Heather Bourbeau
Heather Bourbeau’s reporting has appeared in The Economist and The Financial Times. She was a political affairs officer for the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Liberia, and a special rapporteur for UNICEF Somalia.
Increasingly homophobic and authoritarian public policies in Tanzania have prompted a big pullback by international donors. Denmark will withhold $10 million in aid, and the World Bank has withdrawn a planned $300 million loan. Denmark is Tanzania’s second-biggest donor, providing over $52 million in foreign aid thus far in 2018. However, it cited human rights abuses […]
Read MoreIn recent years, the Western Indian Ocean region of Africa, which includes Mauritius, Seychelles and Maldives, has seen increased Indian and Chinese economic and military competition. With its geographic proximity, and historical and cultural ties, India has long had dominance in the region, but it is slowly losing out to China. While these island nations […]
Read MoreA new World Bank report predicts that 87 percent of the world’s extremely poor people by 2030 will be in sub-Saharan Africa. Also striking is the forecast that sometime in 2018 Nigeria would take over from India as the country with the most poor people, This shift is a result of South Asia’s economic growth, […]
Read MoreNigeria’s Civilian Joint Task Force has released 833 child soldiers, and has agreed with United Nations demands to stop recruiting children into its fight against Boko Haram. Founded in 2013, CJTF is an association of vigilante groups. The UN estimates there had been 1,175 boys and 294 girls fighting or working for CJTF in the […]
Read MoreThe Gambia’s new Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission will examine human-rights violations under former President Yahya Jammeh, who left office last year after being voted out. Under Jammeh, who ruled in a dictatorship for 22 years, torture and executions were common, as were disappearances and sexual violence. Victims, witnesses and perpetrators will start testifying before […]
Read MoreA bill to amend the Kenyan constitution and increase by one-third women’s representation in parliament was again postponed, and won’t resurface until 2019. This follows a Kenyan Higher Court order to parliamentarians to create gender quotas in the nation’s newly adopted 2010 constitution. Kenya has an unusual parliamentary structure. The National Assembly and Senate have a majority […]
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