Malawi is a landlocked country mainly dependent on agricultural exports like tobacco and tea for revenue. 70.1% of Malawi’s population lives below USD 2.15 a day, making it one of the poorest countries in the world. Climate events such as flooding, drought and cyclones have devastated the...

Burundi has, over the years, been beset with civil wars, ethnic violence, poverty, and economic instability. In 2008, Burundi became so indebted that it was included on the World Bank’s list of Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC). Its inclusion on the HIPC list qualified it to be admitted to...

In 2009, the National Assembly of Mali drafted a new Code of Persons and the Family with the aim of modernizing its legislation. The law, while welcomed by human rights defenders, is strongly opposed by Islamic organizations. Under this pressure, a new version was drafted and was adopted by the...

On 13 December 1998, Norbert Zongo, an investigative journalist in Burkina, his two collaborators and his younger brother, were assassinated. Their bodies were found charred in the car in which they were traveling together. The police arrived the same day at the scene of the crime, and the...

A majority of countries in Africa¹ have some type of “vagrancy laws”, meaning laws which consider people that are or are perceived to be poor, homeless or unemployed as criminals. Examples are laws against “vagrants” or “vagabonds” defined as people who do not have a fixed home or livelihood, laws...

Mr X is a Congolese man who was living in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In early June 2006, he lost his passport. He went to the Tanzanian police to register the loss of his passport and to the DRC embassy to request for a new passport. But on 9 June 2006, Tanzanian authorities arrested him, […]

In Kenya, the Mau forest is the ancestral home of an indigenous community called the Ogiek people. The Ogiek community comprises 20,000 members, about 15,000 of whom inhabit the greater Mau Forest Complex, a land mass of about 400,000 hectares. The Ogieks are divided into clans, they have their own...

There is a brutal double irony at play when over 350 artificial intelligence professionals proclaim that “Mitigating the risk of extinction from A.I. should be a global priority alongside other societal scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”  First, the 30th May signatories – including the...

The need for a just transition to a low-carbon future has never been more urgent. As we work towards reducing carbon emissions and adopting renewable energy sources on a global scale, it is crucial that we do so in a way that is fair, equitable, and protects the human rights of all people. Human...

In its 2021 budget, Zambia allocated more money to debt servicing than the education, health, water, and sanitation sectors combined’