Contextualising the right to development in the mineral beneficiation discourse
Posted: 17 December, 2025 Filed under: Nasubila Ng’ambi | Tags: African Charter, African Mining Vision, cultural rights, economic differences, foreign exploitation, Global North, Global South, human rights, industrialisation, infrastructural development, international monopolies, Keba M’baye, Mineral beneficiation, mineral wealth, New International Economic Order, raw commodities, sub-Saharan Africa, The Right to Development, value-added processing Leave a comment
Author: Nasubila Ng’ambi
LLM (cum laude), University of Pretoria
It’s time for Africa
Home to approximately 30% of the world’s critical raw minerals, Africa holds a highly coveted position in the low carbon transition. However, at present Sub-Saharan Africa’s (SSA) development index is an alarming 0.568, with 0.5 being the lowest index and 0.9 being the highest, demonstrating that the region is living far below the privileges that could be afforded by its resource endowments. Several African countries have taken steps to capitalise on their mineral wealth, with Malawi being the most recent African jurisdiction to impose a ban on the exportation of raw minerals.
However, what is the legal, rights-based justification for these measures? This article offers the right to development (RTD) as grounding for the recent measures taken to compel external actors to engage in domestic mineral beneficiation.
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The Intersection of Gender Equality and Sustainable Development in African Communities
Posted: 12 August, 2024 Filed under: Elim Shanko, Keten Abebe | Tags: African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol), Agenda 2063, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), egalitarian involvement, environmental degradation, gender discrimination, gender equality, gender parity, international treaty, labour exploitation, mitigation, National climate change policies (NCCPs), Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), natural resources, Paris Agreement, policy, poverty, quality of life, sub-Saharan Africa, sustainable development, United Nations’ (UN) Paris Agreement (PA), women's rights Leave a comment |
Author: Keten Abebe Intern, RA Consulting |
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Author: Elim Shanko Sustainable development consultant, RA Consulting |
Introduction
As of 2019, approximately 60% of employed women within Sub-Saharan Africa worked in agriculture, a field gravely impacted by corporations’ exhaustive use of natural resources. The financialisaton and depletion of natural resources within these African communities leads many women to experience poverty and destitute living conditions. Approximately 62.8% of women worldwide who live in extreme poverty reside in Sub-Saharan Africa. Additionally, the reality of worsening environmental conditions exacerbates the deterioration of women’s quality of life. According to the UN Women’s Organisation, African women often overly endure labour exploitation within capitalist markets, leading to environmental degradation and unsustainable development practices to persist among financially driven corporations. Similarly, a brief submitted to the 2015 Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR) emphasises the impracticality of achieving sustainable development within African communities if the alienation of half of the population (women and girls) persists socially, economically and politically. Ultimately, sustainable development within African communities cannot be achieved without gender parity.
The Global Compact on Refugees: A breakthrough opportunity in addressing the protracted refugee crises in East Africa
Posted: 4 October, 2019 Filed under: Juliet Nyamao | Tags: Agenda for Sustainable Development, climate change, climate changes, East Africa, Ethiopia, flee, fleeing war, forced displacement, Global Compact on Refugees, human rights violations, humanitarian funding, Kenya, migration, New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, refugee camps, refugee self-reliance, refugees, SDG, sub-Saharan Africa, sustainable development, Uganda, UN, United Nations, war 2 Comments
Author: Juliet Nyamao
Human Rights Attorney, Kenyan Bar
In recent years, the world has witnessed an explosive increase in the number of refugees and internally displaced persons. The upsurge in forced displacement has increased the demand for humanitarian assistance and strained the limited resources of host nations, majority of which are developing economies. The resulting economic strain compelled the international community to develop sustainable mechanisms for protecting refugees and displaced persons in alignment with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Read the rest of this entry »
A human rights approach to internet taxes in Africa
Posted: 17 September, 2019 Filed under: Tomiwa Ilori | Tags: African Charter, bloggers, Communication Service Tax, digital rights, e-commerce, expensive broadband, freedom of expression, freedom of speech, Ghana, ICESRC, ICTs, internet, internet taxation, Kenya, Nigeria, Online Content Regulations, protecting internet rights, right to access information, sub-Saharan Africa, Tanzania, tax, taxation, Uganda, UN Guiding Principles on Extreme Poverty 1 Comment
Author: Tomiwa Ilori
HRDA Alumni Coordinator/Researcher: Democracy, Transparency and Digital Rights Unit, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
Due to increasing underdevelopment in sub-Saharan Africa, many governments have looked towards several means to make up for deficits in domestic fiscal planning. One of the means through which governments have financed their budgets is by levying higher taxes on companies and individuals to be able to raise revenue.
While there may be legitimate reasons for states to levy taxes, in order for a tax system to be regarded as good and effective it needs to comply with at least five basic conditions: ensure a beneficial system; transparent in collection and use; less bureaucratic and equitable – every person should pay a fair amount of taxes not injurious to their well-being. While Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) potentially impact the global economy, not all economies have thrived equally. In most sub-Saharan African countries, the impacts of ICTs have been least felt which damages the prospects of democratic development in the region. Read the rest of this entry »
Dealing with statelessness in sub-Saharan Africa: The way forward
Posted: 13 May, 2015 Filed under: Michael Addaney | Tags: ACRWC, African Union, armed conflicts, Burundi, citizenship, civil society, conflicts, Cote d'Ivoire, CRC, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), economic migration, education, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Global Trends Report, health services, Kenya, Madagascar, statelessness, strategic advocacy, sub-Saharan Africa, Tanzania, UNHCR, United Nations, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Zimbabwe 1 Comment
Author: Michael Addaney
Student (MPhil Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa), Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria
‘Statelessness is a profound violation of an individual’s human rights. It would be deeply unethical to perpetuate the pain it causes when solutions are so clearly within reach.’
– Antonio Guterres, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
Statelessness as a legal problem has far reaching political and economic challenges which have attracted rising attention from scholars, human rights activists and international organisations in recent years. Officially, statelessness means a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law. The UNHCR started collecting data on stateless persons in the world in 2006 and confirmed in 2011 that the number of stateless persons around the world is in excess of 10 million despite conceding that obtaining the actual statistics is difficult.
The most affected are regions that have suffered or are experiencing armed conflicts or economic migration. Large numbers of stateless population are largely due to policies and laws which discriminate against foreigners despite their deeper roots in the states concerned. For instance, more than 120 000 persons in Madagascar are stateless on the basis of discriminatory citizenship laws and administrative procedures. Moreover, about 170 000 Burundian refugees who fled their country in 1972 are recognised as stateless in Tanzania despite cogent attempts by international and local organisations to have the situation rectified.
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