The Nordic Africa Institute – Publications

The extraction of critical minerals in Senegal highlights the complex tradeoffs between economic growth, environmental sustainability and social equity. Projects like the French-led Eramet Grande Côte (EGC) have led to environmental degradation, threats to livelihoods and community tensions, exacerbated by weak law enforcement and suppressed activism. This policy note calls for stronger governance, community inclusion and sustainable mining practices.

Since 2021, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Zambia have taken steps towards establishing a regional battery value chain, seeking to move from extraction towards higher-value production such as battery precursors and, ultimately, batteries themselves. Energy, transport and skills are rightly seen as key success factors. But other key variables often receive less attention in policy discussions: direct state participation and strategic oversight of investment decisions in the mining sector.

The Mediterranean Basin, already a water-scarcity hotspot, faces intensifying droughts and warming that strain the water–energy–food–ecosystems (WEFE) nexus. Climate impacts cascade across sectors, while siloed responses risk maladaptation. Nexus-based solutions—centred on water—can foster synergies and reduce trade-offs, with nature-based, socially inclusive, and clean energy strategies offering transformative potential. Yet governance, cooperation, and data gaps persist; closing these is vital to operationalize the nexus and advance regional sustainability.

A new survey of firms in Ghana shows that the tax burden and levels of compliance are disproportionately higher among formal businesses than informal ones. Formal businesses also consider the tax system to be unfair to a greater extent than informal ones. These inequities reflect broader challenges across African economies, where informality dominates. To encourage investment and job creation, the government must build more transparent and fair tax systems that foster trust.

Personal and collective experiences of loss intersect within the broader framework of national mourning, as explored in this study based on Cyclone Freddy in Malawi. The cyclone resulted in more than 1,200 people reported as either dead or missing, and more than 2,100 people injured. It disrupted the lives of approximately 2.3 million individuals. Beyond documenting these figures, the research interrogates the structural conditions that rendered the nation particularly vulnerable to such a disaster – including chronic infrastructural neglect, political inertia, and deeply embedded social inequalities. By weaving together individual testimonies and communal narratives of grief, the study situates the cyclone within the longue durée of Malawi’s socio-political fragilities. Informed by Jacques Derrida’s theorisation of "impossible mourning", the analysis foregrounds how trauma sutures past and present, elucidating the emotional and material afterlives of catastrophe in contexts defined by enduring structural precarity.

Despite decades of progress in adolescent health in sub-Saharan Africa, policies concerning sexual and reproductive health remain fragmented and weakly connected to families. Parents and caregivers are often left without the tools to communicate effectively about these matters. By strengthening parental engagement from early childhood through adolescence, national policies can build more resilient systems that promote adolescent health, gender equity and intergenerational trust.

This book examines gendered electoral violence (GEV) in Ghana, Kenya and Zimbabwe, showing how women in local politics face systematic physical, sexual, economic, psychological and symbolic violence designed to deter their participation and preserve male-dominated political systems.

Drawing on 134 interviews with politically active women, the study documents widespread intimidation, online abuse, harassment, disinformation, and intra-party violence. Younger, unmarried women, those from marginalised ethnic groups, and those in opposition parties face the highest risks. Even where gender quotas exist – as in Kenya and Zimbabwe – GEV persists, and increased representation has not translated into safer political environments. Women often rely on personal ‘safety work,’ such as avoiding unsafe areas, campaigning in groups or hiring protection, due to weak formal support structures.

The authors offer recommendations to policymakers at both national and local levels for coordinated action, including stronger legal protections, increased party accountability, gender-sensitive policing and election management, expanded civil society support, and international partnerships to prevent GEV and safeguard women’s political rights.

Highly educated African migrants face barriers to labour market integration in Europe, where their skills are often undervalued and discrimination is widespread. Drawing on research on Burundian migrants in Belgium and Sweden, this policy note highlights the costs of exclusion and calls for stronger anti-discrimination enforcement, and closer Europe-Africa cooperation to promote transnational labour mobility.

The Philippines’s agricultural sector, which plays a crucial role in the country’s food security, is particularly vulnerable to climate-related risks such as cyclones, flooding, drought, and high temperatures. Within this context, there is a pressing need for effective local climate adaptation programs that are informed by and of benefit to vulnerable groups, particularly— although not exclusively—low-income women. Here, a participatory methodology centered around social equity offers vital tools for engaging poor communities who are coping with climate change.

Policy debates on de-risking Africa’s food supply chains often emphasize measures for large corporations, while overlooking the 'missing middle' of small and medium-sized enterprises. Supporting these businesses through tailored risk-mitigation policies can bolster resilience, economic stability and food security. At the same time, systematically monitoring their ground-level insights – their 'ear-to-the-ground' knowledge – gives invaluable input to early-warning systems.

Over the last quarter-century, the UN Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda raised global awareness of the role of women in conflict. But much of its potential remains unrealised. The agenda is slow-moving and driven by top-down implementation. To succeed, the UN and other involved stakeholders must popularise WPS and expand it beyond diplomacy into a broader societal movement – especially in Africa, where the number of conflicts is rising and where the WPS agenda was first shaped.