Kampala Geopolitics Conference 2021

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In 2021, the University of Makerere will celebrate its 100 years anniversary, opening up an opportunity to re-imagine the future of education for Africa in the context of the global pandemic, especially through the lens of digitalisation.

While the pandemic has forced much of the world to adopt online course systems, some countries are still lagging behind, particularly on the African continent. Lack of connectivity, lack of resources, lack of training: digital education remains largely unaccessible to primary and secondary schools, but also in universities. Many African schools and students were ill-prepared for this switch to e-learning. Amid widespread challenges like infrastructure deficit, unstable electricity supply, lack of digital skills among teaching personnel and students, and soaring data costs, the most vulnerable students are hit the hardest.

The questions arising are therefore: What are the lessons learned from the pandemic? What are the new needs and challenges the education sector worldwide is facing? Will the digitalization of the education sector play a role as an international equalizer or will it lead to more education divide? Will it allow an internalization or even a homogenization of learning and knowledge or have to adapt to local contexts? Who will set the tone and the standards when re-imagining higher education at a global level? And how can the African continent harness these changes to close gaps in access to higher education and skilling?

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In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the biggest challenges Africa is facing is vaccine supply. This is currently constrained by bilateral negotiations with key stakeholders or through the COVAX vaccine facility under the joint stewardship of WHO, Gavi and UNICEF. The newly-appointed head of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, from Nigeria, told the BBC that vaccine protectionism must be overcome to solve the pandemic, adding that “a phenomenon where rich countries are vaccinating their populations and poor countries have to wait” must be avoided.

Currently, there’s no international trade law obligation to export vaccines to Africa. None of the 164 World Trade Organization Members has a duty to export vaccines, nor an enforceable right to obtain access to them. A relaxation of WTO rules on intellectual property has been discussed, so that more drug manufacturers could manufacture the jabs, but it has encountered opposition from the pharmaceutical industry and some States.

The current unequal repartition of vaccines indeed makes the African continent dependent on the willingness of other countries to give away vaccines or develop a more ambitious policy around health-related intellectual properties. Vaccines can now be considered, more than ever, as an emerging diplomatic tool for countries such as the US, European countries, China and Russia. New international

players are also emerging out of the pandemic such as India and the UAE thanks to the “vaccine diplomacy”. Can we now consider vaccines to be an emerging diplomatic tool reshaping bilateral and multilateral relationships globally? Who are the main stakeholders in this sector using vaccines to secure a rising influence?

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In 2017, the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, in his speech at the University of Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), made the official commitment to return the stolen African art from France. Two countries have been selected to be among the first ones to have their cultural properties returned: Senegal and Benin. Similarly, a growing number of European States as well as cultural institutions are now moving forward towards launching such restitution processes.

While the general idea of the return of stolen works is well received, the practicalities of this return are more debatable. A central issue is that of the conservation of returned works in terms of means and preservation. The term “restitution” in its conceptual framework is indeed in itself problematic because it is “museum-centric”. For instance, the restitution debate remains at a State level, even though the art objects in question were produced and used at different levels of society. While these objects can be considered as being part of “humanity heritage”, the question of ownership of these objects is central.

The restitution of cultural properties therefore opens up a number of questions which tackle the history, memory and the decolonisation of knowledge all together. The process also paves the way to the redefinition of the Africa-Europe relationship with a stronger commitment towards the re-imagining of a post-colonial “relational ethic”. How can we envision the restitution of cultural properties as a step towards the development of an African way to look at conservation?

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Transitional justice is on the international agenda in post-conflict and post-repression settings. The tasks of promoting justice, compensation, and reconciliation after conflict are challenging and can take many years to achieve. Systematic abuses of human rights that are not adequately addressed are a source of social unrest and often contribute to renewed violence. Truth-seeking initiatives can play a powerful role in documenting and acknowledging human rights violations. Memorialisation as an often neglected aspect in the consolidation of transitional justice.

Memory initiatives also contribute to the public understanding of past abuses. In the aftermath of a devastating conflict or a repressive regime, knowing the truth about the past is more than just an important step toward justice, it is a recognized human right to which all victims and survivors of armed conflict and repression are entitled.

In 2021, Dominic Ongwen was found guilty before the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. His trial has marked the first ICC case in which an inductee was charged with the same crimes as those done to him. And it – once again - raised important questions for post-conflict recovery. How do states and their people move forward from conflict while respecting the needs of victims of conflict for justice? Questions of amnesty have arisen in global peace negotiations as mediators try to balance the immediate need to defuse actors with the long-term needs of societies and people for justice. Who has the power to make these decisions and what role do international stakeholders play? In a world where women are often left out of peace negotiations, how do we ensure their rights are protected? Are men looking for peace, while women are still waiting for justice?

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Discussions on energy and geopolitics over the last ten years have often focused on the need for energy security. Now, another challenge is emerging: Climate security - mitigating and managing the geopolitical implications of climate change - deserves attention alongside existing energy security discussions.

Climate change has become a threat multiplier that is exacerbating existing conflicts and has the potential to cause new conflicts around the world, ones with dire geopolitical implications. Key issues of our time, including cross-border migration, conflicts over water, and competition over territories due to melting ice, for instance, are more deeply intertwined with climate change than previously assumed.

Climate change-induced droughts such as the ones in Uganda’s Northern Corridor and Kenya’s rift valley are contributing to water insecurity and leading to escalating regional rivalries vying for control over water flows that can often be a deciding factor in determining whether a region will flourish or decline. The changing climate is also fueling inter-state competition between major powers over new seaways and land masses laid bare by ice melting at the poles.

As communities around the globe, especially those in poorer regions, are suffering increasingly from the negative impacts of climate change, the importance of climate adaptation is becoming more obvious. How do states respond collectively to climate mitigation in a world that is deeply divided on climate action? Is there potential for a conflict mitigation dividend? At what level do we engage vulnerable communities at risk and how can they best cope with the negative impacts of climate change? And what role can technology - and importantly the sharing of these technologies - play in making real progress towards curving the harmful impacts of climate change that drive tensions and conflicts?

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Seventy years ago, States came together to draft the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. The Convention sets out the rights of individuals who are granted asylum and the responsibilities of nations that grant asylum, however its application has remained controversial and difficult to enforce. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has supervisory responsibilities but cannot enforce the Convention, and there is no formal mechanism for individuals to file complaints.

The Government of Uganda has been applauded for maintaining its open door policy of granting asylum to people fleeing war and insecurity. Uganda is currently hosting close to 1.5 million refugees, making it the largest refugee hosting country in Africa and the fourth largest in the world. Amongst the refugees, around 83 percent are women and children. Uganda’s long-standing openness was once again in the spotlight, with the decision to temporarily host 2,000 Afghan refugees.

Uganda isn’t alone - developing countries host 86 percent of the world’s refugees. Other wealthier States, even before the pandemic, chose to close their doors to refugees. In 2015, the tragic image of two-year-old Syrian Alan Kurdi lying face down on a Turkish beach after drowning in a failed sea crossing to Europe caused global outrage, yet did little in terms of impacting State’s policies.

As the COVID-19 pandemic shook the world in 2020, the world went into lockdown and resulted in increasing unwillingness to meet the obligations set out in the 1951 Convention - often citing the need to address domestic concerns. Ultimately: How do states instrumentalize the “refugee question” in the interest of their domestic and international agenda?

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60 years since the first man landed on the moon, Astro-politics, also known as the geopolitics of outer space, is entering a new dawn. Technological developments and recent successes of ambitious space programs such as SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are bringing outer space and the Moon back to the geopolitical debate. The foundation of activities in outer space finds its roots in the Cold War and reproduces the distinctive geopolitical dynamics of that historical moment. The diverging interests between the two states (US and Russia) were reflected in the political tensions that characterized the competition to reach outer space.

Today new players are emerging including non-state actors. What is the domain for space regulation? What are the rules of engagement in a largely evolving landscape in the wake of new terms such as space colony, space force, space tourism and space economy? These issues are reflected in increasing legislation, adopted to regulate space activities on a national and continental level. Furthermore, space activities are relevant for the well-being of humankind. Many services provided by public and private companies, such as satellite broadcasting, weather forecasts, or satellite navigation, have a strong socio-economic impact. A great reference point is the development of space in Africa.

Africa is looking to space to meet the rising demand for connectivity, fueled by fast-changing data consumption patterns and the growing need to bridge the digital divide by leveraging Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTNs). By April 2019, eight African countries including Kenya, Ghana, Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, Nigeria, South Africa and Angola had launched 32 national satellites into orbit, according to the annual African Space Industry report 2020. How can Africa exploit the promise of the space economy? What does leading in space mean in a world where space technology is increasingly easy to access? Is there room for cooperation in space?

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Religious institutions and their networks have always been a powerful tool in shaping societies by laying their moral grounds and impacting the social and political structures.

With growing religious pluralism and growing interests in influencing world affairs, more religious players have entered the geopolitical arena. Along with the strong traditional players like the Roman Catholic Church, new religious communities are engaging not only into social and development practices but also into politics. While varying widely in what they seek to achieve, they also share an important characteristic: each seeks to use religious soft power to advance certain values and norms as well as interests. The greater political engagement of religious entities therefore sparks the question of their objectives and their independence from the state structures of the countries of their origin. Have religious actors become an extended arm of states? Do states use their religious networks for more influence? What is the gap that religious actors are filling that allows them an “entrance” into the societies and the exercise of their role? Important questions also arise on what that means for human rights, including women’s and minority rights - who have often been the target or indirect target of this influence - is this rise in influence bringing issues from the private sphere into the public?

Exploring the dynamics of this new religious pluralism as it influences the global political landscape is critical. How do we address the paradox of how transnational religious actors, lacking the military or economic resources of states or transnational corporations, have managed to impact the contemporary world in such unexpected and contradictory ways? How do we unpack the role of religion in contemporary international relations?

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Despite the emerging popularity of the “Corporate Social Responsibility” (CSR) concept, big businesses remain at the center of manifold accusations of human rights abuses. Often blamed for their “green washing” or “pink washing” practices, the need for international and national regulations seems to grow. In 2011, the UN developed the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights – which outlines states’ obligation to safeguard human rights from the negative effects of commercial activity, businesses’ obligations to respect human rights, and the imperative for both states and businesses to offer effective remedies when damage occurs.

France has developed a National Action Plan (NAP) following the UN guidelines, but the extraterritorial capacity for regulation of such a framework remains quite limited.

In June 2021 the German parliament passed a new law that will require large companies to conduct supply chain due diligence activities. The law requires these companies to identify, prevent and address human rights and environmental abuses within their own and their direct suppliers’ operations.

In July 2021, the government of Uganda adopted its first NAP on Business & Human Rights providing a regulative framework for the private sector activities.

How are new regulatory frameworks changing the nature of business? Are they capable of creating enough constraints for companies to adopt sustainable business practices that respect human rights? What mechanisms could be envisioned both at the national and international levels to monitor practices and implement relevant measures?

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As the world shifts into a new geopolitical phase, Africa is gaining importance – as a trading partner and investment destination, a contender in addressing global challenges, but also as an arena for external actors to flex their military and strategic muscles. New actors are (re-)discovering the continent with regional and great power ambitions. From a European perspective, their activities in Africa are viewed with skepticism and concern. Not only because they are economic competitors, but because they also embody competing values and social models.

Looking at media involvement in Africa, one can only state that the continent is more important than ever. Next to traditional actors like the BBC or Radio France International, and to a smaller extent Deutsche Welle or Radio Swiss International, there are new players. They do not seem to have the same agendas as the older ones, but they bring about new versions of journalism and attempted influence backed up by strong financial possibilities.

Who are these new actors? What are their values, ambitions, strategies and methods? Does the competition between the traditional actors and the new ones contribute to a faster development of the region? As Africa is gaining importance, does it gain more reliable partners? What are the risks involved?

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In May 2021, Felix Tshisekedi, the President of the DRC, declared martial law in North Kivu and Ituri, two provinces on the country’s eastern border with Uganda and Rwanda, and placed them under military rule. In justifying this strong measure, Tshisekedi invoked the regular mass killings in the region, which have left more than 1,000 people dead since 2019 and have generally been ascribed to one local militant group: the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). This declaration followed a shift in U.S. strategy from March 2020, which announced that it now considers the ADF a “foreign terrorist organization”.

Africa is increasingly seen as the continent where the fight against terrorism is intensifying. In a number of battle fronts such as the DRC, Kenya, Nigeria and Somalia, the “enemies” are labeled as “terrorists”. Constructivist approaches to (in)security are enlightening in that regard. They allow for the questioning of the construction of this threat, in order to understand who is actually creating a security issue and in what way.

Illustrated with case studies, such as the ADF, Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab, this panel will aim at unpacking discourses and analyses to build a more in-depth comprehension of terrorism in its new forms. Using historical perspectives and looking at the development of new forms of “terrorism”, how can we understand the current narrative around a rising form of African “terrorism”?

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In April 2021, the EU and the Organization of the African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) concluded a new agreement, putting an end to months of negotiations to frame the Post-Cotonou era. This new treaty is setting the political, economic and cooperation framework between Africa and the EU for the twenty years to come. While certain aspects of the Lomé Convention (1975) and Cotonou Agreement (2000) remain in this new treaty, its structure and content have been significantly revised.

The new accord is regional by nature, including distinct protocols for Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific regions. Regionalized treaties offer more power to each of the three regions, enabling Africa’s weight in the European Union’s external ties to be much more noticeable. In addition, since 2000, new challenges –such as increased migration flows, climate change, and terrorism – have emerged as priorities in the EU-ACP relationship, while the EU’s preferential trade treatment for ACP states has become obsolete. With the end of the European Development Fund (EDF), aid is not at the centre of the partnership anymore.

The economic and political rise of middle-income countries has altered the balance in the field of development cooperation. In this context and over the years, it looks like the ACP-EU collaboration has steadily developed from a preferential arrangement to a mutually beneficial alliance based on shared interests. Is this agreement opening up ways for a more balanced relationship, giving the African continent more weight to build a new narrative in its relationship to Europe?

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Movement building and civic engagement is not new to the African continent. However, with the dawn of social media, these movements have increasingly gone global and taken on different dimensions -movements are increasingly showing solidarity and support from global communities that are not directly affected however empathise with their cause and lend their social media presence to amplify their voices.

This is becoming increasingly true in the African context, where African activists are increasingly finding their voices amplified by allies across the continent. This has manifested in recent years in Sudan with protests against the former President Omar al-Bashir -images of a female poet in the protests went viral prompting hashtags such as #SudanUprising to trend across platforms- some of which were banned in Sudan itself. In Nigeria in 2020 ‘End SARS’ became a decentralised social movement and a series of mass protests against police brutality in Nigeria, however quickly gained traction in other countries and amongst African diaspora in particular.

While Africa is diverse in cultures, histories and challenges - many of the grievances African youth, women and other marginalised faces are similar. So is social media the path to success for future social-political movements? And what does this mean for the future of leadership and civic engagement on the continent?

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The well-known Olympic Games in the summer of 1936 were a striking example of how sport can be an important vector of influence and crystallise tensions between countries. Throughout history, there is no shortage of examples of Olympic Games that have clearly reflected a certain political model, certain ambitions, certain ties between states like the 2014 Sochi Winter Games, to name but one. These major sporting events are gatherings where the image of the state, its showcase, is at stake.

In 2021, Japan hosted the international gathering during the time of the pandemic. In 2024, it will be the turn of France. Host countries of the games understood the stakes of sports diplomacy and thus equipped themselves with action plans and significant resources, particularly within their diplomatic network abroad. Promoting the country through the quality of its athletes, promoting transversal values around sport, as well as gender equality and disabilities, asserting themselves as decision-making bodies in the field: these are strategies that both justify and reinforce the organisation of the Games.

Let’s take a moment to take a closer look at the organisation of such major events, at the crossroads of diplomacy of influence and economy, through tourism notably. How are the Olympic Games used as a geopolitical tool for influence, crystallizing major political and economic models and relationships? What mechanisms do host countries put in place to magnify their profile internationally through the Games?

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Fake news is not, by any means, a new phenomenon. However, an increasingly global access to the internet and the popularity of social media have allowed rumors and disinformation to circulate at an unprecedented speed, redefining how citizens put their trust in institutions such as political authorities and traditional media. Powerful competing narratives have emerged on key issues, in particular since the beginning of the COVID-19, which has created uncertainties fed by lack of institutional trust.

The dissemination of fake news has a growing influence on geopolitics and is sometimes used to manipulate images and opinions. The lack of access to reliable sources of information that a majority of the population is facing in Africa makes the continent a fertile ground for the manipulation of opinions. How do fake news and competing narratives affect key geopolitical issues that the continent is currently facing?

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The Generation Equality Forum took place in Mexico City in March and in Paris in June-July 2021. Twenty-five years after the Beijing World Conference on Women, which led to the elaboration of the Beijing Platform for Action, a global and comprehensive agenda aiming at achieving gender equality worldwide, government and civil society leaders met again to take stock on the achievements and the remaining route to reach this ambitious objective. The Forum launched a 5-year action plan to achieve progress towards gender equality. It has also been an opportunity to secure $40 Billion in financial commitments from States, foundations and the private sector.

Through a new methodology, the Forum intended to open up a space for a multi-stakeholder and multi-generational dialogue. Confronting different visions of feminisms, while putting a strong emphasis on the need to focus on action and efficiency, the Forum aimed at becoming a platform for the emergence of new voices. What are the main challenges and advances identified by the rising feminist voices from the South through this Forum? Has this Forum marked the entrance in a new era for gender equality?

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Rapid rise of Afro-beats, rising stars on the global platform, and also the phenomena of several US stars re-connecting/linking with African heritage –i.e. many have used initiatives such as “The Year of the Return” in Ghana, reclaimed nationality–, have tapped into more of African music. Beyonce recently paired with African artists for the Lion King. Also in terms of film, Netflix have supported the production of several African films etc for their global platform.

With the Africa Season in full swing in France, we must ask ourselves where we stand in the world in terms of knowledge of African art. This notion itself says a lot about our (mis)knowledge of the continent in its multiple identities and plural histories. The movements of negritude and postcolonialism have given way to other forms of contestation, other ways of making them emerge. African art questions (freedom, tradition, diversity; in short, identity) rather than condemns. What does this exploration of identity tell us about the geopolitical links between Europe and Africa today?

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