Welcome back, Ufahamu Africa listeners! Kim and Rachel begin this week’s episode discussing the news, opening up with developments with the franc CFA, some excellent reporting on Ebola in DRC, security in the Sahel, and more.
This week’s guest is Kako Nubukpo (@kakonubukpo), a Senior Research Fellow at the Agricultural Research Centre of International Development (CIRAD) in Paris and currently a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Nantes. He was formerly a minister in Togo for long-term planning. For this week’s interview, he and Rachel spoke about the franc CFA and what proposed changes (some of which have since their interview come to fore) could mean for West African countries. They also use the occasion of Togo’s upcoming elections to talk about elections, development, and agriculture more broadly. Their conversation was originally recorded in French and this version includes the English translation. (The French version can be found here.)
Books, Links, & Articles
- “Finding Our Own Champions.” by Into Africa Podcast
- “Here’s why Ebola has been so hard to contain in Eastern Congo.” Analysis by Kim Yi Dionne and Laura Seay
- “A short history of an Ebola vaccine.” by Emmanuel Freudenthal
- The Experiment Must Continue: Medical Research and Ethics in East Africa, 1940-2014 by Melissa Graboyes
- “Congo Ebola crisis: To fight disease, an anthropologist heals distrust.” by Ryan Lenora Brown
- This Week in Africa Newsletter
- Electoral Institute For Sustainable Democracy In Africa
- African Arguments
- L’improvisation économique en Afrique de l’Ouest – du coton au franc CFA by Kako Nubukpo
- “Les conflits de proximité et la crise de la démocratie au Niger : de la famille à la classe politique.” by Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan