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Could South Africa be the first-ever country to provide a no-strings-attached universal basic income?

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6 months ago

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South Africa suffers from severe income inequality — one of the worst anywhere in the world. Its unemployment rate, meanwhile, is over 30%.

But its government thinks it has a solution: a universal basic income .

The idea has broad political support and the country’s largest political party, the African National Congress, said recently it is committed to implementing a universal basic income within two years.

Once the figment of ideological dreamers, a universal basic income — regular direct cash payments to a population with no strings attached — has grown in legitimacy, especially after the success of COVID-era stimulus checks. Tech visionaries racing to develop ever-more advanced artificial intelligence have also suggested implementing a universal basic income. They say it would help mitigate the job losses from AI .

Several other countries have experimented with versions of a universal basic income. Kenya, for instance, offers unconditional payments to about 20,000 people in 200 different towns.

In the United States, numerous cities and some states are experimenting on a small scale with guaranteed basic incomes , which offer no-strings-attached payments but only to select groups of people in need. While studies have shown these American programs to be successful, they have also run up against significant political opposition .

But in South Africa, most political parties are all for it. They just need to work out the details.

“The ANC is committed to finalizing a comprehensive policy on the basic income support grant within two years of the new ANC administration, ensuring broad consultation and expedited action,” South Africa’s ruling party said in a statement .

That statement came a week before hotly contested general elections on May 29, which saw the ANC lose its majority in parliament. The ANC is now working to form a unity government and a commitment to implementing a universal basic income will almost certainly come up in negotiations.

According to the party, a study at the University of Johannesburg showed that a majority of South African citizens “fully support the introduction of a basic income support grant.”

While South Africa provides payments to certain groups living below the poverty line through its Social Relief Distress grant program, the ANC plan would open eligibility to all South African adults, the Guardian reported .

The ANC said it is “exploring” options, like new tax measures and a new social-security tax, to fund the program. The party also says its goal for the program is not to replace existing social-security programs, but to complement them.

If it follows through, the ANC plan would make South Africa the first country to provide a universal basic income.

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Africa

Sudan: Major cholera outbreak as heavy rains hit displacement camps and no end to fighting

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3 months ago

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September 8, 2024

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Thousands of children in eastern Sudan are at risk of cholera following a major outbreak caused by widespread flooding, contaminated water and with a decimated health system after 16 months of conflict, Save the Children said.

Nearly 2900 cases of cholera and 112 deaths have been reported between July 22 and the beginning of September with Sudan’s Ministry of Health officially declared the outbreak on August 12. However, the actual numbers may be higher as limited access to health facilities and delayed community referrals are leading to a significant underreporting, according to the latest report from Sudan’s Health Cluster— a partnership including the UN, the Federal Ministry of Health, and NGOs including Save the Children.

In El Damer in River Nile State and in Gedarif in Gedarif State, Save the Children teams are reporting a huge spike in cholera cases among children under five, who account for nearly 15% of the confirmed cases and deaths across the country.

The spike in cholera comes with no end to the fighting that started in April last year and has devastated the country’s health and sanitation systems. Cholera spreads rapidly due to inadequate sewage treatment, flooding, and unsafe drinking water—conditions worsened by relentless heavy rains that have battered much of the country for the past three months.

The flooding has already claimed at least 173 lives and injured 505 people since June, according to the National Council for Civil Defence. The downpour has also caused the collapse of the Arbaat Dam in Red Sea state on 24 August, which is the main source of drinking water for the coastal city of Port Sudan, a vital humanitarian hub.

Heavy rains and flooding have also displaced 4,300 people from displacement camps in North Darfur State, including the Zamzam camp, where famine was recently declared. The flooding has destroyed around 900 tents and washed away latrines within these camps, severely disrupting humanitarian aid efforts.

With more than 25.6 million people across the country in need of aid, the crisis has escalated food scarcity, putting children at heightened risk of malnutrition.

Mohamed Abdiladif, Interim Country Director for Save the Children in Sudan, said:

“Children in Sudan have gone from horror to horror. Even before the conflict erupted last year the country was home to one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crises, with existing localised conflicts, natural disasters, disease outbreaks and economic degradation leaving 15.8 million people in need. That figure has now escalated to 25.6 million people, and diseases like cholera will only trigger a greater increase. Conflict is not just about immediate violence but is also a slow but deadly drip-feed of other grave threats to children’s lives, such as malnutrition and disease.

“We are working to ensure access to clean water, sanitation facilities, and hygiene promotion activities to prevent the spread of waterborne diseases such as a cholera in conflict-affected areas. However, we urgently need a huge injection of funds to deliver the treatment needed for cholera.”

Save the Children is conducting daily water quality testing, monitoring and chlorination at 35 water sources within the Sawakin locality, Red Sea state, and has disposed of 125 tons of solid waste at designated dumping sites.

In Gedaref state, Save the Children is supporting with treatment and management of cholera cases and providing safe drinking water to cholera treatment centres. The aid agency is also providing cash assistance to vulnerable families to enable them buy basics such as food, water, and afford health care.

Save the Children has worked in Sudan since 1983 and is currently supporting children and their families across Sudan providing health, nutrition, education, child protection and food security and livelihoods support. Save the Children is also supporting refugees from Sudan in Egypt and South Sudan.

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Nigeria tears down Benin 3 – 0 in Africa Cup of Nations Qualifiers – Highlights

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3 months ago

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September 8, 2024

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In a bittersweet first half, Nigeria took the lead in stoppage time through Ademola Lookman and went into the break on top. Benítez’s side improved in the second half, but it was not enough. Nigeria stepped on the gas in the final half and Victor Osimhen made it 2-0 in the 78th minute before Ademola Lookman doubled the advantage in the 83rd minute. Nothing else happened in the match and Nigeria ran out 3-0 winners in the first match of the Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers.

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In a historic election, South Africa’s ANC loses majority for the first time

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6 months ago

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June 2, 2024

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JOHANNESBURG — South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party has lost its outright majority for the first time in a devastating blow for the party once led by Nelson Mandela. The ANC has dominated South African politics since winning in the first post-apartheid elections 30 years ago.

The ANC was braced for a disappointing outcome, predicted by polls before Wednesday’s elections, but the final results are even more sobering. It won 40 percent of the vote, falling from 57% in 2019.

Tessa Dooms, a director at Rivonia Circle, a think tank in South Africa, said it was a historic result that diminished the ANC’s three decades hold on power. “The election in South Africa is an important watershed moment that fundamentally changes politics,” she said.

According to the constitution, the party with the largest vote has two weeks from the result confirmation to form a new government. The ANC will now have to form a coalition government with one or more opposition parties for the first time, to remain in power.

Driving the party’s waning support is an all too bleak reality for millions of people.

South Africa remains one of the most unequal countries in the world, with 32% unemployed, along with soaring levels of crime. Immense frustrations with water and electricity shortages as well as corruption have led to growing criticism of the ANC government.

For many, the initial progress that followed liberation from white-minority rule has not been sustained. Despite significant achievements in Africa’s most industrialized nation, inequalities inherited from the apartheid regime have remained, and over the last decade, even worsened. The party’s vote share has fallen by a few percent in every election since 2004 — exacerbated by a generation divide, with younger voters born after apartheid, the so-called “born frees”, less likely to vote for the ANC.

“On the one hand, we overcame apartheid as a structural force,” Dooms said, “On the other hand, we have not actually changed many of the dynamics. We inherited inequality of one form, and we have doubled down on inequality in South Africa and another form going forward and it has hurt us.”

But in this election, the gradual decline in ANC support over the last 20 years grew more dramatic, Dooms said. “The ANC has in some ways imploded in the form of its former president, Jacob Zuma. The rise of the MK is certainly the biggest story of this election.”

The fall and rise of Zuma

The controversial, convicted former ANC leader’s new party, the uMkhonto weSizwe party, or MK, was the story of the election. MK was named after the disbanded military wing of the ANC, and registered just six months ago. But in a short space of time the party has soared above expectations. The party was bolstered by many former ANC supporters and a base of largely poor and ethnically Zulu South Africans who followed Zuma’s lead and left the ANC. It is now the third-largest party in South Africa, with almost 15%.

It caps a dramatic fall and rise of the 82-year-old leader. While a conviction bars him from being elected into parliament, as leader of the MK, he could now be a significant player in the negotiations to form a new coalition government, and could use his power to attempt to avoid a further conviction.

Zuma was forced to resign from the presidency in 2018, and was convicted in 2021 of failing to present himself at a corruption trial against him. He is also due to be tried again next year for corruption in an alleged arms deal in 1999.

The populist leader has accused his successor, President Cyril Ramaphosa, of being behind his legal troubles. Now Zuma has inflicted a major defeat on his rival, who is likely to face pressure from some in his party to resign.

Zuma’s daughter and MK member, Duduzile Sambudla, told NPR, “The MK is not willing to go into a coalition with the ANC of Ramaphosa,” she said, implying that a coalition would be possible without Ramaphosa.

The MK’s success against the ANC is most significant in South Africa’s second-most populous province, KwaZulu Natal (KZN). The party won almost 46% of the vote, against nearly 18% for the ANC in a landslide result.

Liberation icon Nelson Mandela first voted at the Ohlange High Schoolin Durban, KZN, in 1994, when he became president. Thirty years later, many voters at the same polling unit echoed a similar sentiment: frustration with the state of the country, and a desire for change.

Nqobile Khumalo, 24, arrived at the polling station shortly after polls opened at 7 a.m. on Wednesday and was voting for the first time. “We just really hope that there will be change,” she said. Tracy Bongiwe Zondo, 39, went further. “Before now I was voting for the ANC but now I’m voting for MK because I need a change in our community,” she said.

President Ramaphosa’s future is now an open question. He is the first ANC president to lose the party’s majority, has overseen the steepest fall in share of the vote (17%), and turnout has reduced to 58 percent. The ANC’s head of elections, Nomvula Mokonyane told NPR Ramaphosa would not step down. “Nobody’s going to resign,” she said. But Ramaphosa faces a major challenge to survive the duration of his second term, if he manages to form a government that based on the results, will likely be divisive.

Culled from NPR

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