New publications

The authors of this article, published open access in Health Systems & Reform, use three years of household panel data to analyse the effects of ill-health on household economic outcomes in rural Ethiopia. They examine the immediate effects of various ill-health measures on health expenditure and labour supply, the subsequent coping responses, and finally the effect on income and consumption. The need for health financing reforms and safety nets that reduce the financial consequences of ill-health is underlined.

The stakes of longitudinal ethnographic research come to the fore particularly starkly in relation to studies of violence. More specifically, longitudinality potentially both enhances certain risks inherent to carrying out research on violence, while also offering unique opportunities for better understanding the phenomenon more reflexively. Lidewyde Berckmoes, Marie Rosenkrantz Lindegaard and Dennis Rodgers wrote an introduction to a special volume of Conflict and Society. Open access!

On the occasion of the Africa 2020 year, the ASCL created Infosheets about the countries that became independent in 1960. One year later, Sierra Leone was the next in line: on 27 April 1961 it gained political independence from the United Kingdom. Read about the country's recent history, its demographic, social-economic and agricultural developments and regional inequality.

This volume, based on papers that were given at the conference 'Destination Africa' (held in March 2018), challenges received ideas of Africa as a marginal continent and place of exodus by considering the continent as a centre of global connectivity and confluence. Flows of people, goods, and investments towards Africa have increased and diversified over recent decades. In light of these changes, the contributions analyse new actors in such diverse fields as education, trade, infrastructure, and tourism.

Ethiopia is holding parliamentary elections on 21 June at a time of immense domestic turmoil and foreign pressure. This is due to, in particular, the Tigray conflict, the COVID-19 pandemic and other ethnic-based violence. Ethiopia has always been a complex and volatile country, but the confluence of these pressures in 2021 is unique, and dangerous. Still, the elections are better held than delayed again, Jan Abbink writes in The Conversation.