Africa

Nollywood, the movie production and distribution system that started out in Nigeria in the 1990s, used to be known for its physical formats — VHS tapes, then video CDs — which fans bought at local street markets and shared with friends and family.

But over the last decade, as the industry has grown to international acclaim, so have its ambitions. This has included raising the bar on film production quality and bringing more Nollywood movies to local movie theaters, where they have to compete with international fare, often from Hollywood.

Since 2015, Nollywood has started to be able to hold its own against Marvel multi-part blockbusters and the like by taking more market share, box office data shows: ticket sales are growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 15%. That’s apart from audiences they’re likely gaining on streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon’s Prime. Both platforms have inked deals to carry dozens of Nollywood movies in the last couple of years.

It’s been one year since the Komera Leadership Center building was formally opened in Rwanda. Located in the Kayonza district in the country’s eastern province, the center’s goal is to encourage women in leadership, first by ensuring that girls enroll and stay in school, and then by participating in activities that develop their communities.

Komera was founded in 2014 but work on the building, which takes its shape around a sprawling hallway interconnected by triangular roofs, started in 2021. It was designed by Bruce Engel, an architect with other credits in East Africa. Beyond the specific focus on women’s development, the center’s large meeting hall and location close to a football pitch in the district makes it an accessible social space for other activities in the community.

Rwanda is already one of Africa’s leaders on female participation in public service with women occupying 61% of seats in the lower house of parliament. Run almost exclusively by women, Komera — with its eye-catching home — exists to ensure the gains and momentum won so far are passed to future generations of Rwandan girls.

Burna Boy’s seventh studio album “I Told Them” was released on Friday to the acclaim of fans of the Nigerian star. His run of recent hits has seen him recognized as one Africa’s biggest stars. As an accessory to the album, Burna released a 64-page physical magazine that promises new insight into the Grammy-award winner.

For $30 a copy, readers will find an article by Bose Ogulu, the artist’s mother and manager, a conversation with the hip hop legend RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan, and an actual CD of the album. Together with other merch items (a bucket hat, an “African Giant Lighter”), Burna’s team is marketing the magazine as a keepsake for his biggest fans.

For a star whose success has largely come in the streaming age, there’s a certain irony to harking back to print magazines and compact discs — most of his fans have probably only ever listened to his songs on their mobile phones.

But it’s also part of a wider move by today’s superstars to build direct commercial relationships with their fans, rather than just relying on their record labels, publishers, and live promoters. Burna Boy is also pushing plenty of other fan merchandise on his website and other social media channels. It’s a bit like the fifth track on “I Told Them” suggests: everybody wants whatever is Tested, Approved and Trusted.

— Alexander Onukwue

In recent years gango has overtaken gochi-gochi, as Zimbabwe’s most popular barbecued meat. Gango — a name derived from the Shona language verb kanga, which means fry — is made from a range of different meats depending on your taste.

In Bulawayo, the country’s second largest city, gango hawkers ply their trade at various spots, including in the city center at a bus terminus near the Large City Hall. During lunch hour dozens of people line up at the hawkers for takeaways and in the evenings as they head home after work.

The same can be said of Harare, the capital, where hundreds congregate at an open eating place called KwaMereki to enjoy the relish. It is taken together with a sadza, a thick staple porridge made from corn/maize or sorghum flour.

Pieces of beef, pork sausages, chicken livers, chicken gizzards are tossed together in a skillet, or gango, a circular frame of thick metal fashioned out of a disused tractor plough disc. This is somewhere between the conventional barbecuing or braaiing and cooking in a pot but takes twist with the addition of tomatoes, which will be well cooked, before the addition of kale, and any other leafy vegetable. In South Africa, they barbecue over a gauze, but the gango is really unique to Zimbabwe as it combines meats, kale, tomatoes, onions and other ingredients.

— Daisy Jeremani in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

🌍 Malaria killed over 600,000 people in 2021, according to the W.H.O, and most of those people were in Africa. The battle against the deadly disease has often focused on preventing parasite-carrying mosquitoes from getting to humans with insecticide-saturated nets or insecticide sprays. But increasingly the mosquitoes are becoming resistant to insecticides. Scientists are now looking at developing genetically modifying mosquitoes through a couple of methods which promise not to eradicate the species. But the idea is still not without controversy, notes The Conversation Africa.

🇳🇪 France and the United States are at loggerheads over the best response to the coup in Niger that ousted the now-deposed President Mohamed Bazoum, writes Nahal Toosi in Politico. While France favors military intervention by the West African regional bloc Ecowas, the United States sent Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to engage the junta leadership on Aug. 7, insisting there’s still a negotiated way to restore democracy. The tension reveals “a shifting balance of power in the region and underscores the differences between Paris and Washington’s interests” in Niger.

🇬🇲 Gambia’s former President Yahya Jammeh accused his political opponents of witchcraft and tortured them as he fought to maintain absolute control of the West African country, Andrei Popoviciu writes in New Lines Magazine. The country’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) set up in 2018, submitted its report recommending the prosecution of Jammeh and his henchmen. But Gambia’s government has done little to compensate and support Jammeh’s victims.

🇹🇿 In the late 1960s and early 1970s, China helped build TAZARA, or the Tanzania–Zambia Railway, providing comprehensive machinery and personnel without additional cost or interest on loans. The railway would ultimately play a key role in the economic development of the countries. Zhang Haotian writes in China Global South Project that it was not entirely out of benevolence but could be seen as the springboard for China’s African engagement strategy that continues a half-century later to the present day.

🌍 The rise and rise of African podcasting is promising for creators and participants alike, especially as an avenue for storytelling. But there are few guarantees of commercial success yet for the startups in the sector, finds Maurice Oniang’o for Reuters Institute. The fledgling sector has so far been led by startups in tech hubs like Nairobi, Lagos, and Johannesburg. There is a natural audience on a continent where radio is still a leading platform and like elsewhere it provides a space for voices that don’t usually get heard in their countries or regions.

🗓️ African health ministers will meet for the 73rd session of the World Health Organization Regional Committee for Africa at the Gaborone International Conference Centre in Gaborone, Botswana. (Aug. 28- Sep.1)

🗓️ The United Nations Security Council will convene on Monday to discuss the security situation in Mali and the MINUSMA troops’ withdrawal, which is expected to be concluded by December 31. (Aug. 28)

🗓️ Kenya Airways will announce its first-half financial results for 2023. In the first half of 2022, the airline recorded a pretax loss of 9.9 billion shillings ($69 million). (Aug. 29)

🗓️ Uber will launch its first electric vehicle product in Kenya, its first step towards greening its entire fleet. It comes ahead of Africa Climate Week which takes place in Nairobi the following week. (Aug. 30)

🗓️ Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Raphael Bostic will speak at South African Reserve Bank‘s Biennial Research Conference. (Aug. 31)

• A YouTuber’s attempt to bring together one person “from every country on Earth” for a competition is the latest viral moment to highlight the fraught political nature of maps in pop culture.
• Here’s what really mattered in the first 2024 Republican debate.
• A leading candidate has emerged in the search to fill the top job at CNN after its CEO Chris Licht was fired in June.

If you’re enjoying the Semafor Africa newsletter and finding it useful, please share with your family, and friends. We’d love to have them aboard.

You can reply to this email and send us your news tips, gossip, street food recommendations and good vibes.

— Yinka, Alexis Akwagyiram, Alexander Onukwue, and Muchira Gachenge