On July 11, a group of men overran a polling station in Ablekuma North constituency and assaulted a candidate, forcing voting to be temporarily suspended.

Kwabena Agyekum Banahene, a reporter with GHOne TV, told CPJ that amid the turmoil, a police officer asked him to leave the area and slapped and pushed him. Banahene’s mouth was injured, according to GhanaWeb.

At the same polling station, ATV Ghana reporter Vida Wiafe was hit with pepper spray deployed by police, according to a video posted by Metro TV Ghana. CPJ could not confirm whether the journalist was deliberately targeted. 

In a third incident at the polling station, a partially masked man struck with his hand and shoved Joy News reporter Sally Martey from behind, a video posted by the outlet showed.

“The July 11 assaults on journalists Kwabena Agyekum Banahene and Sally Martey, as well as the tear-gassing of reporter Vida Wiafe, are just the latest examples of the threats regularly faced by journalists in Ghana,” said CPJ Regional Director Angela Quintal. “There has not been enough accountability for attacks on the press — it should be a top priority for authorities.”

In a July 12 statement, police promised to arrest anyone found to have engaged in acts of violence during the Ablekuma North elections. Banahene told CPJ that he reported his attack to the police and the officer involved was suspended and charged. 

In April, CPJ wrote to President John Dramani Mahama — on his 100^th day in office— to call for swift investigations into cases of attacks against the press.

CPJ’s calls and text messages seeking comment from police spokesperson Grace Ansah-Akrofi received no response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

The Forum is an intergenerational space. Young people in attendance often work alongside elders and leaders to come up with solutions and address ongoing challenges. Grist interviewed seven Indigenous youth attending UNPFII this year hailing from Africa, the Pacific, North and South America, Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Arctic.

Joshua Amponsem, 33, is Asante from Ghana and the founder of Green Africa Youth Organization, a youth-led group in Africa that promotes energy sustainability. He also is the co-director of the Youth Climate Justice Fund which provides funding opportunities to bolster youth participation in climate change solutions. 

Since the Trump administration pulled all the funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, Amponsem has seen the people and groups he works with suffer from the loss of financial help.

It’s already hard to be a young person fighting climate change. Less than one percent of climate grants go to youth-led programs, according to the Youth Climate Justice Fund.  

“I think everyone is very much worried,” he said. “That is leading to a lot of anxiety.” 

Amponsem specifically mentioned the importance of groups like Africa Youth Pastoralist Initiatives — a coalition of youth who raise animals like sheep or cattle. Pastoralists need support to address climate change because the work of herding sheep and cattle gets more difficult as drought and resource scarcity persist, according to one report. 

“No matter what happens we will stand and we will fight, and we will keep pushing for solutions,” he said.

Janell Dymus-Kurei, 32, is Māori from the East Coast of Aotearoa New Zealand. She is a fellow with the Commonwealth Fund, a group that promotes better access to healthcare for vulnerable populations.

At this year’s UNPFII, Dymus-Kurei hopes to bring attention to legislation aimed at diminishing Māori treaty rights. While one piece of legislation died this month, she doesn’t think it’s going to stop there.

She hopes to remind people about the attempted legislation that would have given exclusive Maori rights to everyone in New Zealand.

The issue gained international attention last Fall when politician Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke performed a Haka during parliament, a traditional dance that was often done before battle. The demonstration set off other large-scale Māori protests in the country. 

“They are bound by the Treaty of Waitangi,” she said. Countries can address the forum, but New Zealand didn’t make it to the UNPFII. 

“You would show up if you thought it was important to show up and defend your actions in one way, shape, or form,” she said.

This year, she’s brought her two young children — TeAio Nitana, which means “peace and divinity” and Te Haumarangai, or “forceful wind”. Dymus-Kurei said it’s important for children to be a part of the forum, especially with so much focus on Indigenous women.

“Parenting is political in every sense of the word,” she said.

Avery Doxtator, 22, is Oneida, Anishinaabe and Dakota and the president of the National Association of Friendship Centres, or NAFC, which promotes cultural awareness and resources for urban Indigenous youth throughout Canada’s territories. She attended this year’s Forum to raise awareness about the rights of Indigenous peoples living in urban spaces.

The NAFC brought 23 delegates from Canada this year representing all of the country’s regions. It’s the biggest group they’ve ever had, but Doxtator said everyone attending was concerned when crossing the border into the United States due to the Trump Administration’s border and immigration restrictions.

“It’s a safety threat that we face as Indigenous peoples coming into a country that does not necessarily want us here,” she said. “That was our number one concern. Making sure youth are safe being in the city, but also crossing the border because of the color of our skin.”

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, or UNDRIP, protects Indigenous peoples fundamental rights of self-determination, and these rights extend to those living in cities, perhaps away from their territories.

She said that she just finished her 5th year on the University of Toronto’s Water Polo Team, and will be playing on a professional team in Barcelona next year. 

Around half of Indigenous peoples in Canada live in cities. In the United States around 70 percent live in cities. As a result, many can feel disconnected from their cultures, and that’s what she hopes to shed light on at the forum — that resources for Indigenous youth exist even in urban areas.

Liudmyla Korotkykh, 26, is Crimean Tatar from Kyiv, one of the Indigenous peoples of Ukraine. She spoke at UNPFII about the effects of the Ukraine war on her Indigenous community. She is a manager and attorney at the Crimean Tatar Resource Center.

The history of the Crimean Tatars are similar to other Indigenous populations. They have survived colonial oppression from both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union — and as a result their language and way of life is constantly under threat. Crimea is a country that was annexed by Russia around a decade ago. 

In 2021, President Zelensky passed legislation to establish better rights for Indigenous peoples, but months later Russia continued its campaign against Ukraine. 

Korotkykh said Crimean Tatars have been conscripted to fight for Russia against the Tatars that are now in Ukraine. 

“Now we are in the situation where our peoples are divided by a frontline and our peoples are fighting against each other because some of us joined the Russian army and some joined the Ukrainian army,” she said. 

Korotkykh said even though many, including the Trump Administration, consider Crimea a part of Russia, hopes that Crimean Tatars won’t be left out of future discussions of their homes. 

“This is a homeland of Indigenous peoples. We don’t accept the Russian occupation,” she said. “So, when the [Trump] administration starts to discuss how we can recognize Crimea as a part of Russia, it is not acceptable to us.”

Toni Chiran, 30, is Garo from Bangladesh, and a member of the Bangladesh Indigenous Youth Forum, an organization focused on protecting young Indigenous people. The country has 54 distinct Indigenous peoples, and their constitution does not recognize Indigenous rights. 

In January, Chiran was part of a protest in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, where he and other Indigenous people were protesting how the state was erasing the word “Indigenous” — or Adivasi in Hindi — from text books. Chiran says the move is a part of an ongoing assault by the state to erase Indigenous peoples from Bangladesh.

He said that he sustained injuries to his head and chest during the protest as counter protesters assaulted their group, and 13 protesters sustained injuries. He hopes bringing that incident, and more, to the attention of Forum members will help in the fight for Indigenous rights in Bangladesh.

“There is an extreme level of human rights violations in my country due to the land related conflicts because our government still does not recognize Indigenous peoples,” he said. 

The student group Students for Sovereignty were accused of attacking Chiran and his fellow protesters. During a following protest a few days later in support of Chiran and the others injured Bangladesh police used tear gas and batons to disperse the crowd. 

“We are still demanding justice on these issues,” he said.

Aviaaija Baadsgaard, 27, is Inuit and a member of the Inuit Circumpolar Council Youth Engagement Program, a group that aims to empower the next generation of leaders in the Arctic. Baadsgaard is originally from Nuunukuu, the capital of Greenland, and this is her first year attending the UNPFII. Just last week she graduated from the University of Copenhagen with her law degree. She originally began studying law to help protect the rights of the Inuit of Greenland..

Recently, Greenland has been a global focal point due to the Trump Administration’s interest in acquiring the land and its resources – including minerals needed for the green transition like lithium and neodymium: both crucial for electric vehicles.

“For me, it’s really important to speak on behalf of the Inuit of Greenland,” Baadsgaard said.

Greenland is around 80 percent Indigenous, and a vast majority of the population there do not want the U.S. to wrest control of the country from the Kingdom of Denmark. Many more want to be completely independent. 

“I don’t want any administration to mess with our sovereignty,” she said. 

Baadsgaard said her first time at the forum has connected her to a broader discussion about global Indigenous rights — a conversation she is excited to join. She wants to learn more about the complex system at the United Nations, so this trip is about getting ready for the future.

Cindy Sisa Andy Aguinda, 30, is Kitchwa from Ecuador in the Amazon. She is in New York to talk about climate change, women’s health and the climate crisis. She spoke on a panel with a group of other Indigenous women about how the patriarchy and colonial violence affect women at a time of growing global unrest. Especially in the Amazon where deforestation is devastating the forests important to the Kitchwa tribe. 

She said international funding is how many protect the Amazon Rainforest. As an example, last year the United States agreed to send around 40 million dollars to the country through USAID — but then the Trump administration terminated most of the department in March.

“To continue working and caring for our lands, the rainforest, and our people, we need help,” she said through a translator. Even when international funding goes into other countries for the purposes to protect Indigenous land, only around 17 percent ends up in the hands of Indigenous-led initiatives. “In my country, it’s difficult for the authorities to take us into account,” she said. 

She said despite that she had hope for the future and hopes to make it to COP30 in Brazil, the international gathering that addresses climate change, though she will probably have to foot the bill herself. She said that Indigenous tribes of the Amazon are the ones fighting everyday to protect their territories, and she said those with this relationship with the forest need to share ancestral knowledge with the world at places like the UNPFII and COP30. 

“We can’t stop if we want to live well, if we want our cultural identity to remain alive,” she said.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline From Greenland to Ghana, Indigenous youth work for climate justice on Apr 25, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Taylar Dawn Stagner.

On October 20, at least 10 armed security guards working for Edelmetallum Resources Limited, a mining company operating in Ghana, detained and beat journalist Erastus Asare Donkor, camera technician Edward Suantah, drone pilot Majid Alidu, and driver Arko Edward as they reported on alleged environmental degradation associated with one of the company’s mines, according to Donkor and Edward, who spoke with CPJ.

“Authorities in Ghana must swiftly investigate and hold accountable the security guards of Edelmetallum Resources Limited responsible for attacking journalists and media workers Erastus Asare Donkor, Edward Suantah, Majid Alidu, and Arko Edward,” said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ’s Africa Program, in Johannesburg. “Reporting on environmental degradation is a matter of public interest, and too often no one is held accountable when the press in Ghana is attacked.”

The guards seized at least five phones, five drone batteries, a Lenovo tablet, a branded press jacket, and a headset, Donkor and Edward told CPJ. After forcing the crew to drive away with them, the guards deleted all information on at least two phones and made them delete their images. They also beat the media workers with their hands for at least 30 minutes. The guards later returned only the phones.

After the attack, Donkor had difficulty using his right eye, Edward had a swollen face, and Suantah and Alidu had ringing in their ears, according to Donkor and Edward.

The crew reported the attack to police and led them to the site, but the guards refused to go to the police station, Donkor said. Police later announced that three of the attackers had surrendered and were granted bail, he said.

CPJ’s calls to police spokesperson Grace Ansah-Akrofi for comment on the investigation went unanswered.

Edelmetallum’s managing director, Philip Edem Kutsienyo, said by phone that he did not want to speak with CPJ.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Ndeeya told CPJ he was filming several NPP supporters arguing with a police officer when he noticed one of the supporters pointing at him. The journalist stopped filming out of fear, but four of the supporters, one of whom had an NPP-branded handkerchief tied around his head, approached the journalist and began punching and kicking him all over his body, according to Ndeeya and and video of the attack reviewed by CPJ. 

Ndeeya said that another NPP supporter intervened after about two minutes, by pulling Ndeeya away, identifying him as a journalist, and pleading with the assailants to stop. He took Ndeeya to a nearby military van to wait as he retrieved the journalist’s phone.

Before returning the phone to Ndeeya, the man checked to ensure that all of that day’s footage had been deleted. The journalist told CPJ he was not sure when the footage was deleted but he believed that his assailants were responsible. Ndeeya said he sustained cuts around his mouth and pain in his knee and a tooth, and visited a local hospital where he was given medication. 

Ndeeya and Ibrahim Angaangmeni Alhassan, chief editor of Zaa Multimedia, said their office reported the attack to the police, who arrested one suspect and later released him on bail, and investigations were ongoing.

Bawumia is the NPP’s presidential candidate in Ghana’s upcoming December elections, when he hopes to win a third term for the party against the opposition’s John Mahama, who served as president from 2012 to 2017.

Akbar Yussif Rohullah Khomeini, NPP spokesperson and special aide to Bawumia, told CPJ via messaging app that he was aware that NPP supporters had attacked the journalist, but the incident had nothing to do with the party’s meeting.

CPJ also requested comment from the NPP’s northern region spokesperson Yussif Danjuma via phone and messaging app, and from police spokesperson Grace Ansah-Akrofi via phone and text message but received no replies. 

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

On April 25, four unidentified men on two motorbikes threw petrol bombs inside the privately owned Class Media Group’s office in the Labone district of Ghana’s capital Accra, and fled the scene, according to media reports and Class Media Group Operations Officer Theodore Edwards, who spoke to CPJ by phone. 

Class Media Group owns nine local radio stations across the country, including Class 91.3FM, Accra 100.5FM, KUMASI 104.1FM, No.1 105.3FM Accra , Ho FM, Adehyee FM, Taadi FM, Dagbon FM and Sunyani FM; the C TV television broadcaster, and the Class FM news site, according to Patrick Ayumu, an editor with the website who spoke with CPJ by phone and messaging app.

The Accra attack shattered the media outlet’s door, including the entryway glass leading to the office corridor, but no staff members were injured, according to Edwards and Ayumu, and footage of the attack reviewed by CPJ.

“Authorities in Ghana must swiftly and comprehensively conclude their investigation into the firebomb attack on Class Media Group’s office in Accra, ensure that the attackers are held to account, and step-up actions to ensure that the press can operate safely,” said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ’s Africa program, in New York. “This attack is a frightening reminder of the dangers media workers face in Ghana, where the murder of journalist Ahmed Hussein-Suale Divela in January 2019 remains unsolved, and numerous attacks on other journalists are carried out with impunity.”

Edwards told CPJ that Class Media occasionally received online complaints about their reporting, which covers a wide variety of subjects, but the complaints were general and did not seem linked to the attack. Edwards and Ayumu told CPJ that they did not immediately see a motive for the attack on their office.

Class Media Group reported the firebomb attack to police on April 25, but Ayumu said on Friday May 3, that police were still investigating and had not updated them on any developments.

On April 26, President of the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association Cecil Thomas Sunkwa-Mills condemned the attack, said that it was crucial for police to investigate, and called on Class Media’s management to increase its office security, according to Ayumu and a media report. 

In an earlier incident in Accra, on January 16, 2019, men on a motorcycle shot and killed Ghanaian journalist Ahemed Hussein-Suale Divela, and those responsible have yet to be identified and held accountable. Last year, CPJ documented a years-long pattern of impunity in attacks on the press in Ghana. 

CPJ’s calls and text messages on May 3 to the Ghana police spokesperson, Grace Ansah-Akrofi, went unanswered.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director.

Alabira, a correspondent for privately owned broadcaster Citi FM, told CPJ he was covering the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) parliamentary primaries on January 27 in the northern town of Yendi when an unidentified man approached the counting area and accused an electoral official of destroying ballot papers. The man’s allegation resulted in an uproar among NPP party supporters, who began destroying ballot papers and electoral equipment, according to Alabira and a colleague, who witnessed the incident and spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal. 

When Alabira approached Farouk Aliu Mahama, an NPP member of parliament, for comment, the politician slapped the journalist’s face and kicked his leg, according to Alabira and his colleague. Mahama’s security guard then grabbed Alabira by the neck and seized his phone before several party supporters began hitting and punching the journalist on his head and back.

The attack on Alabira lasted about three minutes, during which an attacker smashed Alabira’s phone screen before police intervened and pulled Alabira to safety, according to those sources and video of the incident reviewed by CPJ.

CPJ recently documented the attack on another Ghanaian journalist, David Kobbena, a morning show host with the privately owned broadcaster Cape FM, at the office of the Central Regional Minister, who is a member of the NPP, in the central Cape Coast region on January 4. 

“Authorities in Ghana must ensure a comprehensive investigation into the January 27 attack on journalist Mohammed Aminu M. Alabira, hold those responsible to account, and guarantee that journalists feel safe to report on political activities ahead of national elections later this year,” said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ’s Africa program, from New York. “Repeated attacks against the press in Ghana by politically affiliated individuals are concerning and suggest an unacceptable disrespect for journalists’ crucial role in democracy.”  

Alabira and his colleague said police officers took Alabira in their van to a nearby police station, where officers took his statement and gave him a form for a medical professional to complete. Alabira was examined at the local hospital, where he was given medication for a headache and chest pains.

The journalist said that police had told him they were referring the case to the attorney general’s office.

Alabira told CPJ on February 1 that he still suffers from a headache and chest pain from the incident and could not use his phone until repairing the screen on January 30. On February 5, he told CPJ that he still experiences occasional pain, but it had become less frequent.

When contacted by phone, Mahama declined to speak to CPJ but shared a document prepared by his lawyers, which accused Alabira of falsely saying in an online publication by his outlet that Mahama had slapped the journalist from behind and threatened legal action if the article wasn’t retracted and Mahama didn’t receive an apology for defamation in seven days. 

Alabira told CPJ that he had never described Mahama as hitting him from behind, only from the front. CPJ’s review of the report on January 31 showed that it did not include Alabira saying Mahama slapped him from behind.

The Ghana Journalists Association called on police to arrest Mahama and his supporters and hold them accountable for the attack.

On February 6, four media rights groups—the Media Foundation for West Africa, the Ghana Journalists Association, the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association, and the Private Newspapers and Online News Publishers Association of Ghana—issued a statement calling on NPP leaders and police authorities to hold Mahama and his supporters accountable within 10 days or face further actions from the associations, according to CPJ’s review of the statement. The associations also called on media organizations to avoid covering Mahama. 

CPJ called and texted the Ghanaian Minister of Information Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, national police spokesperson Grace Ansah Akrofi, and NPP General Secretary Justin Kodua Frimpong for comment but received no response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

About 15 people, several of whom were wearing pro-NPP T-shirts, confronted and assaulted Kobbena while he was covering an event at the party’s offices on January 4, 2024, in the central Cape Coast region, according to news reports and Kobbena, who spoke to CPJ by phone.

Kobbena told CPJ that he reported the incident to police that same day and provided officers with pictures of three suspects involved in the attack but had not received any updates as of January 26.

“The attack on David Kobbena is a worrying sign for the safety of journalists covering politics in Ghana as the country prepares for its December 2024 general elections,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Angela Quintal, from New York. “Authorities should credibly investigate Kobbena’s assault and end the disturbing trend of impunity for attacks on the press in Ghana. The New Patriotic Party should also take appropriate disciplinary action if any of its members were involved in the attack and guarantee that journalists can cover its events safely.”

Kobbena said that he was confronted by two women dressed in T-shirts branded with a picture of NPP parliamentarian Mavis Hawa Komsoon shortly after he arrived at the party’s offices to cover the vetting of candidates to run for parliament in this year’s elections. The women mistook Kobbena for another journalist and accused him of insulting Komsoon during a program on the privately owned broadcaster UTV, according to Kobbena and Sorkpor Kafui Kofi Justice, a regional correspondent with the privately owned broadcaster Adom TV, who witnessed the incident and spoke with CPJ.

Kobbena protested that he did not work for UTV, had not appeared on the program, and showed the women a press card showing that he worked for Cape FM. Although the women walked away, a man approached Kobbena with the same accusation, and the journalist said a crowd of NPP supporters quickly gathered around him and started assaulting him.

They slapped and punched him in the face and all over his body, according to the two journalists. Kobbena, who said some of the attackers were also wearing Komsoon-branded T-shirts, was rescued by other journalists who pulled him away from the assailants. Kobbena said he suffered cuts on his lips, pain in his back and ribs, as well as a headache, adding that he was treated for his injuries and takes pain medication. 

Justice said he reported the incident to the NPP central regional organizer, Anthony Kwesi Sackey. Contacted by CPJ, Sackey accused Kobbena of lying, saying that the journalist had earlier reported to Sackey that he had been attacked by two people and not 15. Sackey said that he gave Kobbena money for treatment and said that the NPP condemns attacks on the press.

Kobbena confirmed that Sackey gave him 1,400 cedis (US$115.73) for his treatment but said that the money was insufficient to cover the cost. 

In a January 25 statement, the Ghana Journalists Association said that no investigations had been carried out into Kobbena’s assault and called for a news blackout on Komsoon, who also serves as Ghana’s Minister for Fisheries and Aquaculture Development. 

CPJ’s calls and text messages to Samson Baaba, the police officer in charge of the investigation, Ghana’s National Police Spokesperson Grace Ansah-Akrofi, and Koomson went unanswered.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

On October 19, six soldiers attacked and beat Morkah, a morning show host with the privately owned Akyemansa FM broadcaster, after Morkah began filming the soldiers attacking a man in the Birim Central Municipal District of Ghana’s Eastern Region, according to a report by the privately owned Modern Ghana news website and Morkah, who spoke by phone with CPJ.

After noticing Morkah was filming, a soldier approached the journalist, grabbed his shirt by the neck and began to hit him, demanding to know why Morkah was filming. Morkah said five other soldiers then joined in hitting and kicking him all over his body, even as he told them he was a journalist.

“Authorities in Ghana must ensure that those responsible for beating journalist Nicholas Morkah are held accountable,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, in New York. “Ghana’s leadership have so far failed to take the necessary actions to ensure security forces do not perpetrate violence against journalists.”

The soldiers seized Morkah’s cell phone, forced him into their van, and then hit Morkah with his motorcycle helmet at least five times before driving the journalist to their local barracks, where they erased everything on his phone by resetting it. They also accused the journalist of offending them.  

While at the barracks, a senior officer requested that Morkah provide a contact for Yaw Yeboah, Akyemansa FM’s manager, then called Yeboah, informed him of Morkah’s arrest, and said the outlet would be prevented from covering future military events, Morkah told CPJ. Officers at the barracks also found Morkah’s second phone and searched it, Morkah said.

Officers then took Morkah to the local police command, where officers interrogated him, handed him a document alleging he had committed “offensive conduct,” and made him write a statement about the incident on that document.  

Morkah said the officers released him the same day without charge on administrative bail for which he had to provide a surety and verbal assurances that he would be available for further questioning. He returned the next day and retrieved both of his phones.

After his release, Morkah said he went to a hospital where he was given medication for severe pain in his knee, back, and head, as well as cuts on his lips and head from the attack. Morkah said the cuts have healed, but added he was still in pain more than a week later.

Morkah filed a police complaint on October 23 and Akyemansa FM wrote to the National Media Commission, which is a national media regulator, the Ghana Journalists Association, a local trade group, as well as officials with Ghana Armed Forces and the Information Ministry, according to Morkah and the privately owned Joy Online news website.

According to a statement by the Ghana Journalists Association provided to CPJ, the Ghana Armed Forces expressed “readiness” to investigate the incident and hold those responsible to account. CPJ contacted Ghana Armed Forces’ director of public relations, Micheal Addo Larbi, at a phone number and email address he provided, but he did not respond.

Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, who owns the broadcaster where the journalist works, told CPJ that the armed forces were indeed investigating and promised a report would be out “soon.” The journalist said he had been questioned in the investigation.

CPJ reporting has identified a “broad pattern of impunity” in attacks on the press in Ghana, including by security forces.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Wu Fang (China), 行走 (‘Journey’), 2017.

In his 1963 book, Africa Must Unite, Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president, wrote, ‘We have here, in Africa, everything necessary to become a powerful, modern, industrialised continent. United Nations investigators have recently shown that Africa, far from having inadequate resources, is probably better equipped for industrialisation than almost any other region in the world’. Here, Nkrumah was referring to the Special Study on Economic Conditions and Development, Non-Self-Governing Territories (United Nations, 1958), which detailed the continent’s immense natural resources. ‘The true explanation for the slowness of industrial development in Africa’, Nkrumah wrote, ‘lies in the policies of the colonial period. Practically all our natural resources, not to mention trade, shipping, banking, building, and so on, fell into, and have remained in, the hands of foreigners seeking to enrich alien investors, and to hold back local economic initiative’. Nkrumah further expanded upon this view in his remarkable book, Neo-Colonialism: the Last Stage of Imperialism (1965).

As the leader of Ghana’s government, Nkrumah devised a policy to reverse this trend by promoting public education (with an emphasis on science and technology), building a robust public sector to provide his country with infrastructure (including electricity, roads, and railways), and developing an industrial sector that would add value to the raw materials that had previously been exported at meagre prices. However, such a project would fail if it were only tried in one country. That is why Nkrumah was a great champion of African unity, articulated at length in his book Africa Must Unite (1963). It was because of his determination that African countries formed the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) the same year as his book was published. In 1999, the OAU became the African Union.

As Ghana and Africa made small strides to establish national and continental sovereignty, some people had other ideas. Nkrumah was removed from office in a Western-backed coup in 1966, five years after Patrice Lumumba was ejected as prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and then assassinated. Anyone who wanted to build a project for the sovereignty of the continent and the dignity of the African people would find themselves either deposed, dead, or both.

Guo Hongwu (China), 革命友谊深如海 (‘Revolutionary Friendship Is as Deep as the Ocean’), 1975.

The Western-backed governments that followed these coups often reversed the policies to exercise national sovereignty and build continental unity. For instance, in 1966, the military leaders of Ghana’s National Liberation Council began to gut the policy of establishing quality public education and an efficient public sector with industrialisation and continental trade at its centre. Import-substitution policies that had been important to the new Third World states were rejected in favour of exporting cheapened raw materials and importing expensive finished products. The spiral of debt and dependency wracked the continent. This situation was worsened by the International Monetary Fund’s Structural Adjustment Programmes, set in motion during the worst of the 1980s debt crisis. A 2009 research paper from the South Centre noted that ‘the continent is the least industrialised region of the world, while the share of sub-Saharan Africa in global manufacturing value added actually declined in most sectors between 1990 and 2000’. Indeed, the South Centre paper referred to the situation in Africa as one of ‘de-industrialisation’.

In April 1980, African leaders gathered in Lagos, Nigeria, under the aegis of the OAU to deliberate about the harsh climate created by the IMF’s Structural Adjustment Programmes, which targeted their fiscal policies but did nothing to change the adverse international credit markets. Out of this meeting came the Lagos Plan of Action (1980–2000), whose main argument was for African states to establish their sovereignty from international capital and to build industrial policies for their countries and for the continent. This was, in essence, a renewal of the Nkrumah policy of the 1960s. Alongside the Lagos Plan of Action, the United Nations established the Industrial Development Decade for Africa (1980–1990). Towards the end of that decade, in 1989 the OAU – cognisant of the policy’s failure due to the deepening of neoliberal approaches that slashed budgets and intensified the export-oriented theft of African resources – worked with the United Nations to establish 20 November as Africa Industrialisation Day. The failure of the Industrial Development Decade for Africa was followed by a second decade (1993–2002) and then a third (2016–2025). In January 2015, the African Union adopted Agenda 2063 to combine the imperative of industrialisation with Africa’s commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals. These ‘decades’ and Agenda 2063 have become merely symbolic. There is no agenda to undo external debt and debt servicing burdens nor any policy to create a climate to advance industrial development or finance the provision of basic needs.

Pan Jianglong (China), 撒哈拉以东 (‘To the East of the Sahara’), 2017.

At the China-Africa Leaders’ Dialogue, held on the side-lines of the fifteenth BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) summit in Johannesburg, China launched the Initiative on Supporting Africa’s Industrialisation ‘to support Africa in growing its manufacturing sector and realising industrialisation and economic diversification’. The Chinese government pledged to increase its funding to build infrastructure, design and create industrial parks, and assist African governments and firms in developing their industrial policies and industries. This new initiative will build off of China’s commitments at the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation to strengthen infrastructure on the continent, share its own experiences with industrialisation, and support a development project that emerges out of the African experience rather than one forced upon African states by the IMF or other agencies.

This week, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and Dongsheng launched the third issue of the international edition of the journal Wenhua Zongheng (文化纵横), entitled ‘China-Africa Relations in the Belt and Road Era’. This issue features three articles, written by Grieve Chelwa, Zhou Jinyan, and Tang Xiaoyang. Professor Zhou, concurring with the South Centre report, notes that ‘African countries were essentially de-industrialised’ since the 1980s and that whatever growth African countries experienced was a consequence of high commodity prices for exported raw materials. She points out that Western countries – offering debt, aid, and structural adjustment – are ‘not motivated to promote African industrialisation’. Drawing heavily from the UN Economic Commission for Africa and analysing the industrial policies of most African countries, Professor Zhou highlights four important points: first, the state must play an active role in any industrial development; second, industrialisation must take place on a regional and continental level – not within African states alone, given that 86 percent of Africa’s total trade is ‘still conducted with other regions of the world, not within the continent; third, urbanisation and industrialisation must be coordinated so that cities on the continent do not continue to grow into large slums filled with jobless youth; and fourth, manufacturing will be the engine of African economic development rather than the fantasy of service sector-led growth.

These points guide Professor Zhou’s assessment of how China can support the process of African industrialisation. In sharing its experiences with African countries, she notes that ‘China’s failures’ are as important as its successes.

Zhao Jianqi (China), 回望故乡 (‘Longing for Home’), n.d.

In his essay, Professor Tang tracks the record of the Chinese-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on the continent. Established in 2013, the BRI is only a decade old, which barely allows enough time to fully assess this massive, global infrastructural and industrial development project. At the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (April 2019), UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, ‘With the scale of its planned investments, [the BRI] offers a meaningful opportunity to contribute to the creation of a more equitable, prosperous world for all, and to reversing the negative impact of climate change’. In 2022, the UN released a report on the role of the BRI called Partnering for a Brighter Shared Future, which noted that the BRI – unlike most other development projects – provided significant funding for infrastructure projects that may form the basis for industrialisation in regions that had previously been exporters of raw materials and importers of manufactured products.

Building on such assessments of the BRI, Professor Tang offers three practical ways in which the BRI has promoted industrialisation on the African continent: first, by constructing industrial parks with integrated power sources and creating industrial clusters of interconnected firms; second, by building industries to supply infrastructural materials; and third, by prioritising production for local markets rather than for export. Unlike the IMF policies that are forced on African countries, Professor Tang argues that ‘China encourages each country to follow its own path of development and to not blindly follow any model’.

Neither Tang nor Zhou nor Chelwa indicate that China is somehow the saviour of Africa. Those days are gone. No country or continent seeks its salvation elsewhere. Africa’s path will be built by Africans. Nonetheless, given its own experiences of building manufacturing against a structure that reproduces dependency, China has a lot to share. Since it has enormous financial reserves and does not impose Western-styled conditionality, China can, of course, be a source of financing for alternative development projects.

In December 2022, African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina said that ‘Africa’s prosperity must no longer depend on exports of raw materials but on value-added finished products’. ‘Across Africa’, he continued, ‘we need to turn cocoa beans into chocolate, cotton into textiles and garments, coffee beans into brewed coffee’. To keep in step with the times, we might add that Africa must also turn cobalt and nickel into lithium-ion batteries and electric cars and turn copper and silver into smartphones. Inside Adesina’s statement is Nkrumah’s dream: as he wrote in 1963, we have here, in Africa, everything necessary to become a powerful, modern, industrialised continent.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Vijay Prashad.

It’s been over four years since assassins came to their neighborhood, waited for their sibling, investigative journalist Ahmed Hussein-Suale Divela, and then shot him in his car. “We heard the gunshot,” Tahidu recalled in a recent interview with CPJ. “Someone ran and said that they were killing our brother.”  

Sitting steps from the crime scene, Tahidu expressed frustration with the failure by Ghanaian authorities to apprehend those responsible. Certain political elites have not been sufficiently scrutinized, he said, and his speaking out about the murder had brought new threats.

The lack of accountability in Divela’s case is indicative of a broader pattern of impunity for crimes against journalists in the West African country, often seen as one of the region’s most stable democracies with a high degree of media freedom. As with cases of other journalists attacked in recent years, Tahidu expressed dismay that officials had not been more supportive and communicative about their investigations.

Ghana’s presidential election is scheduled for December 2024 and opposition candidate John Mahama recently committed to “speed up” the investigation into Divela’s January 2019 killing. But words from authorities have offered the family little clarity or comfort. “They promised to get results very soon,” Tahidu said, recalling a conversation with Ghanaian Inspector General of Police George Akuffo Dampare following his appointment back in 2021. “Soon is yet to come.”

Divela decided to become a journalist out of dissatisfaction with inflation and the economic situation for average people in Ghana, his family told CPJ. He worked as a reporter with Tiger Eye Private Investigations, an investigative journalism group headed by Anas Aremeyaw Anas. The identities of Tiger Eye PI members are not publicly known, as they operate largely undercover to document alleged wrongdoing by those in positions of power.

The year before the murder, Anas and Divela received public threats from Kennedy Agyapong, a prominent member of Ghana’s ruling party now seeking to be Ghana’s president. The threats came ahead of the release of a Tiger Eye PI film exposing alleged corruption among African football officials, including then president of the Ghana Football Association Kwesi Nyantakyi. The documentary, “Number 12,” caused an uproar in Ghana’s soccer world when it aired in 2018, prompting Nyantakyi’s resignation and world governing body FIFA to ban him for life from football-related activities.

In March, a Ghanaian judge dismissed Anas’ defamation suit brought in response to Agyapong’s comments. A similar defamation suit filed in the U.S. is ongoing.

According to a Forbidden Stories investigation into Divela’s killing, Agyapong said he had “nothing to do with this murder.” Police said they questioned Agyapong – described as being close to Nyantakyi – as part of their preliminary investigation, but Tahidu believes the politician has not been adequately investigated. “He thinks he [is] above the law,” Tahidu said. CPJ’s calls to Agyapong did not connect, nor did calls to his brother, Ralph Agyapong, who also serves as his lawyer.

Tahidu told CPJ he reacted with furious disbelief when police showed him a cheap cell phone without internet capabilities as the device Nyantakyi handed over for the murder investigation. Tahidu did not believe something so low-tech could be the primary device of a once-powerful sports boss and said it suggested the authorities had not taken their job seriously. Local media reported that police seized phones and computers from Nyantakyi months before Divela’s murder as part of their fraud investigations related to the allegations from Tiger Eye PI’s film, but Tahidu said police did not mention these to Divela’s family.

CPJ reached Nyantakyi by phone, but when asked about the police investigation into him after the killing, he said, “OK, thank you” and then the line disconnected. Follow-up calls rang unanswered.     

Anas, who only allows himself to be photographed with his face covered, told CPJ that police had summoned him twice to give statements. The first was immediately after the killing and the second was more recently after a new homicide unit opened to investigate cold cases. Anas said he explained his working relationship with Divela and told police he did not have any information about the murder.

Tahidu now serves as the sole spokesperson for the family because of threats they’ve received. Tahidu told CPJ that in the period after the murder he was followed by a blue car with tinted windows and also received a call from an anonymous number. “If you know what happened to Ahmed, then you better shut up,” a voice said on the line before disconnecting. Tahidu informed the Ghana police of both incidents, but received no follow up.

Unus Alhassan, another of Divela’s brothers who previously spoke for the family, told CPJ in a phone interview that he left Ghana in 2020 over safety concerns related to his speaking about the killing. Two unidentified men had followed him on a motorbike in Accra and his friends speculated that he may be targeted further, Alhassan said. He too filed a police report, but has not received any follow-up.

CPJ visited the Ghana police headquarters in Accra in March to request an interview about Divela’s case and other investigations into attacks on journalists in the country, but was told no one was available to speak. Officers there provided a Google email address for media requests. CPJ emailed that address and another listed on the police website requesting an interview, but received no response. Police similarly did not respond to questions about Divela and 30 other journalists arrested, threatened, or physically attacked since January 2019.

“We only feel totally neglect[ed], as if we are not Ghanaians in our own country,” Tahidu said, emphasizing that he and his family will continue pressing for answers. “If it is left with this Ghanaian law enforcers, I’m afraid it will always be a talk show.” Tahidu also refuses to let anyone else in his family become a journalist. He knows why his brother Ahmed entered the profession, but vows to prevent anyone else he loves from doing something so dangerous.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Jonathan Rozen.

In April 2018, the president of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, said that Ghana has “not offered a military base, and will not offer a military base to the United States of America.” His comments came after Ghana’s parliament had ratified a new defense cooperation agreement with the United States on March 28, 2018, which was finally signed in May 2018. During a televised discussion, soon after the agreement was formalized in March 2018, Ghana’s Minister of Defense Dominic Nitiwul told Kwesi Pratt Jr., a journalist and leader of the Socialist Movement of Ghana, that Ghana had not entered into a military agreement with the United States. Pratt, however, said that the military agreement was a “source of worry” and was “a surrender of our [Ghanaian] sovereignty.”

In 2021, the research institute of Pratt’s Socialist Movement produced—along with the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research—a dossier on the French and U.S. military presence in Africa. That dossier—“Defending Our Sovereignty: U.S. Military Bases in Africa and the Future of African Unity”—noted that the United States has now established the West Africa Logistics Network (WALN) at Kotoka International Airport in Accra, the capital of Ghana. In 2019, then-U.S. Brigadier General Leonard Kosinski said that a weekly U.S. flight from Germany to Accra was “basically a bus route.” The WALN is a cooperative security location, which is another name for a U.S. military base.

Now, four years later after the signing of the defense cooperation agreement, I spoke with Kwesi Pratt and asked him about the state of this deal and the consequences of the presence of the U.S. base on Ghanaian soil. The WALN, Pratt told me, has now taken over one of the three terminals at the airport in Accra, and at this terminal, “hundreds of U.S. soldiers have been seen arriving and leaving. It is suspected that they may be involved in some operational activities in other West African countries and generally across the Sahel.”

U.S. Soldiers Don’t Need Passports

A glance at the U.S.-Ghana defense agreement raises many questions. Article 12 of the agreement states that the U.S. military can use the Accra airport without any regulations or checks, with U.S. military aircraft being “free from boarding and inspection” and the Ghanaian government providing “unimpeded access to and use of [a]greed facilities and areas to United States forces.” Pratt told me that this agreement allows U.S. soldiers “far more privileges than those prescribed in the Vienna Convention for diplomats. They do not need passports to enter Ghana. All they need is their U.S. Army identity cards. They don’t even require visas to enter Ghana. They are not subject to customs or any other inspection.”

Ghana has allowed the United States armed forces “to use Ghanaian radio frequencies for free,” Pratt said. But the most stunning fact about this arrangement is that, he said, “If U.S. soldiers kill Ghanaians and destroy their properties, the U.S. soldiers cannot be tried in Ghana. Ghanaians cannot sue U.S. soldiers or the U.S. government for compensation if and when their relatives are killed, or their properties are destroyed by the U.S. Army or soldiers.”

Why Would Ghana Allow This?

The U.S.-Ghana agreement permits this disregard for Ghana’s sovereignty. Pratt told me that the political ideology of the Ghanaian government that is in power now has been to adhere to a long history of appeasement toward the demands made by colonial and Western states, beginning with Britain—which was the colonial power that ruled over the Gold Coast (the former name for Ghana) until 1957—and leading up to providing “unimpeded access” to the United States troops under the defense deal.

The current president of Ghana, Akufo-Addo, comes from the political ideology that the former prime minister of Ghana (1969-1972) Kofi Abrefa Busia also conformed to. In the early 1950s, Pratt told me, those following this ideology “dispatched a delegation to the United Kingdom to persuade the authorities that it was too early to grant independence to the Gold Coast.” This led to a coup in Ghana, where those supporting this ideology “collaborated with the Central Intelligence Agency to overthrow the [then-President of Ghana] Kwame Nkrumah government on February 24, 1966, and resisted [imposing] sanctions against the South African apartheid regime in 1969,” Pratt said. The current government, Pratt added, will do anything to please the United States government and its allies.

Why Is the United States Interested in Ghana?

The United States claims that its military presence on the African continent has to do with its counterterrorism campaign and aims to prevent the entry of China into this region. “There is no Chinese military presence in Ghana,” Pratt told me, and indeed the idea of Chinese presence is being used by the United States to deepen its military control over the continent for more prosaic reasons.

In 2001, then-U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney’s National Energy Policy Development Group published the National Energy Policy. The contents of this report show, Pratt told me, that the United States understood that it could “no longer rely on the Middle East for its energy supplies. A shift to West Africa for [meeting the] U.S. energy needs is imperative.” Apart from West Africa’s energy resources, Ghana “has huge national resources. It is currently the largest producer of gold in Africa and… [is among the top 10 producers] of gold in the world. It is the second-largest producer of cocoa in the world. It has iron, diamond, manganese, bauxite, oil and gas, lithium, and abundant water resources, including the largest man-made lake in the world.” Apart from these resources, Ghana’s location on the equator makes it valuable for agricultural development, and its large bank of highly educated English-speaking professionals makes it valuable for meeting the demands of the West’s service sector.

Apart from these economic issues, Pratt said, the United States government has intervened in Ghana—including in the coup of 1966—to prevent it from having a leadership role in the decolonization process in Africa. More recently, the United States has found Ghana to be a reliable ally in its various military and commercial projects across the continent. It is toward those projects, and not the national interest of the Ghanaian people, Pratt said, that the United States has now built its base in a part of Accra’s civilian airport.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Vijay Prashad.

The horrific scenario, however, awaits countries in the Global South which, unlike Germany, will not be able to eventually substitute Russian raw material from elsewhere. Countries like Tunisia, Sri Lanka and Ghana and numerous others, are facing serious food shortages in the short, medium and long term.

The World Bank is warning of a “human catastrophe” as a result of a burgeoning food crisis, itself resulting from the Russia-Ukraine war. The World Bank President, David Malpass, told the BBC that his institution estimates a “huge” jump in food prices, reaching as high as 37%, which would mean that the poorest of people would be forced to “eat less and have less money for anything else such as schooling.”

This foreboding crisis is now compounding an existing global food crisis, resulting from major disruptions in the global supply chains, as a direct outcome of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as pre-existing problems, resulting from wars and civil unrest, corruption, economic mismanagement, social inequality and more.

Even prior to the war in Ukraine, the world was already getting hungrier. According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), an estimated 811 million people in the world “faced hunger in 2020”, with a massive jump of 118 million compared to the previous year. Considering the continued deterioration of global economies, especially in the developing world, and the subsequent and unprecedented inflation worldwide, the number must have made several large jumps since the publishing of FAO’s report in July 2021, reporting on the previous year.

Indeed, inflation is now a global phenomenon. The consumer price index in the United States has increased by 8.5% from a year earlier, according to the financial media company, Bloomberg. In Europe, “inflation (reached) record 7.5%”, according to the latest data released by Eurostat. As troubling as these numbers are, western societies with relatively healthy economies and potential room for government subsidies, are more likely to weather the inflation storm, if compared to countries in Africa, South America, the Middle East and many parts of Asia.

The war in Ukraine has immediately impacted food supplies to many parts of the world. Russia and Ukraine combined contribute 30% of global wheat exports. Millions of tons of these exports find their way to food-import-dependent countries in the Global South – mainly the regions of South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. Considering that some of these regions, comprising some of the poorest countries in the world, have already been struggling under the weight of pre-existing food crises, it is safe to say that tens of millions of people already are, or are likely to go, hungry in the coming months and years.

Another factor resulting from the war is the severe US-led western sanctions on Russia. The harm of these sanctions is likely to be felt more in other countries than in Russia itself, due to the fact that the latter is largely food and energy independent.

Although the overall size of the Russian economy is comparatively smaller than that of leading global economic powers like the US and China, its contributions to the world economy makes it absolutely critical. For example, Russia accounts for a quarter of the world’s natural gas exports, according to the World Bank, and 18% of coal and wheat exports, 14% of fertilizers and platinum shipments, and 11% of crude oil. Cutting off the world from such a massive wealth of natural resources while it is desperately trying to recover from the horrendous impact of the pandemic is equivalent to an act of economic self-mutilation.

Of course, some are likely to suffer more than others. While economic growth is estimated to shrink by a large margin – up to 50% in some cases – in countries that fuel regional and international growth such as Turkey, South Africa and Indonesia, the crisis is expected to be much more severe in countries that aim for mere economic subsistence, including many African countries.

An April report published by the humanitarian group, Oxfam, citing an alert issued by 11 international humanitarian organizations, warned that “West Africa is hit by its worst food crisis in a decade.” Currently, there are 27 million people going hungry in that region, a number that may rise to 38 million in June if nothing is done to stave off the crisis. According to the report, this number would represent “a new historic level”, as it would be an increase by more than a third compared to last year. Like other struggling regions, the massive food shortage is a result of the war in Ukraine, in addition to pre-existing problems, lead amongst them the pandemic and climate change.

While the thousands of sanctions imposed on Russia are yet to achieve any of their intended purpose, it is poor countries that are already feeling the burden of the war, sanctions and geopolitical tussle between great powers. As the west is busy dealing with its own economic woes, little heed is being paid to those suffering most. And as the world is forced to transition to a new global economic order, it will take years for small economies to successfully make that adjustment.

While it is important that we acknowledge the vast changes to the world’s geopolitical map, let us not forget that millions of people are going hungry, paying the price for a global conflict of which they are not part.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Ramzy Baroud.

On Twitter K. Diallo recently posted a map of the continent with the sum of Canadian mining investment in each African country under the words “75% of mining companies globally are now Canadian. Canada is a great source of corporate neocolonialism expansion.” The tweet received 25,000 likes and 8,500 retweets.

But the map is dated. It said there was $31.6 billion worth of Canadian mining investment in Africa yet Natural Resources Canada put the number at $37.8 billion in 2019. The scope of Canadian resource extraction on the continent is remarkable. Many companies based and traded here have taken African names (African Queen Mines, Asante Gold Corporation, Tanzanian Royalty Exploration, Lake Victoria Mining Company, Société d’Exploitation Minière d’Afrique de l’Ouest, East Africa Metals, International African Mining Gold (IAMGOLD), African Gold Group, etc.).

Canadian resource companies operating in Africa receive significant government support. Amongst a slew of pro-mining measures, Justin Trudeau’s government has put up more than $100 million in assistance for mining related projects in Africa, signed Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements and backed Barrick Gold during a high-profile conflict with the Tanzanian government.

A similar Facebook meme on Ghana has also circulated widely in recent days. Appearing to originate from a statement posted by Kgoshi Mmaphuti Uhuru Mokwele, it notes:

Ghana is the biggest gold producing country in Africa & 8th in the world, but 93.3% of Ghana’s gold is owned by foreign corporations, mainly America and Canada. Ghana owns less than 2% of all the Gold in their land. Ghana has to borrow money from the IMF & World Bank to buy their own Gold, which is on their land, mined by Ghanaian workers, using Ghana’s resources. The price of the Gold is set in New York & can only be purchased with American dollar.

Canada has certainly contributed to the Ghanaian (and African) impoverishment Mokwele alludes to. Alongside their counterparts from the US and Britain, Canadian officials participated in the 1944 Bretton Woods negotiations that established the IMF and World Bank and Ottawa continues to have outsized influence within those institutions. Tens of millions of dollars in Canadian aid money has supported IMF structural adjustment policies of privatization, liberalization and social spending cuts in Ghana, which benefited Canada’s rapacious mining industry.

After a high profile Canadian-financed structural adjustment program in the late 1980s NGO worker Ian Gary explained its impact:

Ghana’s traditional sources of income — gold, cocoa, and timber — have benefited from the program, but this has only exacerbated the colonial legacy of dependence. Nearly all of the $1.5 billion worth of private foreign investment has been in mining, with most of the profits being repatriated overseas. ‘User fees’ for health care services and education have been introduced. Disincentives to food producers, and the damage caused to local rice producers by cheap rice imports, led to increased malnutrition and lower food security. Rapid and indiscriminate liberalization of the trade regime hurt local industry, while cutbacks in the public sector shed 15 per cent of the waged work force.

But Canadian support for colonial exploitation goes back much further.

Ottawa began dispersing aid to African countries as a way to dissuade newly independent states from following wholly independent paths or falling under the influence of the Communist bloc. A big part of Canada’s early assistance went to train militaries, including the Ghanaian military that overthrew pan-Africanist independence leader Kwame Nkrumah in 1966. After Nkrumah’s removal Canadian High Commissioner C.E. McGaughey wrote External Affairs in Ottawa that “a wonderful thing has happened for the West in Ghana and Canada has played a worthy part.” McGaughey boasted about the effectiveness of Canada’s Junior Staff Officers training program noting that “all the chief participants of the coup were graduates of this course.” (Canadian major Bob Edwards, who was a training advisor to the commander of a Ghanaian infantry brigade, discovered preparations for the coup the day before its execution, but said nothing.)

During the colonial period Ottawa offered various forms of support to European rule in Ghana and elsewhere on the continent. Beginning in the early 1900s Canadian officials worked to develop commercial relations with the British colony and in 1938 Canada’s assistant trade commissioner in London, H. Leslie Brown, spent three weeks in the Gold Coast. In 1947 Alcan commenced operations there through its purchase of West African Aluminum Limited.

Numerous Canadians played a role in the British colonial service in Ghana. In 1921 former Canadian Lieutenant E.F.L. Penno was appointed assistant commander of the Gold Coast police and was later made overall commander. At the start of the 1900s Galt, Ontario, born Frederick Gordon Guggisberg helped mark over 300 mining and timber concessions in Ashanti and the Gold Coast, which aided Britain’s Ashanti Gold Corporation extract six million ounces of gold from the colony. After two decades moving up in the colonial service Guggisberg was governor of Ghana from 1919 to 1927 (a Canadian governed Kenya and Northern Nigeria as well).

Canadian missionaries and soldiers also played a role in subjugating Ghana at the turn of the 19th century. According to Global Affairs, “In 1906, Québec missionaries established a church in Navrongo in northern Ghana, thus marking the arrival of a Canadian presence in the country.” Oscar Morin and Leonide Barsalou set up the first White Fathers post in the Gold Coast where Canadians would dominate the church for half a century.

Numerous Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) trained individuals fought the Ashanti in turn-of-the-19th-century wars. RMC graduate Captain Duncan Sayre MacInnes helped construct an important fort at the Ashanti capital of Kumasi and the son of a Canadian senator participated in a number of subsequent expeditions to occupy the hinterland of modern Ghana. For more than half a century a selected fourth year RMC cadet has been awarded the Duncan Sayre MacInnes Memorial Scholarship.

Scratch the surface of African history and you’ll find Canadian involvement in colonial rule. This country’s role in the impoverishment of Ghana and Africa in general deserves far greater attention.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Yves Engler.

To answer the above questions, one has to appreciate the new Great Game under way in many parts of the world, especially in Africa, which has always been significant to Israel’s geopolitical designs. Starting in the early 1950s to the mid-70s, Israel’s Africa network was in constant expansion. The 1973 war, however, brought that affinity to an abrupt end.

What Changed Africa

Ghana, in West Africa, officially recognized Israel in 1956, just eight years after Israel was established atop the ruins of historic Palestine. What seemed like an odd decision at the time – considering Africa’s history of western colonialism and anti-colonial struggles – ushered in a new era of African-Israeli relations. By the early 1970s, Israel had established a strong position for itself on the continent. On the eve of the 1973 Israeli-Arab war, Israel had full diplomatic ties with 33 African countries.

“The October War”, however, presented many African countries with a stark choice: siding with Israel – a country born out of Western colonial intrigues – or the Arabs, who are connected to Africa through historical, political, economic, cultural and religious bonds. Most African countries opted for the latter choice. One after the other, African countries began severing their ties with Israel. Soon enough, no African state, other than Malawi, Lesotho and Swaziland, had official diplomatic relations with Israel.

Then, the continent’s solidarity with Palestine went even further. The Organization of African Unity – the precursor to the African Union – in its 12th ordinary session held in Kampala in 1975, became the first international body to recognize, on a large scale, the inherent racism in Israel’s Zionist ideology by adopting Resolution 77 (XII). This very Resolution was cited in the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379, adopted in November of that same year, which determined that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination”. Resolution 3379 remained in effect until it was revoked by the Assembly under intense American pressure in 1991.

Since Israel remained committed to that same Zionist, racist ideology of yesteryears, the only rational conclusion is that it was Africa, not Israel, that changed. But why?

First, the collapse of the Soviet Union. That seismic event resulted in the subsequent isolation of pro-Soviet African countries which, for years, stood as the vanguard against American, Western and, by extension, Israeli expansionism and interests on the continent.

Second, the collapse of the unified Arab front on Palestine. That front has historically served as the moral and political frame of reference for the pro-Palestine, anti-Israel sentiments in Africa. This started with the Egyptian government’s signing of the Camp David Agreement, in 1978-79 and, later, the Oslo Accords between the Palestinian leadership and Israel, in 1993.

Covert and overt normalization between Arab countries and Israel continued unabated over the last three decades, resulting in the extension of diplomatic ties between Israel and several Arab countries, including African-Arab countries, like Sudan and Morocco. Other Muslim-majority African countries also joined the normalization efforts. They include Chad, Mali and others.

Third, the ‘scramble for Africa’ was renewed with a vengeance. The neocolonial return to Africa brought back many of the same usual suspects – Western countries, which are, once more, realizing the untapped potential of Africa in terms of markets, cheap labor and resources. A driving force for Western re-involvement in Africa is the rise of China as a global superpower with keen interests in investing in Africa’s dilapidated infrastructure. Whenever economic competition is found, military hardware is sure to follow. Now several Western militaries are openly operating in Africa under various guises – France in Mali and the Sahel region, the US’ many operations through US Africa Command (AFRICOM), and others.

Tellingly, Washington does not only serve as Israel’s benefactor in Palestine and the Middle East, but worldwide as well, and Israel is willing to go to any length to exploit the massive leverage it holds over the US government. This stifling paradigm, which has been at work in the Middle East region for decades, is also at work throughout Africa. For example, last year the US administration agreed to remove Sudan from the state-sponsored terror list in exchange for Khartoum’s normalization with Israel. In truth, Sudan is not the only country that understands – and is willing to engage in – this kind of ‘pragmatic’ – read under-handed – political barter. Others also have learned to play the game well. Indeed, by voting to admit Israel to the AU, some African governments expect a return on their political investment, a return that will be exacted from Washington, not from Tel Aviv.

Unfortunately, albeit expectedly, as Africa’s normalization with Israel grew, Palestine became increasingly a marginal issue on the agendas of many African governments, who are far more invested in realpolitik – or simply remaining on Washington’s good side – than honoring the anti-colonial legacies of their nations.

Netanyahu the Conqueror

However, there was another driving force behind Israel’s decision to ‘return’ to Africa than just political opportunism and economic exploitation. Successive events have made it clear that Washington is retreating from the Middle East and that the region was no longer a top priority for the dwindling American empire. For the US, China’s decisive moves to assert its power and influence in Asia are largely responsible for the American rethink. The 2012 US withdrawal from Iraq, its ‘leadership from behind’ in Libya, its non-committal policy in Syria, among others, were all indicators pointing to the inescapable fact that Israel could no longer count on the blind and unconditional American support alone. Thus, the constant search for new allies began.

For the first time in decades, Israel began confronting its prolonged isolation at the UNGA. America’s vetoes at the UN Security Council may have shielded Israel from accountability to its military occupation and war crimes; but US vetoes were hardly enough to give Israel the legitimacy that it has long coveted. In a recent conversation with former UN human rights envoy, Richard Falk, the Princeton Professor Emeritus explained to me that, despite Israel’s ability to escape punishment, it is rapidly losing what he refers to as the ‘legitimacy war’.

Palestine, according to Falk, continues to win that war, one that can only be achieved through real, grassroots global solidarity. It is precisely this factor that explains Israel’s keen interest in transferring the battlefield to Africa and other parts of the Global South.

On July 5, 2016, then Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, kick-started Israel’s own ‘scramble for Africa’ with a visit to Kenya, which was described as historic by the Israeli media. Indeed, it was the first visit by an Israeli prime minister in the last 50 years. After spending some time in Nairobi, where he attended the Israel-Kenya Economic Forum alongside hundreds of Israeli and Kenyan business leaders, he moved on to Uganda, where he met leaders from other African countries including South Sudan, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Tanzania. Within the same month, Israel announced the renewal of diplomatic ties between Israel and Guinea.

The new Israeli strategy flowed from there. More high-level visits to Africa and triumphant announcements about new joint economic ventures and investments followed. In June 2017, Netanyahu took part in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), held in the Liberian capital, Monrovia. There, he went as far as rewriting history.

“Africa and Israel share a natural affinity,” Netanyahu claimed in his speech. “We have, in many ways, similar histories. Your nations toiled under foreign rule. You experienced horrific wars and slaughters. This is very much our history.” With these words, Netanyahu attempted, not only to hide Israel’s colonial intentions, but also rob Palestinians of their own history.

Moreover, the Israeli leader had hoped to crown his political and economic achievements with the Israel-Africa Summit, an event that was meant to officially welcome Israel, not to a specific African regional alliance, but to the whole of Africa. However, in September 2017, the organizers of the event decided to indefinitely postpone it, after it was confirmed to be taking place in Lome, capital of Togo, on October 23-27 of that same year. What was seen by Israeli leaders as a temporary setback was the result of intense, behind-the-scenes lobbying of several African and Arab countries, including South Africa and Algeria.

Premature ‘Victory’

Ultimately, it was a mere temporary setback. The admission of Israel into the 55-member African bloc in July is considered by Israeli officials and media pundits as a major political victory, especially as Tel Aviv has been laboring to achieve this status since 2002. At the time, many obstacles stood in the way, like the strong objection raised by Libya under the leadership of Muammar Ghaddafi and the insistence of Algeria that Africa must remain committed to its anti-Zionist ideals, and so on. However, one after the other, these obstacles were removed or marginalized.

In a recent statement, Israel’s new Foreign Minister, Yair Lapid, celebrated Israel’s Africa membership as an “important part of strengthening the fabric of Israel’s foreign relations”. According to Lapid, the exclusion of Israel from the AU was an “anomaly that existed for almost two decades”. Of course, not all African countries agree with Lapid’s convenient logic.

According to TRT news, citing Algerian media, 17 African countries, including Zimbabwe, Algeria and Liberia, have objected to Israel’s admission to the Union. In a separate statement, South Africa expressed outrage at the decision, describing the “unjust and unwarranted decision of the AU Commission to grant Israel observer status in the African Union” as “appalling”. For his part, Algerian Foreign Minister, Ramtane Lamamra, said that his country will “not stand idly by in front of this step taken by Israel and the African Union without consulting the member states.”

Despite Israel’s sense of triumphalism, it seems that the fight for Africa is still raging, a battle of politics, ideology and economic interests that is likely to continue unabated for years to come. However, for Palestinians and their supporters to have a chance at winning this battle, they must understand the nature of the Israeli strategy through which Israel depicts itself to various African countries as the savior, bestowing favors and introducing new technologies to combat real, tangible problems. Being more technologically advanced as compared to many African countries, Israel is able to offer its superior ‘security’, IT and irrigation technologies to African states in exchange for diplomatic ties, support at the UNGA and lucrative investments.

Consequently, Palestine’s Africa dichotomy rests partly on the fact that African solidarity with Palestine has historically been placed within the larger political framework of mutual African-Arab solidarity. Yet, with official Arab solidarity with Palestine now weakening, Palestinians are forced to think outside this traditional box, so that they may build direct solidarity with African nations as Palestinians, without necessarily merging their national aspirations with the larger, now fragmented, Arab body politic.

While such a task is daunting, it is also promising, as Palestinians now have the opportunity to build bridges of support and mutual solidarity in Africa through direct contacts, where they serve as their own ambassadors. Obviously, Palestine has much to gain, but also much to offer Africa. Palestinian doctors, engineers, civil defense and frontline workers, educationists, intellectuals and artists are some of the most highly qualified and accomplished in the Middle East. True, they have much to learn from their African peers, but also have much to give.

Unlike persisting stereotypes, many African universities, organizations and cultural centers serve as vibrant intellectual hubs. African thinkers, philosophers, writers, journalists, artists and athletes are some of the most articulate, empowered and accomplished in the world. Any pro-Palestine strategy in Africa should keep these African treasures in mind as a way of engaging, not only with individuals but with whole societies.

Israeli media reported extensively and proudly about Israel’s admission to the AU. The celebrations, however, might also be premature, for Africa is not a group of self-seeking leaders bestowing political favors in exchange for meager returns. Africa is also the heart of the most powerful anti-colonial trends the world has ever known. A continent of this size, complexity, and proud history cannot be written off as if a mere ‘prize’ to be won or lost by Israel and its neocolonial friends.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Ramzy Baroud.

This story was published in partnership with the Center for Public Integrity and The World.

For decades, fertilizer was too expensive for African farmers. It had to be imported, and transportation into the continent was expensive.

Now, though, Africa is turning a corner toward producing more of it locally. A Moroccan company has signed a nearly $4 billion deal to build a fertilizer plant in Ethiopia. A Danish company is helping the Democratic Republic of Congo build a $2.5 billion fertilizer plant. The African Development Bank Group helped fund a new fertilizer plant in Nigeria that’s already boosting farmers’ yields.

And this August in Ghana, the vice president stood proudly before the largest fertilizer plant ever built in the country. Mahamudu Bawumia said the factory was the solution Ghana’s farmers had been demanding.

“This factory can meet all of Ghana’s demand for fertilizer,” he told a crowd that clapped enthusiastically.

African countries have some of the lowest rates of fertilizer use in the world, but efforts to change this come with some serious dilemmas. Some nutrients farmers add to the soil both nourish crops and contribute to the climate change that’s already damaging food production in Africa. Fertilizer runoff contaminates water, too. In the United States, where fertilizer use is high, managing these downsides has proved difficult.

The ultramodern facility, in the coastal town of Tema, Ghana, cost nearly $5 million to build — and is wholly owned by Ghanaians. It’s the first in a national plan to build fertilizer plants in every district of the country.

“We therefore don’t have any reason to be furthermore importing more and more fertilizer and wasting our foreign exchange,” Bawumia said.

The wide acceptance and government support for fertilizer in Africa has been a long time coming.

“You had efforts to get fertilizer adopted in the ’60s, the ’70s, but it didn’t become a success because the cost-benefit were not favorable at all,” said Henk Breman, who was Africa director for IFDC, the International Fertilizer Development Center.

He said there was also resistance to fertilizer from some in Africa who — remembering the colonialism that dominated the continent — didn’t want to be dependent on foreign corporations. Or they preferred more natural farming because fertilizers contribute to climate change. But Breman said natural “biological” methods won’t produce enough food.

“That will not feed the African population at present,” he said. Adding, “Nevertheless, those who believe in biological agriculture hate me.”

As African governments turn toward encouraging farmers to use fertilizer and building plants that produce it, Breman said farmers will still face challenges, because, especially in the beginning, fertilizer needs to be applied generously and consistently to eventually make soil productive. That’s a big initial expense that many African farmers with small plots can’t afford.

While governments are trying to address that problem with subsidies, another problem has cropped up: As fertilizer production in Africa has increased, so have reports of it being stolen and smuggled.

“Usually [the government agriculture department] supplies us with fertilizer,” said 80-year-old Okyeame Ampadu, a farmer in the interior Volta Region of Ghana. But he said he hasn’t received fertilizer from the government for two years.

Ampadu raises citrus fruit and coconuts, and now he’s trying his hand with avocados because he hasn’t had much luck with any crops. In a dark shed, he keeps one last burlap bag of fertilizer, leaning up against a wall, stamped with the letters N, P, K, for Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium. The bag’s still mostly full; Ampadu said he’s saving it for when he really needs it.

So, while public-private partnerships have built fertilizer plants across Africa — like the one that just opened in Ghana — fertilizer isn’t getting into the hands of small and medium farmers in remote areas. Marie Claire Kalihangabo, who finances fertilizer projects for the African Development Bank Group, said the continent’s governments need to consider new options.

“We have seen some achievement,” she acknowledged at a fertilizer conference last year. “But [the] private sector has to play a key role. And they have to play a key role in ensuring that fertilizer gets to the farmer, at the right time, in the right moment.”

African governments have made great strides with the public-private partnerships that have allowed them to build fertilizer plants. Kalihangabo said it may take similar partnerships to solve this last, stubborn problem of actually getting fertilizer in the hands of farmers.

“We all know that agriculture is the key in the development of the continent,” she said. And the key to successful agriculture in Africa is more fertilizer.

This story was published in partnership between Grist, the Center for Public Integrity — a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom that investigates betrayals of public trust — and The World, a radio program that crosses borders and time zones to bring home the stories that matter.

This story was published in partnership with the Center for Public Integrity and The World.

For decades, fertilizer was too expensive for African farmers. It had to be imported, and transportation into the continent was expensive.

Now, though, Africa is turning a corner toward producing more of it locally. A Moroccan company has signed a nearly $4 billion deal to build a fertilizer plant in Ethiopia. A Danish company is helping the Democratic Republic of Congo build a $2.5 billion fertilizer plant. The African Development Bank Group helped fund a new fertilizer plant in Nigeria that’s already boosting farmers’ yields.

And this August in Ghana, the vice president stood proudly before the largest fertilizer plant ever built in the country. Mahamudu Bawumia said the factory was the solution Ghana’s farmers had been demanding.

“This factory can meet all of Ghana’s demand for fertilizer,” he told a crowd that clapped enthusiastically.

African countries have some of the lowest rates of fertilizer use in the world, but efforts to change this come with some serious dilemmas. Some nutrients farmers add to the soil both nourish crops and contribute to the climate change that’s already damaging food production in Africa. Fertilizer runoff contaminates water, too. In the United States, where fertilizer use is high, managing these downsides has proved difficult.

The ultramodern facility, in the coastal town of Tema, Ghana, cost nearly $5 million to build — and is wholly owned by Ghanaians. It’s the first in a national plan to build fertilizer plants in every district of the country.

“We therefore don’t have any reason to be furthermore importing more and more fertilizer and wasting our foreign exchange,” Bawumia said.

The wide acceptance and government support for fertilizer in Africa has been a long time coming.

“You had efforts to get fertilizer adopted in the ’60s, the ’70s, but it didn’t become a success because the cost-benefit were not favorable at all,” said Henk Breman, who was Africa director for IFDC, the International Fertilizer Development Center.

He said there was also resistance to fertilizer from some in Africa who — remembering the colonialism that dominated the continent — didn’t want to be dependent on foreign corporations. Or they preferred more natural farming because fertilizers contribute to climate change. But Breman said natural “biological” methods won’t produce enough food.

“That will not feed the African population at present,” he said. Adding, “Nevertheless, those who believe in biological agriculture hate me.”

As African governments turn toward encouraging farmers to use fertilizer and building plants that produce it, Breman said farmers will still face challenges, because, especially in the beginning, fertilizer needs to be applied generously and consistently to eventually make soil productive. That’s a big initial expense that many African farmers with small plots can’t afford.

While governments are trying to address that problem with subsidies, another problem has cropped up: As fertilizer production in Africa has increased, so have reports of it being stolen and smuggled.

“Usually [the government agriculture department] supplies us with fertilizer,” said 80-year-old Okyeame Ampadu, a farmer in the interior Volta Region of Ghana. But he said he hasn’t received fertilizer from the government for two years.

Ampadu raises citrus fruit and coconuts, and now he’s trying his hand with avocados because he hasn’t had much luck with any crops. In a dark shed, he keeps one last burlap bag of fertilizer, leaning up against a wall, stamped with the letters N, P, K, for Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium. The bag’s still mostly full; Ampadu said he’s saving it for when he really needs it.

So, while public-private partnerships have built fertilizer plants across Africa — like the one that just opened in Ghana — fertilizer isn’t getting into the hands of small and medium farmers in remote areas. Marie Claire Kalihangabo, who finances fertilizer projects for the African Development Bank Group, said the continent’s governments need to consider new options.

“We have seen some achievement,” she acknowledged at a fertilizer conference last year. “But [the] private sector has to play a key role. And they have to play a key role in ensuring that fertilizer gets to the farmer, at the right time, in the right moment.”

African governments have made great strides with the public-private partnerships that have allowed them to build fertilizer plants. Kalihangabo said it may take similar partnerships to solve this last, stubborn problem of actually getting fertilizer in the hands of farmers.

“We all know that agriculture is the key in the development of the continent,” she said. And the key to successful agriculture in Africa is more fertilizer.

This story was published in partnership between Grist, the Center for Public Integrity — a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom that investigates betrayals of public trust — and The World, a radio program that crosses borders and time zones to bring home the stories that matter.

The southern African nation is rolling out the shots in an unusual pilot program along with Kenya and Ghana. Unlike established vaccines that offer near-complete protection, this new one is only about 40% effective. But experts say it’s worth a try as progress against malaria stalls: Resistance to treatment is growing and the global drop in cases has leveled off.

With the vaccine, the hope is to help small children through the most dangerous period of their lives. Spread by mosquito bites, malaria kills more than 400,000 people every year, two-thirds of them under 5 and most in Africa.

Seven-month-old Charity Nangware received a shot on a rainy December day at a health clinic in the town of Migowi. She watched curiously as the needle slid into her thigh, then twisted up her face with a howl.

“I’m very excited about this,” said her mother, Esther Gonjani, who herself gets malaria’s aches, chills and fever at least once a year and loses a week of field work when one of her children is ill. “They explained it wasn’t perfect, but I feel secure it will relieve the pain.”

There is little escaping malaria — “malungo” in the local Chichewa language — especially during the five-month rainy season. Stagnant puddles, where mosquitoes breed, surround the homes of brick and thatch and line the dirt roads through tea plantations or fields of maize and sugar cane.

In the village of Tomali, the nearest health clinic is a two-hour bike ride away. The longer it takes to get care, the more dangerous malaria can be. Teams from the clinic offer basic medical care during visits once or twice a month, bringing the malaria shot and other vaccines in portable coolers.

Treating malaria takes up a good portion of their time during the rainy season, according to Daisy Chikonde, a local health worker.

“If this vaccine works, it will reduce the burden,” she said.

Resident Doriga Ephrem proudly said her 5-month-old daughter, Grace, didn’t cry when she got the malaria shot.

When she heard about the vaccine, Ephrem said her first thought was “protection is here.” Health workers explained, however, that the vaccine is not meant to replace antimalarial drugs or the insecticide-treated bed net she unfolds every night as the sun sets and mosquitoes rise from the shadows.

“We even take our evening meals inside the net to avoid mosquitoes,” she said.

It took three decades of research to develop the new vaccine, which works against the most common and deadly of the five parasite species that cause malaria. The parasite’s complex life cycle is a huge challenge. It changes forms in different stages of infection and is far harder to target than germs.

“We don’t have any vaccines against parasites in routine use. This is uncharted territory,” said Ashley Birkett, who directs PATH’s Malaria Vaccine Initiative, a nonprofit that helped drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline develop the shot, brand-named Mosquirix.

The bite of an infected mosquito sends immature parasites called sporozoites into the bloodstream. If they reach the liver, they’ll mature and multiply before spewing back into the blood to cause malaria’s debilitating symptoms. At that point, treatment requires medicines that kill the parasites.

Mosquirix uses a piece of the parasite — a protein found only on sporozoites’ surface — in hopes of blocking the liver stage of infection. When a vaccinated child is bitten, the immune system should recognize the parasite and start making antibodies against it.

Scientists also are searching for next-generation alternatives. In the pipeline is an experimental vaccine made of whole malaria parasites dissected from mosquitoes’ salivary glands but weakened so they won’t make people sick. Sanaria Inc. has been testing its vaccine in adults, and is planning a large, late-stage study in Equatorial Guinea’s Bioko Island.

And the U.S. National Institutes of Health soon will start initial tests of whether injecting people periodically with lab-made antibodies, rather than depending on the immune system to make them, could offer temporary protection during malaria season. Think of them as “potentially short-term vaccines,” NIH’s Dr. Robert Seder told a recent meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

For now, only babies in parts of Malawi, Kenya and Ghana are eligible for the Mosquirix vaccine. After the vaccine was approved in 2015, the World Health Organization said it first wanted a pilot roll-out to see how well it worked in a few countries — in real-world conditions — before recommending that the vaccine be given more widely across Africa.

“Everyone is looking forward to getting it,” said Temwa Mzengeza, who oversees Malawi’s vaccine programs. Those eager for the shots include her husband, whom she had to stop from trying to get them, she said.

Mzengeza used to come down with malaria several times a year until she started following her own advice to sleep under a net every night. Unlike many other kinds of infections, people can get malaria repeatedly, building up only a partial immunity.

In the pilot program that began last year, 360,000 children in the three countries are meant to be vaccinated annually. The first dose is given at about age 5 months and the final, fourth booster near the child’s second birthday.

Experts say it is too early to know how well the vaccine is working. They’re watching for malaria deaths, severe infections and cases of meningitis, something reported during studies but not definitively linked to the vaccine.

“To do something completely new for malaria is exciting,” said researcher Don Mathanga, who is leading the evaluation in Malawi.

The rainy season has brought new challenges, making some rural roads impassable and complicating efforts to track down children due for a shot. So far in Malawi, the first dose reached about half of the children targeted, about 35,000. That dropped to 26,000 for the second dose and 20,000 for the third.

That’s not surprising for a new vaccine, Mzengeza said. “It will pick up with time.”

At the health clinic in Migowi in Malawi’s southern highlands, workers see signs of hope. Henry Kadzuwa explains the vaccine to mothers waiting at the clinic. He said there was a drop in malaria cases to 40 in the first five months of the program, compared to 78 in the same period in 2018.

Even though he wishes his 3-year-old daughter, Angel, could receive the vaccine, “it’s protecting my community. It also makes my work easier,” Kadzuwa said. The Migowi area has one of the country’s highest rates of malaria, and a worn paper register in the clinic’s laboratory lists scores of cases.

At the clinic, Agnes Ngubale said she had malaria several years ago and wants to protect her 6-month-old daughter, Lydia, from the disease.

“I want her to be healthy and free,” she said. “I want her to be a doctor.”

And she has memorized the time for Lydia’s second dose: “Next month, same date.”

Neergaard reported from Washington.