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Background: For men who have sex with men (MSM) across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), disclosure of same-sex practices to family and healthcare workers (HCWs) can facilitate access to HIV prevention services and support, but can also lead to experiences of stigma.Methods: We performed mixed-effects regressions on pooled data from MSM in Cameroon, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Lesotho, and eSwatini to assess associations between disclosure and sexual behavior stigma in healthcare contexts; we used logistic regressions to analyze country-specific data.Results: Compared to participants who had not disclosed to either family or HCWs, those who had disclosed only to family were more likely to have been gossiped about by HCWs (aOR = 1.70, CI = 1.18, 2.45); the association between having disclosed to family and having felt mistreated in a health center approached, but did not achieve, statistical significance (aOR = 1.56, CI = 0.94, 2.59). Those who had disclosed only to HCWs were more likely to have feared to seek health services (aOR = 1.60, CI = 1.14, 2.25), avoided health services (aOR = 1.74, CI = 1.22, 2.50), and felt mistreated in a health center (aOR = 2.62, CI = 1.43, 4.81). Those who had disclosed to both were more likely to have feared to seek health services (aOR = 1.71, CI = 1.16, 2.52), avoided health services (aOR = 1.59, CI = 1.04, 2.42), been gossiped about by HCWs (aOR = 3.78, CI = 2.38, 5.99), and felt mistreated in a health center (aOR = 3.39, CI = 1.86, 6.20). Country-specific analyses suggested that data from Cameroon drove several of these associations.Conclusions: Research to determine the factors driving disclosure's differential effect on healthcare stigma across contexts is needed. Ultimately, supportive environments enabling safe disclosure is critical to understanding HIV-acquisition risks and informing differentiated HIV-prevention, treatment, and testing services for MSM across SSA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing recognition that hybrid organizations can play a critical role in tackling intractable global sustainable development challenges. At the same time, acute social, environmental, and economic challenges are opening up "opportunity" spaces for hybrids. Different institutional contexts are also leading to variable hybrid forms linked to the focus of their mission and their profit-oriented status. This article presents a process for identifying, mapping, and building impact indicators based on a study of 20 hybrid organizations in Sub-Saharan Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the global recession of democracy, this article engages with sub-Saharan Africa's so-called 'democratic' deficit. Three arguments are presented. First, sub-Saharan Africa's challenge is less a democratic deficit than it is a liberal deficit. The political elite are content to use the electoral mechanism to gain access to power but are thereafter resistant to restraints on that power. Second, organised civil society can contribute to addressing this deficit by contending for civil liberties and holding political authority accountable. Third, sub-Saharan Africa's deeply religious society can contribute towards the development of such a civil society. The study engages with secondary data analysis using survey data from Afrobarometer to determine sub-Saharan Africa's 'deficit' and whether religion can contribute to the development of civil society in the region. From the survey data it was found that citizens of sub-Saharan African countries understand democracy in its liberal form – ensuring civil liberties and personal freedoms. Furthermore, it was noted that those who are religious are more likely to be civically engaged than those who are unaffiliated, and in time, this can contribute to addressing the liberal deficit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mali has one of the highest migration rates in Africa, but we still know very little about the processes and drivers of migration – particularly in the context of the current political crisis. This article draws on 27 focus groups with 220 returnees and male youth respondents conducted in the summer of 2018. Respondents cite underemployment and the inability to provide for relatives as well as a feeling of hopelessness about a future life in Mali as drivers of migration. Returnees report that the voyage was more difficult than anticipated. However, even with knowledge of the significant risks they face, most (68%) returnees express a desire to try to migrate again: this is particularly true for returned migrants who failed in an attempt to reach Europe (89%). The research illustrates very different experiences for migrants attempting to reach Europe and those with goals of intra-African migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In sub-Saharan Africa, the private media are often considered corrupt and thus incapable of performing critical watchdog functions. Using the Ghanaian case, the objective of this study is to examine how the private media contribute to exposing political corruption and demanding accountability. Based on the media-as-a-watchdog theory and on primary and secondary data, this article argues that private media outlets make significant contributions to the fight against political corruption. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were used to collect primary data in Ghana. Relevant secondary data from media reports and scholarly work supplement the primary data. The research findings show that Ghanaian private media address political corruption through investigative reporting, agenda-setting, providing a forum for anti-corruption discussions, and acting as a pressure group for institutional and legal reforms as well as political accountability. This article thus questions the popular claim that in sub-Saharan Africa, the private media cannot contribute meaningfully to combatting corruption involving influential political actors. Policy and future research implications are presented in the conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper evaluates spatial, behavioural, and material signalling of social class in African contexts, focusing on Kenya and Zambia. In particular, it draws on notions of mode of class signalling and intersectionality and a vignette of an interaction between urban-based Western educated development agents and local participants in rural Kenya to illustrate how social class is implicated in interactions. The paper shows how significant features of class and dimensions of social inequality may be perceived intersectionally so that positionalities in class structures are negotiated in contexts of interaction, thus illustrating how structural conditions of class may be challenged and questioned. The paper concludes that sociolinguistics needs to identify the various ways in which the marginalized challenge social structures of inequality. Otherwise there is a risk that sociolinguistics will work to validate inequalities as permanent and fixed, and victims of unequal treatment as permanently condemned and never able to rise against oppressive social structures that tyrannize them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on a collection of open source data, the article uses network analysis to represent alliances and conflicts among 179 organizations involved in violence in North and Western Africa between 1997 and 2014. Owing to the fundamentally relational nature of internecine violence, this article investigates the way the structural positions of conflicting parties affect their ability to resort to political violence. To this end, we combine two spectral embedding techniques that have previously been considered separately: one for directed graphs that takes into account the direction of relationships between belligerents, and one for signed graphs that takes into consideration whether relationships between groups are positive or negative. We hypothesize that groups with similar allies and foes have similar patterns of aggression. In a region where alliances are fluid and actors often change sides, the propensity to use political violence corresponds to a group's position in the social network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

West Africa witnessed many violent rebel movements in the post-cold war era, some of which led to protracted conflicts in countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone. In the post-9/11 era, Muslim extremist movements have emerged. While the scholarship on the past "conventional" rebel movements mostly understood them in their local socio-political contexts, Muslim extremist groups have been dominantly interpreted in the context of the global "war on terrorism." This is mainly due to the latter's unique use of a unique form of violence (terror), its religious narrative, and its external links to other groups in other countries. This article interrogates this different understanding of conventional and religious types of anti-state rebellion in West Africa through a comparative study of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (1989–1997), and the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria. After a synthesisation of four key questions, the article concludes that Muslim extremist groups in West Africa are not any different from past rebel movements. Muslim extremist groups, just like past movements, are much more rational in the local West African contexts than it is dominantly acknowledged in peace and security scholarship and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deeper continental integration is considered critical for Africa's future growth, development and transformation. This paper reports on the results of a comprehensive review of the scholarly literature on Africa's continental integration dating back to the 1960s. We wanted to focus on publications drawing on the organization and management literature, but found these to be limited in number and scope. The review covered a range of topics relevant for continental integration including peace and security, decolonization, diplomacy and politics, cultural exchanges, social and economic development, environmental protection, and sustainable development. Although about half of the studies reviewed were atheoretical, the rest covered a range of theories from different disciplines. Most of the studies used documentary analysis and literature reviews; few used survey methods or quantitative data collection and analysis. Review results were grouped into five key areas for continental integration: organizational, economic, political, peace and security, and human rights. The paper concludes by identifying gaps and opportunities for research. Theory development in particular would help to improve understanding of the complexities of continental integration, and guide evidence-based policy and practice for deeper, more effective and sustained continental integration to improve the lives of Africans at home and in the diaspora. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the principal findings of a new integrated dataset of transnational armed conflict in Africa. Existing Africa conflict datasets have systematically under-represented the extent of cross-border state support to belligerent parties in internal armed conflicts as well as the number of incidents of covert cross-border armed intervention and incidents of using armed force to threaten a neighbouring state. Based on the method of 'redescribing' datapoints in existing datasets, notably the Uppsala Conflict Data Project, the Transnational Conflict in Africa (TCA) data include numerous missing incidents of transnational armed conflict and reclassify many more. The data indicate that (i) trans-nationality is a major feature of armed conflict in Africa, (ii) most so-called 'civil wars' are internationalised and (iii) the dominant definitions of 'interstate conflict' and 'civil war' are too narrow to capture the particularities of Africa's wars. While conventional interstate war remains rare, interstate rivalry using military means is common. The dataset opens up a research agenda for studying the drivers, patterns and instruments of African interstate rivalries. These findings have important implications for conflict prevention, management and resolution policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign aid is thought to be useful, and therefore desirable, to recipient governments because it allows them to increase their support through the provision of goods or services. However, the effect of the provision of aid on vote choice has rarely been directly tested. I examine the effect of receiving foreign aid on incumbent electoral support in three African countries using a spatial difference in differences design. Surprisingly, receiving aid lowers support for incumbent presidents. I test two mechanisms that could produce this result and find support for a mechanism where aid reduces one's opinion of the incumbent, perhaps because aid does not live up to expectations. I discuss the implications of this result for research on the political effects of foreign aid and electoral accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African governments have been pursuing reforms to improve the targeting of fertiliser subsidy programmes, but recent experience suggests that these reforms have not ensured that subsidies reach intended beneficiaries. Using a targeting approach based on proxy means tests with carefully selected indicators, this paper suggests that Ghana's fertiliser subsidy programmes can be targeted to the country's poor and smallholder farmers more efficiently and more cost-effectively. While a universal subsidy in 2012 is estimated to have reached 11 per cent of poor farmers, the proposed targeting approach would have reached 70 per cent of the poor farmers in northern Ghana and 50 per cent of poor farmers in southern Ghana. Targeting reduces the costs of leakages by about 72 per cent, thus justifying the costs of administering targeted programmes using the poverty proxies. Furthermore, we show that once the initial models are constructed, the targeting approach can be used for nearly 20 years without any significant losses in accuracy. We propose that policy-makers should consider implementing this targeting approach on a pilot scale involving a few communities and, if found successful in practice, in a larger-scale programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration studies have been primarily based on the movement of individuals from developing to developed economies, with a focus on the impact of migrants on host country wages. In this study we take a different angle by exploring the labour productivity of migrant-owned firms versus native-owned firms in 20 African economies using firm-level data. We find that labour productivity is 78 per cent higher in migrant-owned firms than native-owned firms. Using the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method we find that structural effects account for 80 per cent of the labour productivity gap. Returns to manager education largely explain the productivity advantage of migrant-owned firms over native-owned firms. Interactions with the government, access to finance, informality, and power outages are also considerable contributors to the labour productivity gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • National panel survey data from Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda, representing 40 percent of the total population in SSA. • 44 percent of the rural and urban working-age population participates in off-farm employment. • Population weighted cross-country gender gap in off-farm employment is 9 percentage points, but this has declined over time in most countries. • About 39 million individuals across the five countries, is estimated to have entered and exited employment between 2010 and 2016. • Drivers of entry into off-farm employment and continued employment are country- and gender-specific. Abstract Off-farm income constitutes a substantial share of the household livelihood portfolios across Sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, the determinants and dynamics of individuals' participation in off-farm employment activities have not received adequate attention due to the weaknesses in individual-level data collection and the lack of longitudinal studies. This paper uses national panel household survey data from Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda; provides empirical evidence on individual-level off-farm (wage and self) employment participation rates; analyzes the extent and drivers of entry into off-farm employment and continued employment; and conducts the analysis by gender and rural/urban location. A non-negligible share of the rural and urban working-age individual population is found to participate in off-farm employment, ranging at the national-level from 34 percent in Ethiopia to 58 percent in Malawi. Men participate in wage and self-employment to a significantly greater extent compared to women across time as well as within and across countries, apart from women's participation in non-farm enterprises being more common in Nigeria and Tanzania. The population weighted cross-country gender difference in off-farm employment stands at 9 percentage points, but this has declined over time in most countries. A substantial share of the population, amounting to about 39 million individuals across the five countries, is estimated to have entered and exited employment between 2010 and 2016, pointing to the dynamic nature of off-farm employment. Drivers of entry into off-farm employment and continued employment are country- and gender-specific, with demographic factors, occurrence of shocks and job characteristics emerging as the most important determinants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • The paper proposes to use ROC curves to refine targeting of cash programs. • It shows how to find probability thresholds that optimize coverage and leakage rates. • It provides simple graphical devices designed for policy makers to take decisions on targeting. Abstract The paper uses Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves and related indexes to determine the optimal targeting strategy of a food voucher program for refugees. Estimations focus on the 2014 food voucher administered by the World Food Program to Syrian refugees in Jordan using data collected by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The paper shows how to use ROC curves to optimize targeting using coverage rates, budgets, or poverty lines as guiding principles to increase the overall efficiency of a program. As humanitarian organizations operate under increasing budget constraints and increasing demands for efficiency, the proposed approach addresses both concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We exploit the West African Ebola epidemic as an event that necessitated the provision of a common-interest public good, Ebola control measures, to empirically investigate the effect of public good provision on state legitimacy. Our results show that state legitimacy, measured by trust in government authorities, increased with exposure to the epidemic. We argue, supported by results from SMS-message-based surveys, that a potentially important channel underlying this finding is a greater valuation of control measures in regions with intense transmission. Evidence further indicates that the effects of Ebola exposure are more pronounced in areas where governments responded relatively robustly to the epidemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I suggest that the recent furore over Gilley's article on colonialism raises at least three distinct issues both within academia and the wider space of public debate. The first concerns the category of 'offence', who can be offended and by what. The second concerns the nature of colonialism, its contemporary understanding and why that remains politically controversial. The third concerns possible continuities between certain aspects of colonial rule and current forms of Western intervention in Africa. In each case I make some very tentative suggestions as to why one journal article attracted so much attention and antagonism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have long puzzled over strong nationalism in weak African states. Existing theories suggest that (a) incumbent leaders use nationalistic appeals to distract people from state weakness; or (b) citizens use nationalistic claims to exclude rival groups from accessing patronage and public goods. But what explains robust nationalism in places where politicians seldom visit and where the state under-provides resources, as is true across much of Africa? We propose a theory of familial nationalism, arguing that people profess attachment to a nation-family instead of to a nation-state under conditions where the family, and not the state, is the main lifeline. We substantiate it using surveys from the border between Niger and Burkina Faso, where an international court ruling allowed people to choose their citizenship, thus providing a test for nationalism in marginalised communities. We supplement the border data with surveys and focus groups from the capitals of both countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few years, Afropolitanism has been regarded as a fad, a concept, a moment, and possibly even a movement. Within academic circles, the term has been met with mixed reactions from those concerned about direct connections to neoliberalism at the expense of the masses and by those interested in the lessons the emphasis on Africa Rising might teach a still xenophobic Western audience. Using a mixture of academic and personal reflections, this article provides a brief history of select debates surrounding Afropolitanism, possibilities for salvaging activist ideals at the heart of the term, and suggestions about the way forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the connections between blackness, Afropolitanism, and masculinity in Detroit soundscapes. Working at the intersections of critical geography, sound studies, and critical race theory, it interrogates the production of Afropolitanism through sound and spatial signifiers. It suggests that productions of black masculinities in this context generate counterpublics and indicate Afropolitan aesthetic values and identities. It discusses how Afropolitan cultural productions are manifest through soundscapes that intersect with located spatial narratives and histories. Proceeding from ethnographic work undertaken in the city, it examines two sound-sites as places through which men navigate the narratives of urban development, blackness, and Africanness. It asks what constitutes an Afropolitan sound aesthetic and how it emerges as a mode of sonically produced communal identity. In what ways can Detroit be understood as an African city by examining the genetics of urban geography, both historically and through contemporary social productions? What sonic-spatial strategies do black men use to reimagine the city as Afropolitan? Answering these questions requires an examination of the politics of labor and pleasure, ultimately to show that the ways in which people engage with space through sound can produce a distinct Afropolitanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reconceptualises and reappraises different perspectives and ‘gender performativity’ in the light of gender and feminist interpretation for the African woman. It clearly opines that it is expedient for different feminists to distinguish between theories so that there will be clearer focus on the subject in order to clarify and not complicate issues. For instance, some feminist critics see history as the measure for analysis of women and gender, while some will not accept history because of rigid periodisation. Deconstruction displaces the question of history because it embraces a ‘textual fidelity’ and ‘ethical concern for reading’ as its major preoccupation. Performativity places priority on ‘being’ and not the sex. With reference to Patricia McFadden, Nawal el Saadawi, Chinyere Okafor and other critics of feminism in Africa, the article makes a drastic reinterpretation of contemporary African feminism: it articulates and enthusiastically redefines the concept of Afrocentrism with reference to the African woman in order to develop new awareness for the family and marriage in order to be ‘performative’. This ostensibly valorises African subjectivities, sexualities and identities for proper articulation of concepts in African literature. This article uses the radical feminist theory expatiated by McFadden in contemporary discourse. It portends a feminist consciousness in Africa that resists the epistemologies of patriarchy, masculinities, misogyny and neo-colonialist assumptions of women suppression and relegation. The radical feminist theory provides a new theoretical framework for considering prejudice against women in African cosmology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Poverty convergence remains absent across Less Developed Countries (LDCs) during 1980–2014. • In contrast, there exists strong poverty convergence across Sub-Saharan African (SSA) economies during the same period. • Poverty convergence is absent across LDCs because initial poverty weakens the effectiveness of growth in reducing poverty. • Strong growth effect dominating adverse initial poverty effect on growth effectiveness explains poverty convergence in SSA. • This study finds no direct link between higher initial poverty and slower subsequent growth identified in Ravallion (2012). Abstract The literature on poverty convergence is sparse and much of the empirical evidence relies on Ravallion (2012) who found a lack of poverty convergence across some ninety Less Developed Countries (LDCs) during 1980–2007. This paper revisits cross-country poverty convergence using data from the same sources but an extended period of 1980–2014. We find that while poverty convergence remains absent across LDCs, it is present in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) during the extended period. Initial poverty canceling the effectiveness of growth in reducing poverty explains the lack of poverty convergence across LDCs; while a strong growth effect dominating the adverse effect of initial poverty on growth effectiveness explains the strong poverty convergence found in SSA. A direct adverse link between initial poverty and subsequent growth – which Ravallion (2012) recognized as the main impediment to poverty convergence during 1980–2007 – is not found in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to a lack of piped water, household members in sub-Saharan Africa, typically girls, fetch water from sources outside the home. We offer the first econometric study that considers a fetching water/schooling time tradeoff as a possible and partial explanation for the relatively high dropout rate for girls in school. Our empirical technique fist estimates a baseline probit where the dependent variable is one if the individual is enrolled in school and zero if the individual is not enrolled. The covariates are factors which may influence school attendance. However, such a specification may be vulnerable to omitted variable bias. To account for this possibility, we estimate the average treatment effect by augmenting the probit model with instruments which may induce 'treatment' of time spent fetching water i.e. whether the individual resides in a household connected to electricity. Our data is drawn from the 2004/2005 Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey. Our findings shed new light. In particular, we find that the interaction between the female dummy variable and time spent fetching water is negative and statically significant suggesting that the incidence of not attending school, due to fetching water, is relatively higher for females. This finding is further reinforced by the coefficient on the female dummy variable which is negative and statistically significant, suggesting that being female in Kenya, and in much of SSA, reduces the probability of enrolling and spending time in school. Taken together, our findings are consistent with the notion, and provide evidence for the anecdotal view in the literature that the high dropout rate for girls in school may in part be explained by a fetching water/schooling time tradeoff. To reduce the time individuals spend fetching water from sources outside the home, we suggest that a policy prescription that offers a requisite infrastructure, typically provided for through public means, may reduce the cost for households of connecting piped water to their homes. Importantly, such a policy action would be effective in reducing the time spent fetching water not only for females but for males as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across Africa, persons with albinism continue to be the main casualties of occult killings, yet very little intervention is provided by states to safeguard them from their persecutors. The year 2018 commemorates the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which entreats governments to protect their citizens from such brutalities. Whereas the Declaration has inspired the adoption of many (international and regional) human rights treaties, all declaring protection for the rights of persons with albinism, it is evident that this group is yet to reap the fruit of the human rights revolution triggered by the UDHR over the last seven decades. The article argues that, although African governments remain the primary custodians of Africans with albinism, the burden of violence often visited on this group constitutes "persecution" under the UDHR and therefore the international community has a role to play in safeguarding this group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section explores the need for health research initiatives focused on social inequalities in cancer in the sub-Saharan African region. Topics discussed include cancer prevalence and mortality rates recorded in the region, factors which may have contributed to the increasing cases of cancer in the region such as alcohol consumption, obesity, and urbanization, and the diagnosis of cancer in families that live in poverty.

West African and American-born Muslims in the Mustafawi Tariqa have been impacted by a Senegalese Islamic pedagogical tradition, which places emphasis on the role of the body as a medium for religious and spiritual training. My research examines the tremendous labor required to produce Muslimness as an embodied reality and critical resource initially in two key sites of pilgrimage--Moncks Corner, South Carolina and Thiès, Senegal--by demonstrating the important role these sister cities play in a transatlantic Sufi network. I suggest that there exists a continuity seen in the interactions of West African Muslims and African-American Muslims--a solidarity emboldened through the sufi practices out of which a broader politics of "Black Muslimness" endure. African-American and Senegalese members of the Mustafawi Tariqa identify within a broader category of 'Black Muslim' in the mobilization of bodies oriented toward these two sites of pilgrimage. As my extensive research reveals, Moncks Corner is the central site in which access to the Sufi order's most charismatic living shaykh, Shaykh Arona Faye, has worked for the past two decades teaching and mentoring his students on their spiritual journeys. On the other hand, Thiès is the location where the order's founder is buried and travelers visit the town in order to pay homage to his memory. The processes of diasporic identification seen in both sites, I argue, are grounded in both physical mobility and the particular spiritual pedagogy of the Mustafawi. In order to further elaborate how local and international solidarities are framed from within the concept of diaspora, I unpack the manner in which religious genealogies, discourses of ancestry, and the transmission of esoteric knowledge reinforce such affinities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does climate change affect the risk and dynamics of violent conflict? Existing research shows that climate change can increase the risk of violent conflict and significantly alter the dynamics of existing conflicts. Less is known about the exact mechanisms through which climate change affects violent conflict. In this article, we address this lacuna in light of the first systematic review of both quantitative and qualitative scholarship. Through an analysis of forty-three peer-reviewed articles on climate-related environmental change and violent conflict in East Africa published 1989–2016, we evaluate to what extent the literature provides coherent explanations that identify relevant mechanisms, actors, and outcomes. In addition, we discuss the expected temporal and spatial distribution of violence and the confounding political factors implied in the literature. Against this background, we offer a number of suggestions for how future climate-conflict research can theorize and explore mechanisms. Future research should distinguish between explanations that focus on causes and dynamics of climate-related violent conflict, theoretically motivate when and where violence is most likely to occur, systematically examine the role of state policies and intervention, and explore the implications of each explanation at the microlevel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theories of ethnic conflict predict that between-group inequality should be associated with a greater likelihood of violent conflict, but empirical results have been mixed. One reason might be that different types of inequalities have opposing effects on the likelihood of conflict. In this article, we posit that educational inequalities are likely to incentivize collective action by inducing grievances, while economic and demographic inequalities may actually dis-incentivize collective action by limiting opportunities for disadvantaged groups to engage in rebellion. We test these hypotheses on a new ethnic dyad database, incorporating 1,548 dyads formed by 290 ethnic groups living in 29 Sub-Saharan African countries. The analysis reveals that educational inequalities are indeed positively associated with conflict incidence, while this is not the case for economic and demographic inequalities. The association between educational inequality and conflict is stronger if the groups are wealthier. A higher joint educational level of the groups is associated with less conflict, particularly under more autocratic regimes. These findings demonstrate that to better understand the relationship between inequality and conflict, it is important to disaggregate the effects of inequalities according to the underlying mechanisms and the political context with which they are associated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rising powers are evolving centres for varieties of conflict as well as development. With a focus on the complexities of the Horn of Africa, we juxtapose Jan Nederveen Pieterse1 on what is rising - States? Inter-regionalisms? Diasporas? Economies? Companies? New technologies? - with the late Jim Hentz2 on non-traditional security (NTS) challenges on the continent. NTS factors include fragile states/ungoverned spaces, migrations and viruses, which continue to undermine contemporary state and governance structures inside and around Africa. In turn, NTS challenges demand alternative and creative ways to address them. We show how the Horn of Africa illustrates all these and other emergent factors in differing proportions over time, including the diversity of diasporas, both intra- and extra-regional. Further, we argue that rising powers internal and regional transnational tensions could impact human security for the foreseeable future. Thus, affecting the prospects for meeting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a Markovian SIR-type (Susceptible → Infected → Recovered) stochastic epidemic process with multiple modes of transmission on a contact network. The network is given by a random graph following a multilayer configuration model where edges in different layers correspond to potentially infectious contacts of different types. We assume that the graph structure evolves in response to the epidemic via activation or deactivation of edges of infectious nodes. We derive a large graph limit theorem that gives a system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) describing the evolution of quantities of interest, such as the proportions of infected and susceptible vertices, as the number of nodes tends to infinity. Analysis of the limiting system elucidates how the coupling of edge activation and deactivation to infection status affects disease dynamics, as illustrated by a two-layer network example with edge types corresponding to community and healthcare contacts. Our theorem extends some earlier results describing the deterministic limit of stochastic SIR processes on static, single-layer configuration model graphs. We also describe precisely the conditions for equivalence between our limiting ODEs and the systems obtained via pair approximation, which are widely used in the epidemiological and ecological literature to approximate disease dynamics on networks. The flexible modeling framework and asymptotic results have potential application to many disease settings including Ebola dynamics in West Africa, which was the original motivation for this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Contrary to popular belief, at first glance, traditional African religions--although they have been de-structured, undermined, and overshadowed in public visibility by Islam and Christianity--are not dead. Like Islam and Christianity, traditional religions have ambiguities in their organization and societal ethical codes, where good and evil and love's splendor and destructive passions are enmeshed. Traditional religions are alive and well and their worldview still influences African understanding of and insight on Christianity and Islam. As the foundation for a global world vision, it is useful to analyze traditional religions in all their ambiguity for the positivity and negativity that they emulate as well as the general population's attitude toward the issue of social peace in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The presence of an exceptionally large youth population, that is, a youth bulge, is often associated with an elevated risk of civil conflict. In this article, we develop an instrumental variable approach in which the size of the youth cohorts in Sub-Saharan Africa is identified using variation in birth-year drought incidence. Our results show that an increase in the size of the population group aged fifteen to nineteen raises the risk of low-intensity conflict. A 1 percent increase in the size of this age-group augments the likelihood of civil conflict incidence (onset) by 2.3 (1.2) percentage points. On the other hand, we do not find any association between the size of the two adjacent youth cohorts, that is, the population groups aged ten to fourteen and twenty to twenty-four. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive health is an important dimension of well-being in older ages, but few studies have investigated the demography of cognitive health in sub-Saharan Africa’s growing population of mature adults (= persons aged 45+). We use data from the Malawi Longitudinal Study of Families and Health to document the age and gender patterns of cognitive health, the contextual and life-course correlates of poor cognitive health, and the understudied linkages between cognitive and physical/mental well-being. Surprisingly, the age pattern of decline in cognitive health is broadly similar to that observed in the USA. We also find that women have substantially worse cognitive health than men and experience a steeper age gradient in cognitive ability. Strong social ties and exposure to socially complex environments are associated with higher cognitive health, as is higher socioeconomic status. Poor cognitive health is associated with adverse social and economic well-being outcomes such as less nutrition intake, lower income, and reduced work efforts even in this subsistence agriculture context. Lower levels of cognitive health are also strongly associated with increased levels of depression and anxiety and are associated with worse physical health measured through both self-reports and physical performance. Our findings suggest that cognition plays a key—but understudied—role in shaping late-life well-being in low-income populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]