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Editor's note
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More than a dozen countries across Africa are set to go to the polls in 2019, among them Chad, Nigeria and South Africa. John Stremlau explores whether these will help to entrench democracy or will instead be used as a smokescreen by powerful elites and authoritarian rulers to consolidate their power.
We know that trees are important for a healthy and balanced environment. But huge swathes of the planet, and especially its forests, are too badly degraded to support trees. Philip Dobie suggests that part of the solution may lie with agroforestry: the practice of deliberately introducing trees into farms.
Since 1992, December 3 has been marked around the world as International Day of Persons with Disabilities. In Africa, there have been some steps in the right direction when it comes to supporting people with disabilities. Laura-Stella Enonchong assesses the African Commission's draft protocol, which emphasises the importance of the right of people with disability to have equal recognition before the law. Elsewhere in this special newsletter, Oliver Mutanga, Bothwell Manyonga, and Sindile Ngubane-Mokiwa examine a policy designed to support university students and staff with disabilities. Rochelle Holm shines a light on the struggles Malawian schoolchildren with disabilities face each day, and Eugine Tafadzwa Maziriri explains why it's so tough for people with disabilities to establish themselves as
entrepreneurs.
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Thabo Leshilo
Politics + Society Editor
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Top Stories
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Elections, and observer processes are a big priority in Africa.
UN Photo/Flickr
John J Stremlau, University of the Witwatersrand
Surveys shows that the majority of Africans prefer democracy, despite its flaws, to the alternatives.
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India has developed a pioneering national agroforestry policy.
Suleman Merchant/Shutterstock
Philip Dobie, World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF)
If we need more trees, many will have to be introduced into managed agricultural mosaic landscapes.
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Disability in focus
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Laura-Stella Enonchong, De Montfort University
After decades of human rights abuses against Africans living with mental and other disability, the African Commission has finally drafted a protocol to the African Charter to protect their rights.
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Oliver Mutanga, Center for International Climate and Environment Research - Oslo; Bothwell Manyonga, University of South Africa; Sindile Ngubane-Mokiwa, University of South Africa
South Africa has a new policy framework for students with disabilities but will it bring real change?
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Rochelle Holm, Mzuzu University
Children with disabilities face several challenges and need to be heard to make school infrastructure friendlier for them.
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Eugine Tafadzwa Maziriri, University of the Witwatersrand
A new study reveals the challenges faced by people living with disabilities who want to open their own businesses.
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Environment + Energy
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Olalekan Adekola, York St John University
African countries are sure to face more flooding in the future, they need to adapt or risk loosing the progress that's already been made
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Health + Medicine
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Michael Mutua, African Population and Health Research Center
In Kenya nearly 120,000 women are treated in health facilities each year for complications arising from unsafe abortions
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Business + Economy
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Linda M. Richter, University of the Witwatersrand
Human capital is a key contributor to a country's economy. Here's how families and the state can nurture this asset.
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Education
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Yashwant Ramma, Mauritius Institute of Education; Ajeevsing Bholoa, Mauritius Institute of Education
By improving trainee physics teachers' content knowledge and skills, we make them better.
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From our international editions
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Robert H. Scott III, Monmouth University; Kenneth Mitchell, Monmouth University
Argentina has been grappling with currency flight and an economy sinking deeper into recession, not to mention the worst drought in decades.
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Michael Kitson, Cambridge Judge Business School
We may be on the cusp of a full-blow trade war that could reconfigure globalisation.
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Gina Yannitell Reinhardt, University of Essex
'He had the ability to make you think he was addressing you personally, even if you were one among 10,000 others.'
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It’s free to republish, here are the guidelines.
Contact us on africa-republish@theconversation.com in case you need assistance.
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