News & Events

The COVID-19 epidemic has exposed the limitations of South Africa’s democracy. Very little has been achieved to address the critical issue of racialized poverty in the country. At the heart of it all is the failure of the democratic state to resolve the land question, writes Lungisile Ntsebeza of the University of Cape Town, who received an honorary doctorate from Leiden University on 7 February. Read his post in the ASCL Africanist Blog!

Simone Reinders wrote a blog on behalf of a Leiden Edinburgh Research Group that focuses on inequalities in higher education in Africa. She asked two experts on higher education in Ethiopia: How have COVID-19 and the consequent shutdown of universities affected equity and inclusivity?

This book, published in 2019, explores Africa’s vulnerability to disease and epidemics, as well as how recent epidemics have been dealt with and controlled. The authors make a case for a multi-faceted approach to building effective national health systems and combating epidemics, arguing that political, socio-economic and environmental factors are all at play. A good read given the challenge which Africa and the world now face in the form of COVID-19. Read the Library Highlight!

This volume, published by Brill in the African Dynamics series and edited by Klaas van Walraven, investigates the development of biographical study in African history and historiography. In addition to methodological insights, the book offers many case studies, e.g. of Abdullah Abdurahman (first South African politician of colour elected to public office), Cornelius Badu (born in 1847 in Elmina, Gold Coast, current Ghana), and politicians like Barthélémy Boganda (CAR) and Laurent Kabila (DRC).

ASCL researcher Rahmane Idrissa wrote a post for The New York Review of Books, Pandemic Journal. Dr Idrissa left the Netherlands at the end of February for Niger, to find himself stuck in the country ten days later. The capital city Niamey has now been “closed” and is subject to a night curfew. Read his post.

In these times of Corona, also universities in Ghana have activated virtual learning programmes to reach their students. Non-availability of internet services in parts of the country and the fact that some of the students do not have access to laptops, are just some of the problems, writes Samuel Aniegye Ntewusu, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, in a guest blog for the ASCL Africanist Blog.