Category: Global Voices

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Global Voices

Cameroon: Electric Dreams for Development by 2035

Power lines in Cameroon
Power lines over buildings in Cameroon, 2008. Photo by Zzilch on Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

After his reelection in November 2011, President Paul Biya of Cameroon announced [fr] that the country would soon become a giant “construction site”. The goal for his new term is for Cameroon to reach emerging market status by 2035 through a series of “great achievements” in transport and energy infrastructure development [fr]. It’s a deadline that fails to convince [fr] many commentators, if only because the challenges are so great.

Energy, and specifically electricity, is especially problematic.  Like many other African countries, Cameroon suffers from insufficient electricity supplies.

Journalist Leopold Nséké explains in an article published in Afrique Expansion Magazine:

Underequipped, the African continent is awash in the obsolescence of its facilities and bore the brunt of poor management of available resources. Representing 15% of the world population, Africa consumes paradoxically only 3% of the total world production of electricity.

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Zambia Fixes Maize Price Again, Flustering World Bank

A giant Nshima pot
A giant Nshima pot, Zambia 2008. Photo by Mark Hemsworth (used with permission)

Nshima, the stodgy porridge-like substance cooked out of maize-meal, has divided families and triggered food riots in Zambia at one time or other. This is why subsequent governments have kept a keen eye on the growing, harvesting, buying and selling of maize-meal to consumers.

The production of maize — or corn as it is known in other parts of the world —  is an even bigger issue in the mining region of the Copperbelt and metropolitan areas like the capital, Lusaka, where large working populations rely on the commercial supply of the product. Accordingly, maize determines the political direction of the nation.

In May, the World Bank urged the Zambian government not to interfere in determining the floor prices of maize sold by farmers to the Food Reserve Agency and other interested parties in the agri-business chain. Despite such calls, the Ministry of Agriculture announced this year’s floor price of maize at K65, 000 (about $13 USD) per 50 kilo bag.

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Russia: Returning to a State Monopoly on Violence?

Artwork by Surian Soosay on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

The past few decades have seen a troubling increase in the use of private military and security companies (PMSCs) as a substitute for government forces. Sometimes this “privatization” happens with the express consent of the state and is concentrated in “low-intensity armed conflict and post-conflict situations”, for example the United States’ decision to use Blackwater for security operations in Iraq. In other cases consent is tacit or even irrelevant.

When the state is incapable of protecting its own citizens, it loses its monopoly on violence. The resulting power vacuum is filled by organizations willing to provide the service. Traditionally, organized crime is one such entity, but private security agencies now rise to the occasion just as often. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, for example, the Russian mafia and PMSCs stepped in to supplement substandard domestic law enforcement. A report from a UN Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries singles out Russian PMSCs precisely for their intertwined relationships with both criminal and law-enforcement structures.

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Mexico, USA: Who Will Pay the Price for Wal-Mart’s Corruption?

President Calderon with Walmart CEO
President Calderon (right) met with Walmart CEO Michael T. Duke in Cartagena, Colombia in April 2012 and his office issued a statement and this photo.

There have been better times to be associated with Wal-Mart. In 2011, for example, it was named in the top 10 most transparent corporations in Mexico [ES]. Yet one of the world’s largest corporations is taking a hit after evidence surfaced that their Mexican subsidiary paid US$24 million in bribes to Mexican officials between 2002 and 2005. According to an investigation by the New York Times, Wal-Mart has kept this information quiet since 2005, when a former employee in Mexico blew the whistle. Taking every opportunity to call out bad practices at the company, Wal-Mart reform advocacy and employee groups jumped on the scandal, calling on Wal-Mart’s CEO to resign in an online petition started by Organization United for Respect at Wal-Mart (Our Wal-Mart) on Change.org.

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Brazil: Questions Surrounding Rio’s ‘Pacifying Police’ Units

The 18th Rio UPP was launched in November 2011 in the Managueira neighborhood which has 20,000 inhabitants. Image by SEASDH on Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).
The 18th Rio UPP was launched in November 2011 in the Managueira neighborhood which has 20,000 inhabitants. Image by SEASDH on Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

In recent years, the state government of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, has adopted a security policy based on the installation of Pacifying Police Units (Unidades de Polícia Pacificadoras), known as UPPs. The aim of the UPP strategy [pt] is to place permanent police units in favelas (shanty towns) to tackle crime and promote social policies.

Since December 2008, 18 different favelas out of almost 1,000 in the capital city of Rio have received UPPs. In an article for Rede Brasil Atual [pt], Maurício Thuswohl  argues that the UPPs have been placed in strategic areas:

“O desenho traçado pelas UPPs no mapa do Rio evidencia a intenção do governo de criar um cinturão de segurança nos bairros com maior poder aquisitivo e nas áreas da cidade onde ocorrerão eventos e concentração de turistas estrangeiros durante a Copa do Mundo de 2014 e as Olimpíadas de 2016.”

“The outline of the UPPs on a map of Rio testifies to the government’s intention to create a ‘safety belt’ for more affluent neighborhoods and areas of the city where there will be events and large numbers of foreign tourists during the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.”

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