Apple took almost 38 years as a public company to achieve the trillion dollar milestone, while Amazon got there in 21 years. While Apple’s iPhone and other devices remain popular and its revenues are growing, it is not keeping up with Amazon’s blistering sales growth.
Amazon has impressed investors by successfully diversifying its business into virtually every corner of the retail industry, altering how consumers buy products and putting major pressure on many brick-and-mortar stores.
It also provides video streaming services and bought upscale supermarket Whole Foods. And its cloud computing services for companies have become a major driver of earnings and revenue.
“Amazon’s a little bit more dynamic than Apple because the iPhone has become more mature. Amazon’s cloud business is an extra growth driver that Apple doesn’t have,” said Daniel Morgan, portfolio manager at Synovus Trust in Atlanta, Georgia who describes Amazon’s cloud services as its “crown jewel.”
In the second quarter the unit accounted for 55 percent of Amazon’s operating income and 20 percent of total revenue, according to Morgan.
Apple started trading in December 1980 but its stock did not truly start to take flight for another 25 years, spurred by the iPhone, the breakthrough device that left competitors in the dust.
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Amazon &#8211; founded as an online book-retailer in Chief Executive Jeff Bezos’ garage in 1994 &#8211; started trading on May 15 1997 at $1.50 on a split-adjusted basis.
By October 2009 it had risen to $100 and the stock hit $1,000 for the first time on May 30, 2017. It has held above that level since October 27, 2017.
Just 10 months later, on Aug. 30, Amazon shares hit $2,000 for the first time, just $50 per share away from giving the company a $1 trillion market value. That milestone, just a month after it reached a $900 billion valuation threshold.
Amazon shares were last up 1.1 percent at $2,035.69, pulling back slightly from the milestone level of $2050.2677.
Amazon currently trades up 74.0 percent for the year to date. In comparison, Apple has risen about34.7 percent year to date.
Analysts expect Apple’s revenue to jump 14.9 percent in its fiscal year ending in September, according to Thomson Reuters data, a hefty rise but still far short of Amazon’s expected revenue growth of 32 percent for 2018.
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Additional reporting by Noel Randewich in San Francisco; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli
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Amazon becomes second publicly traded U.S. company to reach $1 trillion market value, why it could pass Apple

<figure><img decoding="async" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234301/original/file-20180830-195319-hw4ka2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt="File 20180830 195319 hw4ka2.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1" /><figcaption>Research suggests that women enterprises in Tanzania are shy to take up business loans. 
Shutterstock
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By <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/vanessa-naegels-540468">Vanessa Naegels</a>, PhD researcher, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/katholiek-universiteit-of-leuven-1712">Katholiek Universiteit of Leuven</a>
With an annual <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?end=2017&amp;locations=TZ&amp;start=2013">GDP growth of 7%</a> since 2013, Tanzania is one of the fastest growing economies in sub-Saharan Africa. Much of this economic growth is driven by small and medium sized enterprises, more than half of which are <a href="http://www.fsdt.or.tz/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/MSME-National-Baseline-Survey-Report.pdf">owned by women</a>.
But, women-owned businesses in emerging economies like Tanzania often can’t grow because of a lack of financing.
The most important financing source for small businesses worldwide is debt. However, <a href="http://www.ilo.org/empent/areas/womens-entrepreneurship-development-wed/WCMS_430949/lang--en/index.htm">research</a> shows that many women entrepreneurs in emerging economies don’t hold formal loans such as bank and microfinance loans. Traditionally the assumption has been that this is caused by a lack of supply. But data points to a different answer.
A 2013 <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13691066.2017.1358927?journalCode=tvec20">survey</a> among women entrepreneurs in Tanzania showed that more than 80% of bank loan applications and more than 90% of microfinance loan applications had been approved. At the same time, only 18% of women entrepreneurs applied for bank loans and 28% for microfinance loans.
This suggests that a lack of demand instead of a lack of supply is to blame for the limited use of formal loans by Tanzanian women entrepreneurs. This is the result of borrower discouragement: women have negative beliefs with respect to bank and microfinance loans, which discourages them from applying.
In our <a href="https://limo.libis.be/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=LIRIAS1719250&amp;context=L&amp;vid=Lirias&amp;lang=en_US&amp;search_scope=Lirias&amp;adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&amp;tab=default_tab&amp;query=any,contains,staffnr_U0096673&amp;sortby=date&amp;offset=0">study</a> we set out to identify women entrepreneurs’ beliefs about bank and microfinance loans. We also explored where these beliefs originated from and exactly how they discourage women from borrowing. We interviewed 29 women entrepreneurs from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s largest city and economic capital.
We found that there are many different reasons why women entrepreneurs don’t apply, many of them interrelated.
<h2>Lack of trust</h2>
Most women we spoke to said they didn’t believe that loan officers discriminated against women. But they complained about the unattractive borrowing terms offered by banks. We heard stories of extremely high interest rates (up to 20% or even 30% annually) and collateral requirements.
Many women told us that they had no collateral. They either didn’t own a house or land or didn’t have their husbands’ permission to use them as collateral.
In addition, those who could use their houses as collateral didn’t want to risk losing them in the event of defaulting.
Entrepreneurs mentioned that high taxes as well as adverse economic and political conditions reduced their profits.
As a result, many feared that they would fail to pay back their loan and would then face harassment or abuse by loan officers.
Apart from unattractive borrowing terms and default risk, many argued that application processes were long and costly. One informant told us she couldn’t provide the extensive financial information required because she didn’t keep accounts.
And loan officers often requested bribes to speed up the process or bend requirements.
The women also complained about various types of inappropriate behaviour from loan officers. Two women mentioned that loan officers asked for sexual favours in exchange for a loan. Others blamed them for exploiting entrepreneurs’ lack of financial knowledge.
For example, women who do end up applying for loans don’t know that payments increase if they are late in paying back their loans, or that the bank has the right to sell their collateral.
We also heard stories of loan officers who visited women entrepreneurs in their businesses or even at home to convince them to take out a loan. One informant claimed that loan officers purposefully sought out entrepreneurs with valuable assets in the hopes of seizing them in case of default.
<h2>Painful experiences</h2>
Two mechanisms shape women entrepreneurs’ beliefs: personal experiences and stories from others.
Some informants applied for loans in the past and were rejected; others had trouble reimbursing their loan or experienced other problems such as corruption. Even if they’d had these experiences taking out informal loans, it nevertheless affected their beliefs about formal loans.
Stories of other people’s negative experiences with both formal and informal loans also shaped their beliefs. These stories either come from within the entrepreneur’s personal network or were passed on within the community.
Women entrepreneurs’ negative beliefs about formal loans give rise to negative attitudes. Some mentioned that getting a loan would reduce their freedom to run the business and use the money as they saw fit.
Because of their negative attitudes most women entrepreneurs said they didn’t intend to apply for a loan any time soon. One said that a bank or microfinance loan would be the last thing she would do to access money for her business.
<h2>What needs to be done</h2>
In the past policymakers have tried to address women-owned businesses’ lack of financing by increasing the supply of finance. But our research shows that this is addressing the wrong problem. In Tanzania women entrepreneurs aren’t deterred by a lack of supply. They don’t apply for formal loans for a host of reasons – most of them negative beliefs.
This is what needs to be changed. But that’s easier said than done.
Often, entrepreneurs’ beliefs are rooted in legitimate issues such as loan officers’ inappropriate behaviour. So it’s imperative that policymakers tackle problems such as corruption, harassment and abuse.
In other cases negative beliefs are probably the result of entrepreneurs’ lack of knowledge and low financial literacy. This can be mitigated by educating women entrepreneurs on how to keep accounts, how to invest loans and explanations on the relationship between interest and risk.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102429/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-tanzanian-women-entrepreneurs-dont-apply-for-formal-loans-102429">original article</a>.

Why women-owned businesses in emerging economies like Tanzania often don’t grow

BEIJING (Reuters) &#8211; Chinese President Xi Jinping offered another $60 billion in financing for Africa on Monday and said Chinese companies will be encouraged to invest no less than $10 billion over the next three years, but he also warned against “vanity projects”.
Speaking at the opening of a major summit with African leaders, Xi promised development that people on the continent could see and touch, but that would also be green and sustainable.
China has denied engaging in “debt trap” diplomacy, and Xi’s offer of more money comes after a pledge of another $60 billion at the previous summit in South Africa three years ago.
Xi, addressing leaders at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, said the new $60 billion will include $15 billion of aid, interest-free loans and concessional loans, a credit line of $20 billion, a $10 billion special fund for China-Africa development, and a $5 billion special fund for imports from Africa.
Chinese companies will be encouraged to invest no less than $10 billion in the continent in the next three years, he said.
“China-Africa cooperation must give Chinese and African people tangible benefits and successes that can be seen, that can be felt,” Xi said.
Chinese officials have vowed to be more cautious to ensure projects are sustainable. China defends continued lending to Africa on the grounds that the continent still needs debt-funded infrastructure development.
Speaking earlier at a business forum, Xi said China had to be careful about where money was spent.
“China’s cooperation with Africa is clearly targeted at the major bottlenecks to development. Resources for our cooperation are not to be spent on any vanity projects but in places where they count the most,” he said.
Beijing has also fended off criticism it is only interested in resource extraction to feed its own booming economy, that the projects it funds have poor environmental safeguards, and that too many of the workers for them are flown in from China rather than using African labour.
Xi told business leaders Chinese firms in Africa had to be aware of their social responsibilities and make sure their investments served the community and improved their wellbeing.
“I hope that our entrepreneurs will act to fulfil social responsibilities and respect local culture and tradition,” he said.
“I also hope you will do more in staff training and bettering lives for the local people and will put more emphasis on the environment and resources,” Xi said.
‘AFRICA KNOWS BEST’ 
Chinese officials say this year’s summit will strengthen Africa’s role in Xi’s Belt and Road initiative to link China by sea and land with Southeast and Central Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa through an infrastructure network modelled on the old Silk Road.
Xi said the plan, for which Beijing has pledged $126 billion, would help provide more resources and facilities for Africa and would expand shared markets.
China loaned around $125 billion to the continent from 2000 to 2016, data from the China-Africa Research Initiative at Washington’s Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies shows.
State media has accused the West of sour grapes over China’s prominent role in Africa and has angrily rejected claims of forcing African countries into a debt trap.
“In terms of cooperation with China, African countries know best,” widely read tabloid the Global Times wrote in an editorial on Monday.
“Western media deliberately portray Africans in misery for collaborating with China and they appear to have discovered big news by finding occasional complaints in the African media about Sino-Africa cooperation,” it said.
Every African country is represented at the business forum apart from eSwatini, self-ruled Taiwan’s last African ally that has so far rejected China’s overtures to ditch Taipei and recognise Beijing.
African presidents in attendance include South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Zambia’s Edgar Lungu and Gabon’s Ali Bongo.
There are some controversial guests. Sudan President Omar al-Bashir, who has been in power for nearly 30 years, is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes over killings and persecution in Sudan’s Darfur province between 2003 and 2008.
Xi told him on Sunday that “foreign forces” should not interfere in Sudan’s internal affairs, China’s Foreign Ministry said. China is not a party to the court.
“China has always had reservations about the International Criminal Court’s indictment and arrest order against Sudan’s president. We hope the ICC can prudently handle the relevant issue,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters.
Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Christian Shepherd; Additional reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by Paul Tait and Darren Schuettler

What you need to know about China’s $60 billion offer to Africa

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; Workers from South Africa’s mainly white Solidarity union started a go-slow protest at petrochemicals firm Sasol over a share scheme offered exclusively to black staff, and will launch a full strike on Thursday.
The Solidarity union also said it will file a complaint to U.S. regulators over Sasol’s “discriminative” black share scheme.
The company is a leader in technology that converts coal and gas to fuel and also operates in the United States,
“We have a staggered industrial action. Today, we have a go-slow. Our 6,300 members will carry out their duties, but in a slow manner. We plan to ramp up to a full-blown strike on Thursday,” Dirk Hermann, Solidarity’s chief executive said.
Reporting by James Macharia, editing by Louise Heavens

White workers at Sasol protest over share scheme offered exclusively to black staff

Media Statement from Bain &amp; Company
In light of new questions being raised during last week’s testimony before the SARS 
Commission of Inquiry and from media inquiries, led by our global leadership and external 
Counsel, Bain &amp; Company is now undertaking a deep and extensive investigation into all 
matters relating to our work with SARS. We want to be absolutely certain that we entered into our SARS engagement in full compliance with applicable procurement laws and that our investigation’s findings are accurate and unassailable.
We want to be completely open and transparent, as we believe that is what the people of South Africa deserve. However, given the Commission of Inquiry is continuing its investigation we cannot publicly discuss anything that would in any way affect the ongoing work of the Commission.
Bain continues to stand by the value and rigor of its work – not as a point of pride– but out of a sense of mission that our South African associates wanted to bring to that organization. We worked hard because we wanted to help SARS become an even better organization and we believe our work could help to do that.
We have listened with concern to the testimonies of SARS employees who feel they have been mistreated and disrespected, at their frustration and pain and the consequences this has had on the lives of these individuals and their families. We are dismayed by the way our work has been used to further a different agenda than was intended. In our recommendations, there was no need for any lay-offs or terminations. This didn’t turn out to be the reality when the model was implemented. We are deeply sorry for how this turned out – we wish we had known then what we do now.
We contend that this could have been avoided. Through the various Commission testimony, we now know that essential elements of delivering a successful operating model were not 
systematically addressed, causing the failure at SARS.
As we stated in our testimony, Bain believes that the success of an operating model for an 
organization is a function of defining and implementing all elements of the model correctly: 
leadership, organization structure, accountabilities and decision processes, governance forums, core values/ways of working, capabilities, business processes, and IT systems. We raised this with SARS, but Bain’s contracted work on the operating model covered only one aspect, organizational structure, whilst SARS handled internally all other aspects of the process. This point must not be lost nor is the fact that the design principles for this structure was presented to and reviewed by SARS’s independent Advisory Board instituted by the Finance Minister.
In hindsight, as we reflect on our role at SARS there are a several places where we could have done better. We could have listened better. We could have pushed SARS harder to acknowledge and address the risks we raised. We could have been more aware of agendas that could have diverged from the mandate we were given. These are lessons we have already taken to heart.
These last few weeks have been difficult. There is a growing frustration within our firm that we did not recognize the possibility that we may have been used to further a political or personal agenda. We always go into our work presuming our clients have good intentions. We are now questioning these beliefs as it relates to SARS.
As a firm, we stand by the work we produced and the dedicated effort of our employees who wanted nothing more than to make SARS a better place. We will continue to cooperate with the Commission of Inquiry to support a process aimed at restoring SARS to the once credible institution it was once known as.

Improperly appointed boards spell disaster for organisations

Bain & Company to launch investigation into SARS consultancy

By <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/karen-newbigging-290441">Karen Newbigging</a>, Senior Lecturer, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-birmingham-1138">University of Birmingham</a>
Poor mental health among young people is on the rise in the UK, while access to support and treatment <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/chief-medical-officer-cmo-annual-report-public-mental-health">remains patchy</a>. There is now a pressing need to build resilience in young people to minimise their risk of poor mental health later on, as our <a href="https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/impact/policy-commissions/mental-health/index.aspx">latest report argues</a>.
There are 12.5m young people in England, and one in ten will experience poor mental health. Half of all lifelong mental health problems <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17551351">start before the age of 14</a>, but only one in four young people uses mental health services. An <a href="https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/impact/policy-commissions/mental-health/index.aspx">extra 23,800 staff, at a cost of £1.77 billion</a>, is needed so that every young person who needs mental health support can get it. In the short term, though, this is unrealistic.
<h2>Treatment gap</h2>
To address this treatment gap, we need to invest in building young people’s resilience in order to minimise their risk of developing poor mental health in the first place. A <a href="http://www.wales.nhs.uk/sitesplus/888/news/47341">recent study from Wales</a> showed that people with high resilience in childhood are less than half as likely to develop a mental health condition, compared with those who have low resilience during childhood. The early years, <a href="https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/understanding-effective-approaches-to-promoting-mental-health-and-preventing-mental-illness_bc364fb2-en">before the age of 18</a>, are the best time to build resilience as it provides lifelong mental health benefits.
Resilience is the ability to deal with life’s challenges and stresses in a healthy and positive way. This involves drawing on personal resources, such as the ability to manage anxiety and negative thoughts, as well as social resources, such as having positive relationships with family, friends and adults, including teachers.
Social and economic circumstances also affect a child’s ability to develop resilience. Children from low-income families are much <a href="https://www.centreformentalhealth.org.uk/download-children-of-the-new-century">more likely to experience poor mental health</a>, compared with children from high-income families.
<figure class="align-center "><img decoding="async" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233896/original/file-20180828-86153-fi17cr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt="" /><figcaption>Power in positive relationships. 
<a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/two-little-boys-holding-hands-running-686208856?src=FwYha6uV_-YUDpNlIIYZ-A-1-37">Olga Enger/Shutterstock.com</a></figcaption></figure>
<h2>Two-pronged approach</h2>
Preventing poor mental health in childhood and in later life needs a two-pronged approach. First, parents need support so they can provide a secure home for their children. Alongside this, parents, schools and youth organisations need to help children develop positive relationships and teach them how to deal with relationship problems and other difficulties in life.
Second, we need to minimise the risk to children’s mental health. These risks include all forms of abuse, poverty and other negative experiences during childhood, such as being bullied. Positive relationships with family members, friends, teachers and other adults can act as a buffer against these negative experiences.
Investing in <a href="http://www.lse.ac.uk/business-and-consultancy/consulting/consulting-reports/commissioning-cost-effective-services-for-promotion-of-mental-health-and-wellbeing-and-prevention-of-mental-ill-health">prevention</a> would save the government, the NHS, education, the criminal justice system and employers money in the long run, so investing in the resilience of children should be everybody’s business.
While there have been repeated <a href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100407162639/http://www.newhorizons.dh.gov.uk/index.aspx">calls for action</a> over the past ten years, progress has been sluggish. Many areas lack a strategy, and investment in preventative activity is often <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/stocktake-of-local-mental-health-prevention-planning-arrangements">short term</a>.
Planning for a resilient generation requires public health to work with health, education, parents, young people and other partners. Together they need to identify the actions they can take for the whole population as well as for those groups that are particularly at risk. And they will need to prioritise what to invest in. There is good evidence for specific interventions that will improve mental health and deliver an early payback on the investment. For example, providing social and emotional learning in schools can achieve a saving of <a href="http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/32311/">£5 for every £1 invested over a three-year period</a>.
Local government also needs to take action to ensure that vulnerable families and young people have a secure income, housing and access to health, education and employment. This includes a concerted effort to reduce the harm caused by negative childhood experiences, such as abuse, and by focusing on young people who are particularly at risk of poor mental health, as is the case with young people who have been in care.
Even with a robust resilience programme, there will always be young people who experience poor mental health, so it’s still important to respond quickly to the first signs of distress. This has implications for all of us in knowing how to respond well and how to access the right support.
<h2>One-stop service</h2>
Mental health services for young people have long waiting lists and we need to develop accessible and friendly one-stop-shop services that can better meet their needs, such as the Australian organisation, <a href="https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2015/202/10/services-provided-young-people-through-headspace-centres-across-australia">Headspace</a>, a national youth mental health service, designed with input from young people.
Building resilience, minimising risks to mental health and ensuring effective support is available has the potential to halve the number of children experiencing poor mental health within a generation. The benefits of this will be realised not only by young people and their families but also by wider society and the economy.
Investing in the resilience of young people is everybody’s business. It is time for the hand-wringing about the poor mental health of children and young people to stop and for action to be taken. A first step is for investment in the resilience of children and young people to be a clear priority for government and public services.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99776/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/key-to-lifelong-good-mental-health-learn-resilience-in-childhood-99776">original article</a>.

Why building resilience in childhood can minimise risk of poor mental health later on

<a href="http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Industrial_agriculture">Industrial agriculture</a> – farming that involves the intensive production of livestock, poultry, fish and crops – is one of the most environmentally destructive forms of land use. It depends on mechanisation and on inputs like synthetic fertiliser and harmful pesticides and herbicides and has led to widespread contamination of <a href="http://www.ipes-food.org/how-to-leave-industrial-agriculture-behind-food-systems-experts-urge-global-shift-towards-agroecology">soil and water</a>. It also relies on just a few major crops like wheat, maize, soybean and rice, the seeds of which are owned by a mere handful of companies.
A different approach to agriculture is sorely needed. This should, ideally, deliver household food security, ensure sustainable livelihoods and produce quality nutrition in a rapidly changing climate.
Developing countries that are industrialising at a pace are uniquely placed to avoid developing a dependency on one type of technological innovation at the expense of others. This is what is known as technological lock-in, with industrial agriculture being one form of lock-in. Such countries are also well placed to establish alternative ways to grow food that maximise livelihoods and sustainable food production.
For instance, Brazil, India, China and South Africa have agricultural sectors that have both industrialised farmers and resource-poor farmers who practice low-input agriculture. These countries offer important spaces for strengthening practices that are well suited to the challenges facing smallholder farmers. And ones that are more environmentally sound.
A change in these countries could pioneer alternative approaches for other developing countries.
The basis for <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00139157.2018.1472507">alternative agricultural systems</a> already exists. They’re <a href="http://www.fao.org/docrep/019/mj760e/mj760e.pdf">practised</a> by at least 75% of the world’s 1.5 billion smallholders, family farmers and indigenous peoples.
These alternatives fall broadly under the umbrella of agroecology. Their key characteristics include the use of technologies based on ecological knowledge, as well as a focus on family farming and local production. They also have low levels of external inputs, and are diversified.
Developing countries could leapfrog industrial agriculture systems and move toward an agricultural sector that’s run on agroecological principles. But this needs increased public investment and a policy environment that’s conducive to encouraging the approach.
<h2>Millions are doing it already</h2>
Agroecology is already practised by millions of small-scale farmers <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00139157.2018.1472507">across the world</a>. China and India, for example, account for 35% and 24% of the world’s 570 million family farms. In Brazil, 78% of farms are less than 50 hectares. In South Africa there are about four million small-scale and <a href="http://www.plaas.org.za/plaas-publication/RR53_ssca_okunlola%20et%20al">mostly subsistence farmers</a>.
These farms play a critical role in food security. This is especially true at a local level. But these farmers also face numerous challenges: access to land and capital, secure land rights, appropriate extension and advice, increased climate variability and market access.
The question is whether public money in emerging economies is being used to address these challenges and the needs of small farmers. Or is it being used to prop up large-scale industrial agriculture?
Many emerging economies have dual forms of agriculture – both industrialised and small-scale. Yet investment in agricultural innovations typically centre only on priorities for industrialised farming.
Genetic engineering is an example. It has become one of the main areas of focus in agricultural research over the past three decades. Highly specialised – it involves the modification of an organism by manipulating its genes – it needs high levels of investment. Those developing it also expect high returns and it’s very much a “top-down” approach, removed from the context and knowledge of most of the world’s farmers, and often bringing questionable benefits.
<h2>Solutions</h2>
Smallholder agriculture is increasingly important in emerging economies. There is a need for alternative agricultural solutions. Emerging economies can be leaders in this field.
Agroecology presents a tested and forward-looking approach. But it needs to be institutionalised in the allocation of research funding and in science and technology policy.
Agricultural research and development is already playing an important role. Over the past decade there have been increased investments by emerging economies in <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/agricultural-rd-is-on-the-move-1.20571">agricultural research</a>. For example Chinese government investment in agricultural research doubled from 2001 to 2008, exceeding any country <a href="http://www.ifpri.org/publication/china-recent-developments-public-agricultural-research">except the US</a>. Brazil similarly increased agricultural research and development spending by 46% between <a href="http://www.ifpri.org/publication/brazil-0">2006 and 2013</a>. South Africa’s investment level is more erratic. But it’s still high compared to most other sub-Saharan countries.
More needs to be done. Additional steps should include:
<ul>
<li>Increased cooperation in agricultural research between countries with large public sector institutes like Brazil and China, and countries with less research capacity, such as Mozambique and Malawi;</li>
<li>Demonstrating the validity and economic potential of agro-ecology. This can be achieved by drawing on farmers’ knowledge, developed over centuries of experimentation; and</li>
<li>Redesigning formal training and extension programmes to incorporate local knowledge and have a stronger uptake of agroecology in places where resources are scarce.</li>
</ul>
Emerging economies provide an important opportunity to upscale agroecological innovations to help improve the livelihoods of small and resource-poor farmers and address environmental problems. But they need public investment and an enabling environment to flourish.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100097/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/rachel-wynberg-165595">Rachel Wynberg</a>, Associate Professor and DST/NRF Bio-economy Research Chair, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-cape-town-691">University of Cape Town</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/laura-pereira-321109">Laura Pereira</a>, Researcher/Lecturer at the Centre for Complex Systems in Transition, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/stellenbosch-university-1439">Stellenbosch University</a>
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-developing-countries-should-boost-the-ways-of-small-scale-farming-100097">original article</a>.

Different approach to agriculture needed: Here’s why small-scale farming should be boosted in Africa

<figure><img decoding="async" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233858/original/file-20180828-86147-1xhaopz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt="File 20180828 86147 1xhaopz.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1" /><figcaption>31moonlight31 / shutterstock</figcaption></figure>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/patrick-byrne-520375">Patrick Byrne</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/liverpool-john-moores-university-1319">Liverpool John Moores University</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/karen-hudson-edwards-538369">Karen Hudson-Edwards</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-exeter-1190">University of Exeter</a>
Nearly <a href="https://www.emarketer.com/Article/Mobile-Phone-Smartphone-Usage-Varies-Globally/1014738">five billion people</a> worldwide will use a smartphone by 2020. Each device is made up of numerous precious metals and many of the key technological features wouldn’t be possible without them. Some, like gold, will be familiar. Others, such as terbium, are less well-known.
Mining these metals is a vital activity that underpins the modern global economy. But the environmental cost can be enormous and is probably far greater than you realise. Let’s walk through some of the key metals in smartphones, what they do, and the environmental cost of getting them out of the ground.
<h2>Catastrophic mine waste spills</h2>
Iron (20%), aluminium (14%) and copper (7%) are the three <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/270454/top-10-materials-in-a-smartphone/">most common metals</a> by weight in your average smartphone. Iron is used in speakers and microphones and in stainless steel frames. Aluminium is used as a lightweight alternative to stainless steel and also in the manufacture of the strong glass used in smartphone screens. Copper is used in electric wiring.
However, enormous volumes of solid and liquid waste (termed mine “tailings”) are produced when extracting these metals from the earth. Typically, mine tailings are stored in vast impoundment structures that can be several square kilometres in area. Recent <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0883292718300246">catastrophic mine tailings spills</a> highlight the danger of improper construction methods and lax safety monitoring.
The largest spill on record occurred in November 2015 when a <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-should-we-blame-for-the-brazil-mining-dam-disaster-50521">dam collapsed</a> at an iron ore mine in Minas Gerais, Brazil, releasing approximately 33m cubic metres (enough to fill 23,000 Olympic swimming pools) of iron-rich waste into the River Doce. The waste inundated local villages killing 19 people and travelled 650km until it reached the Atlantic Ocean 17 days later.
This was just one of <a href="http://www.grida.no/publications/383">40 mine tailings spills</a> that have occurred in the past decade and the long-term ecological and human health impacts remain largely unknown. One thing is clear though – as our thirst for technology increases, mine tailings dams are increasing in number and size, and so is their risk of failure.
<h2>Ecosystem destruction</h2>
Gold and tin are common in smartphones. But mining of these metals is responsible for ecological devastation from the <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2016/05/gold-mining-shifts-course-peruvian-river-will-destroy-ecosystems/">Peruvian Amazon</a> to the tropical islands of Indonesia.
Gold in smartphones is used primarily to make connectors and wires but gold mining is a major cause of <a href="https://www.brilliantearth.com/gold-mining-environment/">deforestation</a> in the Amazon. Furthermore, extraction of gold from the earth generates waste rich in <a href="https://theconversation.com/acid-drainage-the-global-environmental-crisis-youve-never-heard-of-83515">cyanide and mercury</a> – two highly toxic substances that can contaminate drinking water and fish, with serious implications for human health.
Tin is used for soldering in electronics. Indium-tin oxide is applied to smartphone screens as a thin, transparent and conductive coating that gives touchscreen functionality. The seas surrounding Indonesia’s Bangka and Belitung Islands supplies about a third of the world’s supply. However, large-scale dredging of the seabed for the tin-rich sand has <a href="https://friendsoftheearth.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/tin_mining.pdf">destroyed the precious coral ecosystem</a> while the decline of the fishing industry has led to economic and social problems.
<h2>The most polluted place on the planet?</h2>
What makes your smartphone smart? That’ll be the rare earth elements – a group of 17 metals with weird names like praseodymium that are mined mostly in <a href="https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/mcs/2018/mcs2018.pdf">China, Russia and Australia</a>.
Often dubbed “technology metals”, rare earths are fundamental to smartphone design and function. Crystal clear smartphone speakers, microphones and phone vibration are possible due to small yet powerful motors and magnets manufactured using neodymium, dysprosium and praseodymium. Terbium and dysprosium are also used to produce the vibrant colours of a smartphone screen.
Extracting rare earths is a difficult and dirty business, typically involving the use of sulphuric and hydrofluoric acids and the production of vast amounts of highly toxic waste. Perhaps the most disturbing and thought provoking example of the environmental cost of our smartphone thirst is the “world’s tech waste lake” in <a href="http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth">Baotou, China</a>. Created in 1958, this artificial lake collects the toxic sludge from rare earth processing operations.
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The valuable metals used to manufacture smartphones are a finite resource. Recent estimates indicate we will run out of some rare earths in the next <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/112/14/4257">20 to 50 years</a>, which makes you wonder if smartphones will still be around then. Reducing the environmental impact of smartphone use requires manufacturers to increase product lifetimes, make recycling more straightforward and be open about where they source their metals and the environmental impact. Around the world mining companies have made huge strides in practising more sustainable mining. But we as consumers also need to consider smartphones as less of a throwaway item and more of a precious resource that carries an enormous environmental burden.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102148/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/patrick-byrne-520375">Patrick Byrne</a>, Senior Lecturer in Geography, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/liverpool-john-moores-university-1319">Liverpool John Moores University</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/karen-hudson-edwards-538369">Karen Hudson-Edwards</a>, Professor in Sustainable Mining, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-exeter-1190">University of Exeter</a>
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/three-ways-making-a-smartphone-can-harm-the-environment-102148">original article</a>.

Here’s how smartphones are hurting the environment

By Gary van Staden, Senior Political Analyst at NKC African Economics
The decision – of which the legality is in dispute – by councillors and provincial officials in the Nelson Mandela Bay (NMB) Metro to remove Democratic Alliance (DA) Mayor Athol Trollip in a vote of no confidence on Monday, August 27, signals the end of the coalition experiment in South Africa’s municipal governments.
It failed for the reasons it usually tends to fail: the tyranny of minorities and the elevation of position and power over principle.
While the DA announced on Tuesday, August 28, that it intended to challenge in the courts what it called “a sham and a mockery and an insult to the voters,” the fact of the matter is that these battles tend to be fought on political terrain. Even if the courts overturn the decision and reinstate Mr Trollip it would only prompt an intensified effort to get rid of him, which will, at some point, succeed.
The African National Congress (ANC) has spent the past two years attempting to reverse its electoral losses in the NMB Metro as well as in the Tshwane (Pretoria) and Johannesburg Metros by repeated motions of no confidence and political shenanigans that show no respect for the will of the people.
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), who do not want to go into the general election next year as a friend of the DA, will do everything they can to put distance between themselves and the DA by trying to assist in the removal of all DA administrations for overtly political reasons.
We expect that the combination of the ANC and the EFF will eventually remove the DA-led administrations in both Tshwane and Johannesburg while both strenuously deny they are working together. (In both those metros, an ANC-EFF coalition would have the majority of council seats.)
The courts have still to decide on the legality of events in the NMB. The deciding vote was cast after the Speaker had been fired, to prevent him casting a decider in Mr Trollip’s favour, and the DA councillor who abstained to let the motion pass had supposedly been sacked by the DA’s Federal Executive Chair James Selfe in the hours before the vote, but was still counted as present, so the DA’s case may have some merit.
Still, the fact of the matter is that the residents of the Metro who roundly rejected the ANC in 2016 now have an ANC-EFF backed executive Mayor in Mongameli Bobani of the United Democratic Movement (UDM) whose party managed less than two percent of the popular vote in 2016.
The proud kingmaker EFF managed slightly better at 5.1% in 2016.
Mr Bobani then appointed his own Mayoral Committee that comprised mainly ANC members. An ANC member is now also Speaker. This new coalition – if it can hold – is not guaranteed a smooth ride and nor are the people of NMB guaranteed that the focus of their council is going to be on service delivery and governance. More likely it is going to focus on making sure the DA cannot manage to find a voice or two and bring its own motion of no confidence.
Senior officials from the mayor down will be constantly looking over their shoulders for the next attempt to unseat them. So much for governance.
The next target, as the EFF and its allies have already made clear, is the DA administration in Tshwane that inherited a near bankrupt, faction-riddled ANC administration sinking into a bog of corruption and mismanagement.
We expect that Tshwane Mayor Solly Msimanga and his coalition crew will suffer the same fate. The ANC has yet to succeed in a motion of no confidence in the Johannesburg DA executive despite several attempts (and although it has the most seats on that council, though 15 shy of a majority), but it is going to keep on trying until it succeeds.
The new willingness of the EFF to cosy up to the ANC suggests Johannesburg’s DA-led administration is on borrowed time.
Mr Trollip, as many have pointed out, is not an easy man to get on with and he tends to make enemies relatively easily, which is how the DA alienated the UDM. But he was the representative of the party that secured the most votes in 2016 and managed to negotiate a coalition government. Now the second-placed party – and one that voters had roundly rejected, slashing its share of the vote by close to 20% – controls the Mayoral Committee and probably the mayor with his 2% share of the vote.
People and parties wear tags of democracy and the will of the people on their exposed sleeves for all to see yet are quite prepared to usurp the will of people for short-term political gain and, frankly, in a spirit of bad-tempered malice.
Not only is this usurping the will of the people: it signals that South Africa’s political environment has been Zumafied to the point where everything is about power, position and access to resources and where public service and sacrifice for the common good are campaign slogans of no further use.
Coalitions in South Africa have now become mechanisms for gaining by stealth what was lost at the ballot box and for personal gain above service. This undermines democracy and deprives the people of what should and could be a relatively stable and productive mechanism for governing.

OpEd: Is the coalition experiment over in South Africa’s municipal governments?

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; South African trade unions ended a pay dispute with state power firm Eskom on Thursday, removing a major obstacle to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s efforts to guarantee uninterrupted power supplies while reforming the struggling utility.
Three unions — the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa and Solidarity — signed a three-year deal that will see Eskom workers receive a 7.5 percent wage increase this year and a 7 percent increase in each of the following two years.
The agreement places an added burden on Eskom’s strained finances but reduces the risk of a repeat of the power outages experienced during several days in June and July that which cast a cloud over Ramaphosa’s economic reform programme.
Cash-strapped Eskom is one of the biggest threats to South Africa’s sovereign credit ratings, which are near “junk” status. It is desperate to push ahead with a turnaround plan.
The state-owned utility supplies more than 90 percent of the country’s power, has around 270 billion rand ($18.6 billion) of state-guaranteed debt and is a major employer, with around 47,000 staff, a figure its new board wants to trim to repair the firm’s balance sheet.
When talks with trade unions began several months ago, Eskom offered no increase in salaries. But it backtracked after protesting workers forced some generating units to be switched off, leading to the first power outages since 2015.
“The 2018 Eskom wage negotiations have been the most difficult ever in the history of the NUM,” the union said in a statement.
Eskom said the conclusion of the wage talks meant it could focus on its turnaround plan.
The wage deal agreed on Thursday is around 2 percent above consumer inflation-linked increases National Treasury promised as part of a fiscal consolidation plan key to Pretoria retaining its last investment grade credit rating.
Moody’s, the last of the “big three” ratings agencies to have South Africa’s sovereign rating in investment grade, said this month that the pace of fiscal consolidation in South Africa had slowed.
Analysts expressed cautious optimism about the wage deal being reached, but said it would be a drag on Eskom’s near-term financial performance and could worry ratings agencies.
“It is definitely ratings negative, but it is not the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” energy analyst Mike Levington said. “It’s good they’ve signed the agreement, but they’ve ignored the bigger problem of Eskom’s sustainability. It’s very clear that retrenchments (layoffs) are going to be part of that.”
($1 = 14.5254 rand)
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&#8211; Tanisha Heiberg, Mfuneko Toyana
Editing by Alexander Winning and Edmund Blair

The wage deal between South African unions and Eskom, the country’s power utility

Want to get rid of poverty, lessen inequality and provide financial stability in a world of precarious work? Well, why not simply give everyone enough money to ensure basic sustenance?
This is the deceptively simple solution proposed by advocates of <a href="https://theconversation.com/basic-income-is-a-radical-idea-bound-for-the-political-mainstream-heres-why-69695">universal basic income</a> (<a href="https://basicincome.org/basic-income/">UBI</a>). Just transfer enough money to everyone, every month, to guarantee a basic livelihood. The policy is universal and unconditional (you get it no matter who you are or what you do).
This means no bulky bureaucracy to administer the programme, or onerous reporting requirements on the poor. Nor do you have to wait to file paperwork to benefit: whether you lose your job, decide to strike out on a new career path or take time away from work to care for a family member, the money is already there.
But the UBI movement has a major problem: both critics and even many supporters don’t understand how much the programme would really cost. To calculate the cost, most people just multiply the size of the monthly income (say, $1,000) by the population (it’s universal, after all) and – voilà – a number that seems impossibly expensive.
But this is not how much UBI costs. The real cost – the amount of money that actually needs to be taken from someone and redistributed to someone else – is just a small fraction of these estimates.
The key to understanding the real cost of UBI is understanding the difference between the gross (or upfront) and net (or real) cost. Here’s a simple example: imagine a room with 15 people who want to set up a UBI for the room of $2 per person. The upfront cost of the policy would be $30. The ten richest people in the room are asked to contribute $3 each towards funding it. After they each put in $3, raising the total $30 needed, every person in the room gets their $2 universal basic income. But because the ten richest people in the room contributed $3, and then got $2 back as the UBI, their real, net contribution is in fact $1 each. So the real cost of the UBI is $10.
Estimates that just multiply the size of the UBI by the population of a country do the equivalent of claiming that the cost of UBI in the room above is a whopping $30. But the real cost in this scenario – the money redistributed from the wealthy – is only $10.
<h2>The billionaire’s dilemma</h2>
It’s important to understand who will be gaining money through a UBI and who will be contributing to it. The common mistake is to double count the net contributors. Yes, they get a UBI, but in contributing to the UBI pot they first return their UBI, and then throw in some money on top of that. So it’s incorrect to count them when calculating the true UBI cost.
This is a fundamental point that often gets missed: those that are taxed to pay for the UBI will get some of that cost back – by getting their UBI. You can also think about it in reverse: while the UBI goes to everyone, the rich in effect give it back in the first chunk of taxes they pay, so you don’t need to count their UBI in cost estimates.
True costs
This also resolves UBI’s “billionaire’s dilemma” – why give someone like Bill Gates a basic income? The answer is that Gates would simply return that UBI through his taxes – and help pay for others. But if Gates becomes suddenly destitute, the UBI will still be showing up for him to use every month. And since his tax bill will drop, he’ll become a net beneficiary rather than contributor.
Any UBI estimate that just multiplies the size of the UBI by the population is a red flag that the cost has been over-inflated. A true cost estimate will always discuss who the net beneficiaries will be, who the net contributors will be, and the rate at which we gradually switch people over from being beneficiaries to being contributors as they get richer (this is sometimes called the claw-back rate, the withdrawal rate or the marginal tax rate – which is not an overall tax, but simply the rate at which people start to return their UBI to the communal pot as they earn more).
Cost estimates that consider the difference between upfront and real cost are a fraction of inflated gross cost estimates. For instance, economist and philosopher Karl Widerquist <a href="https://works.bepress.com/widerquist/75/">has shown</a> that to fund a UBI of US$12,000 per adult and US$6,000 per child every year (while keeping all other spending the same) the US would have to raise an additional US$539 billion a year – less than 3% of its GDP. This is a small fraction of the figures that get thrown around of over <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/poverty-and-opportunity/commentary-universal-basic-income-may-sound-attractive-but-if-it-occurred">US$3 trillion</a> (the gross cost of this policy). Karl’s simplified scheme has people slowly start contributing back their UBI in taxes to the common pot as they earn, with net beneficiaries being anyone individually earning less than US$24,000 a year.
This point still holds if you’re raising money for UBI from other sources than income or wealth taxes. If you use a corporate or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/15/the-guardian-view-on-universal-basic-income-tax-data-giants-to-pay-for-it">data tax</a>, or a <a href="https://qz.com/1205591/a-universal-basic-income-experiment-in-alaska-shows-employment-didnt-drop/">natural resource</a> or <a href="https://basicincome.org/news/2017/02/conservative-carbon-dividend-proposal-welcome-development-introduction-partial-basic-income/">carbon tax</a> to finance a UBI, you are still redistributing money that would otherwise ultimately be profits that go to Google shareholders or BP executives. And you’re taking less away from them than you would think – because they too get a UBI. So the money they end up losing through the new tax is offset by the UBI they receive. The same holds if you’re paying for a UBI by <a href="https://medium.com/basic-income/if-we-can-afford-our-current-welfare-system-we-can-afford-basic-income-9ae9b5f186af">reshuffling your budget</a>.
Some people get confused and question whether UBI is really universal if only a portion of the population actually ends up with extra income, while another portion pays for it. But any policy that is universal yet redistributory <a href="http://www.scottsantens.com/negative-income-tax-nit-and-unconditional-basic-income-ubi-what-makes-them-the-same-and-what-makes-them-different">works this way</a>. Public transit, roads and schools are all universal benefits, but some people pay a lot for their funding through their taxes, while others enjoy them for free or at a lower cost.
In light of the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/9/8/6003359/basic-income-negative-income-tax-questions-explain">huge</a> <a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/less-work-more-time-universal-basic-income-feminist-utopia">benefits</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-new-labour-struggle-less-work-same-pay-and-basic-income-for-all-76903">available</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/time-for-degrowth-to-save-the-planet-we-must-shrink-the-economy-64195">from</a> a UBI, it’s a <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/20/15821560/basic-income-critiques-cost-work-negative-income-tax">waste</a> of time to argue <a href="https://basicincome.org/news/2017/05/real-cost-universal-basic-income/">over</a> <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/100137b4-0cdf-11e8-bacb-2958fde95e5e">wildly</a> <a href="http://socialprotection-humanrights.org/resource/universal-basic-income-proposals-in-light-of-ilo-standards-key-issues-and-global-costing-ess-%e2%94%80-working-paper-no-62/">inflated</a> <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-hughes/the-case-for-cash-for-all_b_10004590.html">cost</a> <a href="https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2015/05/23/basically-unaffordable">estimates</a>. The numbers are out there – we can pay for a basic income.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101134/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/elizaveta-fouksman-364893">Elizaveta Fouksman</a>, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-oxford-1260">University of Oxford</a>
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-universal-basic-income-costs-far-less-than-you-think-101134">original article</a>.

Here’s the true cost of the proposed ‘universal basic income’ that could lessen inequality

Urbanisation is spreading across Africa at great speed. Projections suggest that more than <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/events/2015/06/01/urbanization-in-africa-trends-promises-and-challenges">half of the total population</a> will live in urban areas by 2050. Urbanisation in Nigeria is happening at a particularly astonishing rate. The population density of urban dwellers in Nigeria is growing at an annual rate of 50 per square kilometre and it’s <a href="https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/DataQuery/">expected to rise</a> to 450.9 per square kilometre by 2050.
These urban dwellers include a large number of people over the age of 60. The number of old people on the continent is expected to rise to <a href="https://www.afro.who.int/health-topics/ageing">67 million by 2025</a>, up from an estimated 43 million in 2010. Nigeria will experience an <a href="http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/popfacts/PopFacts_2016-1.pdf">exponential increase</a> the number of older people.
These developments call for a new urbanisation agenda. A large number of old people in urban spaces in Nigeria suffer from homelessness, abuse, neglect and <a href="http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/38487/">destitution</a>. The situation is further compounded by the absence of social protection policies that can reduce vulnerability in old age.
Old people in Nigeria’s cities can’t even rely on public transport. The urban renewal has led to the phasing out of the popular Molue buses while pedestrian bridges are built in a way that makes <a href="https://www.naija.ng/479948-10-reasons-people-ignore-pedestrian-bridges-lagos.html#479948">access challenging</a> to physically challenged and older people with mobility problems. Access to safe public transportation system is one of the indicators of <a href="http://www.who.int/ageing/projects/age-friendly-cities-communities/en/">age-friendly cities and communities</a>.
Among Nigeria’s 36 states, Lagos is leading in <a href="http://www.populationconnection.org/article/african-urbanization/">urban regeneration initiatives</a>. Unfortunately, there are indications that older people and their needs are being marginalised. My research is motivated by the need to understand vulnerability and <a href="https://criticalgerontology.com/neoliberalism-resilience/">resilience in old age</a>. The findings presented here focus on what it means to grow old in the city and how urban renewal initiatives might be shaping vulnerability in old age.
<h2>The study</h2>
Data was sought through individual interviews and media reports. All these sources have their focus on demolition of markets, shops and houses in Lagos State from 2012 to 2018. The City of Lagos has a <a href="http://www.wiego.org/sites/default/files/publications/files/FIWON-Poor-Also-Must-Live-Oct2016.pdf">history of demolitions</a> of markets and neighbours that are predominantly inhabited by the less privileged. Older people are included among the victims of these demolitions. Those trading among them have <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/265284-octogenarian-others-detained-as-lagos-govt-plans-demolition-of-market.html">lost their means</a> of livelihood without the freedom to protest or any hope of compensation.
The report highlights the findings about mobility concerns, fears and experiences of using the public transportation system in Lagos.
Drawing from the experiences of 13 older people aged 60 to 78 years, the research found that the existing public transport system isn’t conducive to being used by older people.
The participants’ narratives and media reports portray the urban renewal efforts in the city as ageist and lopsided. While a great deal has been done to transform some crowded areas and commercial motor parks in the city, the changes made weren’t done in a way that helped old people. For example, pedestrian bridges had been built too high. There had also been a loss of means of livelihood and accommodation in the city.
All the interviewees had spent 29 years on average in the city. More men (8) than women had engaged in menial jobs to earn a living and have had to travel hours within traffic from one part of the city to another throughout their youthful life. The women were more into petty trading, and only one worked with one of the local government authorities before retirement.
All the interviewees had used public transport when they were younger until it became more difficult to move around the city. Even the Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) was described as mostly inaccessible. In the words of one of the interviewees:
<blockquote>I have been told that there are seats for older people in BRTs, but the drivers and commuters are often in a hurry that it becomes difficult for older people to catch up with them or even use the available seats.</blockquote>
<h2>Towards inclusive urban renewal</h2>
Urgent measures are required to avert or minimise the risks that come with using public mode of transportation in the city of Lagos. Existing public modes of transportation are in need of overhauling. Presently, the public mode of transport, pedestrian bridges and walkways are designed to reflect the needs of the young urban population. Walkways that will accommodate older people and their various mobility needs are urgently needed. Creating such pathways can enhance the safety of other social categories of commuters in the city.
More legislation and conscious efforts are required to protect the vulnerability of older people to abuse in public spaces. Buses can be provided for older people and those that are physically challenged.
The urban renewal initiatives must be inclusive and participatory. The demolition actions must be done in transparency and proper accountability. Inclusive urban regeneration framework is urgently required in addressing the existing gaps and the future mobility needs of the growing population of older people in the city. These efforts amongst others will place the City of Lagos on the march towards becoming one of the age-friendly cities in Nigeria and Africa.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101926/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/ojo-melvin-agunbiade-539700">Ojo Melvin Agunbiade</a>, Post-Doctoral Researcher, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/african-population-and-health-research-center-2107">African Population and Health Research Center</a>
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-africas-largest-city-is-failing-its-older-people-101926">original article</a>.

Why old people in Nigeria’s cities can’t even rely on public transport

<figure><img decoding="async" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229846/original/file-20180730-106505-c7vieb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt="File 20180730 106505 c7vieb.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1" /><figcaption>Cybersecurity is everyone’s problem, all over the world. 
NicoElNino/Shutterstock</figcaption></figure>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/karen-renaud-517005">Karen Renaud</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/abertay-university-1525">Abertay University</a>
Cyber criminals are <a href="https://threatmap.fortiguard.com/">extremely active</a> across the globe – and, unfortunately, also very successful. In Africa, too, businesses are losing billions to <a href="https://qz.com/africa/1303532/cybercrime-costs-businesses-in-kenya-south-africa-nigeria-billions/">cybercrime</a>.
A quick Internet search shows that governments in the Southern African Development Community aren’t really prioritising cybersecurity.
<a href="http://www.gov.bw/contentassets/1c5907f150d144fa81fef3f1cbb72b8d/2018-19_draft_budget_strategy_paper.pdf">Botswana</a> doesn’t name cyber security as one of its national priorities. Nor does <a href="http://www.gov.bw/contentassets/1c5907f150d144fa81fef3f1cbb72b8d/2018-19_draft_budget_strategy_paper.pdf">Mozambique</a>. <a href="http://www.parliament.gov.zm/sites/default/files/images/publication_docs/2018%20Budget.pdf">Zambia’s</a> 2018 budget doesn’t mention cybersecurity; nor does <a href="http://www.mof.gov.na/documents/27827/506801/Budget+Speech+2018.pdf/3f0b42f6-2c2d-4502-bca8-b84f5d6951cc?version=1.0">Namibia’s</a>. Yet African countries are not immune to cybercrime, as recent reports from <a href="https://southerntimesafrica.com/site/news/botswana-businesses-hit-by-cybercrime">Botswana</a>, <a href="https://www.techzim.co.zw/2017/11/underestimated-cybercrime-zimbabwe-time-woke-now/">Zimbabwe</a> and <a href="http://clubofmozambique.com/news/mozambique-govt-worried-about-rising-cybercrime-more-than-200-cyberattacks-in-2-years-incm/">Mozambique</a> show.
South Africa appears to be especially vulnerable. The <a href="http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/cybercrime-becoming-a-major-threat-in-south-africa-2017-09-19/rep_id:4136">US Federal Bureau of Investigation</a> ranks the country sixth and seventh on its different types of cybercrime predator list. The global WannaCry malware attack of May 2017 <a href="http://www.itwebafrica.com/security/513-africa/237876-south-africa-ivory-coast-top-list-of-african-wannacry-ransomware-targets">hit South Africa harder</a> than any other African country. It has been estimated that South African companies on average lose <a href="https://www.businessinsider.co.za/heres-just-how-much-sa-companies-are-losing-the-cyber-war-to-crooks-20180712">R36 million</a> when they fall victim to an attack. Small businesses will often not be able to sustain such heavy losses, and could stop trading after an attack.
South Africa published a <a href="https://mybroadband.co.za/news/security/149547-cybersecurity-policy-framework-for-south-africa-finally-published.html">national cybersecurity policy framework</a> in 2012. But it’s not obvious what measures have been put in place to help private individuals to become more resilient to cybercrime. This is important because, as big businesses become more proficient in repelling cyber attacks, criminals are turning their attention to <a href="https://heimdalsecurity.com/blog/how-cybercriminals-change-tactics-during-their-cyber-attacks/">small businesses and individual home users</a>.
When it comes to the individual citizen, whose responsibility is it to guard against cybercrime? <a href="https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1XSN%7Ec43ukeaU">Research we’ve conducted</a> suggests that governments have a crucial role to play. They need to support individual citizens, as well as businesses, in a more practical and proactive way, to manage this particular society risk.
For instance, they could provide individuals with free face-to-face assistance and cybersecurity support. They could give clear guidelines and provide government sanctioned security software for people to install, and make sure it’s easy to get hold of. <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/29/nyc-secure-new-york-cybersecurity-app-de-blasio/">New York</a> has recently started providing this kind of support to its residents. Based on our research, we believe there’s scope for all governments, including those in Southern Africa, to do the same.
<h2>Managing risk</h2>
Governments have different approaches to helping their citizens manage risk. For some kinds, such as smoking in private, they issue advice and leave citizens to manage the risk themselves. These can be referred to as “solo risks”.
In other cases, governments create supportive systems so that the management of a particular risk is shared between citizen and state. The split is determined by the nature of the risk and the stance adopted by the government in power. These kinds of risks can be referred to as “society risks”. Road safety is a good example of this: people have to pass tests to be permitted to drive, the authorities fine and prosecute those who drive badly, and drivers pay a yearly licence to fund the road infrastructure.
A solo risk can generally be mitigated by disseminating advice to citizens. This approach is justified if only the person who does not follow the advice is harmed. However, when a failure to manage a risk harms the community at large, advice, on its own, might be insufficient.
It’s fair to say that the cybersecurity risk is currently managed by governments in the same way as they treat private smoking &#8211; as if it were a solo risk. By and large, governments provide advice about cybersecurity risks and then leave citizens either to take security precautions, or not. This seems to be based on the assumption that only the individual computer or device owner suffers loss or harm if they fall victim to an attack.
In reality, cybersecurity attacks are like fire and disease. They seldom affect only one individual. Data that’s stolen from one person’s device is likely to include the personal details of many other people, potentially endangering the wider community. Malware and viruses also spread from one person’s device to another, much like contagious diseases.
Moreover, this is not just about financial loss; it impacts privacy too. Privacy, once lost, can never be regained. South Africa has experienced two serious privacy violations <a href="http://www.702.co.za/articles/276925/almost-30-million-sa-id-numbers-compromised-after-site-hacked,https://www.biznews.com/global-citizen/2017/10/20/biggest-ever-sa-data-breach">recently</a>, because the data had seemingly not been secured properly. Those who steal leaked personal identification data can steal identities, a <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/no-help-for-victim-of-identity-theft-20180117">harrowing experience</a> that is very difficult to recover from.
We can conclude that the cyber risk is manifestly not a solo risk, but rather a society risk. Leaving citizens alone and unaided to deal with cybersecurity threats is clearly not the best long-term strategy.
<h2>Helping home users</h2>
Every country needs to formulate a behavioural intervention programme. This means that interventions are formulated according to scientifically-proven <a href="https://www.behaviouralinsights.co.uk/publications/east-four-simple-ways-to-apply-behavioural-insights/">behavioural principles</a> to maximise uptake. This would provide support so that everyone – whether they’re business owners or home users – is able to repel and resist attacks. <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/29/nyc-secure-new-york-cybersecurity-app-de-blasio/">New York</a> has made a good start, and other governments will hopefully follow suit.
Governments could work with mobile phone providers so that security-related software updates can be batched and issued via their trusted channels. They could prompt people to install these by disseminating the need for the updates using carefully crafted text messages, and also publicise this via other media outlets.
Community leaders can also be taught about cybersecurity risks and mitigations so they can become evangelists and spread the word widely throughout rural and urban centres.
Cybercrime is not going to evaporate. It’s crucial for governments to help their citizens manage this social risk. This will protect incomes, reputations, personal and sensitive information and generally improve resilience across the board.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100771/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/karen-renaud-517005">Karen Renaud</a>, Professor of Cybersecurity, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/abertay-university-1525">Abertay University</a>
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-time-for-governments-to-help-their-citizens-deal-with-cybersecurity-100771">original article</a>.

cybersecurity_shutterstock

Are governments doing enough to help their citizens deal with cybersecurity?

<figure><img decoding="async" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232652/original/file-20180820-30596-199dq81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt="File 20180820 30596 199dq81.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1" /><figcaption>Genetic data holds a wealth of health information. 
CI Photos/Shutterstock</figcaption></figure>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/shane-c-quinonez-516128">Shane C Quinonez</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-michigan-1290">University of Michigan</a>
Genetic technologies are poised to change the world. Want to eradicate a human disease such as cystic fibrosis or improve a person’s ability to run impossible distances or lift unimaginable weights? This may be possible in the future by using something called <a href="https://www.livescience.com/58790-crispr-explained.html">CRISPR to edit</a> an organism’s genetic makeup. How about rapidly sequencing a newborn’s genome, similar to an early scene in the 1997 movie <a href="https://nerdist.com/20-year-anniversary-gattaca-genetics/">Gattaca</a>? Next-generation sequencing may make this fiction a reality.
As these technologies continue to increase in ability and decrease in cost, we may soon be living in an age of genomics-informed health care.
Unfortunately, the “we” in the previous sentence only applies to at best 7% of the world’s population. For everyone else technologies such as next-generation sequencing and CRISPR gene editing are more science fiction than nonfiction.
Low or middle-income countries are where this technology is needed the most as they harbor the largest <a href="https://www.marchofdimes.org/global-report-on-birth-defects-the-hidden-toll-of-dying-and-disabled-children-full-report.pdf">burden of birth defects</a> and genetic diseases. Yet almost all low-income countries and many middle-income countries <a href="http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2011/9789241501149_eng.pdf">lack</a> the necessary personnel, technology, infrastructure, and public and medical education capabilities needed to introduce medical genetics services.
To address this gap, my colleagues and I created the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41436-018-0069-6">MiGene Family History App</a>. It’s an Android-based mobile application that aims to introduce medical genetics services into low and middle-income countries.
The app is used by health care providers and collects and stores patient and family histories. It generates personalised genetic counselling information that can be delivered to patients and their families. And the data can also be used for epidemiologic analysis.
The app has already been piloted in an Ethiopian hospital and has since been rolled out to a teaching hospital in Ghana.
It’s important to point out that the technology the app uses is far from what’s required to perform genome sequencing or gene editing in Ethiopia. But our work is one of the many preliminary steps needed to bring attention to the need for genetic services in low and middle-income countries.
<h2>Pilot project in Ethiopia</h2>
The MiGene Family History App was designed jointly by teams at the University of Michigan and St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College in Addis Ababa. It was then programmed by xHub, a technology group in Ethiopia’s capital.
The first version of the app focuses on paediatric birth defects and genetic diseases. These include heart malformations, Down Syndrome, and neural tube defects. So we launched the app in the Paediatric and Obstetrics and Gynaecology departments at St. Paul’s. We also conducted <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41436-018-0069-6">a study</a> about the app’s value and ease of use.
MiGene was loaded onto physicians’ and nurses’ tablets. It was then used to collect data in both departments, but with a focus on the general paediatrics ward. The staff told us they found the app easy to use. The app allowed us to provide the hospital with data on the incidence of birth defects and genetic diseases in the institution. For instance, we found that <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41436-018-0069-6">approximately 12%</a> of all admitted patients were affected with a birth defect or genetic disease. Heart malformations and Down Syndrome were the most common conditions present.
Having this data will help to inform future decisions taken by Ethiopia’s ministry of health. For instance, it can assess the success of interventions such as the country’s <a href="https://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12884-017-1506-2">folic acid</a> supplementation efforts, which were introduced as a strategy to decrease the incidence of birth defects of the brain, spine, or spinal cord.
While our study was intentionally small in scope, if use of the MiGene Family History App is expanded to other regions within Ethiopia it will provide more representative population data.
One of our most interesting <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41436-018-0069-6">findings</a> was that the incidence of birth defects and genetic diseases at St. Paul’s was nearly identical to the incidence of birth defects and genetic diseases in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41436-018-0069-6">previously studied</a> children’s hospitals in high-income countries.
This confirms something that geneticists have long known: genetic disease affects everyone and doesn’t discriminate. That’s why it’s so crucial that the benefits of genetic technology are not limited to only those individuals fortunate enough to have been born into a rich country.
<h2>Taking the tech further</h2>
After the success of the pilot study in Ethiopia, MiGene Family History App has been expanded to include adult-onset non-communicable diseases such as cancer, hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. It’s still in use at St. Paul’s and is now also being used at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, Ghana.
Our future plans include improving the genetic testing capabilities available at St. Paul’s and launching a genetic counselling training curriculum at the hospital. This focus on patient and health care provider education is vital when introducing a new medical technology, such as genetic testing, into a country or region.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101702/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/shane-c-quinonez-516128">Shane C Quinonez</a>, Biochemical Geneticist, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-michigan-1290">University of Michigan</a>
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-an-app-is-helping-to-collect-genetic-data-in-ethiopia-and-ghana-101702">original article</a>.

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