Categories
-
ANU Africa Network
Posted on
by
This website was established in 2013 by David Lucas, and renovated and relaunched in 2020 as part of a project to increase awareness of Africa and African studies in the ANU and the ACT, funded by the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Another outcome of that project was a major research report, published in August 2021, African Studies at the Australian National University and in the Australian Capital Territory, analyzing the past, present and future of the study of Africa at the Australian National University and the wider Australian University sector.
The major innovation on this updated website is the creation of the ACT Africa Expert Directory which lists experts on Africa from institutions around the ACT, primarily the ANU. We will continue to curate this list, offering a key resource for media, government and non-government organizations seeking expert facts and opinions on Africa. Individuals can request to be added to the list by contacting the website managers.
Another notable addition is the expanded directory of PhD theses on Africa produced in the territory’s universities, a solid measure of the vitality of the study of Africa in the city of Canberra.
Reviewing these directories, it is revealing to note that the vast majority of research on Africa is produced by disciplinary experts (environmental scientists, economists, demographers, etc.) rather than area studies experts. This means that the study of Africa is woven into the fabric of the research culture of the ANU and the ACT’s other universities in ways that are not necessarily apparent.
-
Happy 62nd Independence, Uganda
Posted on
by
On October 9, 1962, Uganda gained independence from British colonial rule, with Apollo Milton Obote as its first Prime Minister.
However, like many former colonies, Uganda experienced significant political upheaval in the decades following independence. In 1966, Prime Minister Obote suspended the constitution and illegally overthrew President Edward Mutesa, who was also the King of Buganda, the largest kingdom in Uganda and East Africa. The instability worsened when Idi Amin seized power in a military coup in 1971. His regime plunged Uganda into economic ruin and saw widespread atrocities that claimed the lives of up to 500,000 civilians. Amin is remembered as one of the most brutal dictators in modern history. His annexation of Tanzanian territory in 1979 triggered a Tanzanian invasion, which eventually ousted him.
Uganda endured continued political instability, marked by frequent coups, until 1986, when Yoweri Museveni took power through military means. He has remained president since. While Museveni is credited with restoring relative stability and promoting economic growth, he has faced criticism for clinging to power. In 2017, Uganda’s parliament removed presidential age limits, paving the way for Museveni to remain in office indefinitely. He has already been endorsed by his party for the upcoming 2026 elections.
According to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), the national poverty rate in 2019/20 was about 30 percent. While this is lower than the international rate of about 42 percent, more must be done to uplift Ugandans from poverty.
Happy Independence Day, Uganda!
-
Removing bias from recommendation algorithms can lead to a fairer, more transparent, immigration system
Posted on
by
By Bernard Baffour
This article was originally published by the ABC.
Immigration decisions are increasingly being outsourced in order to save costs and optimise resources. It is often efficient to rely on algorithms that analyse historical data and identify patterns to indicate potential risks or outcomes. In most government departments, resources such as time, staff, and finances are limited, and these algorithms can provide insights into where resources are most needed for efficiency planning.
In most cases, these algorithms can provide enhanced decision-making by distilling the complex and uncertain factors, and making data-driven recommendations. Human decision makers can then supplement their expertise and intuition based on these algorithmic recommendations.
The use of algorithms in this way and for these purposes raises some significant problems, however. Let me highlight them through the following scenarios.
How algorithms can reproduce bias
Officials are often faced with the difficult decision of screening for children at risk of child maltreatment. Most models usually include race (of child or parent) in their range of relevant factors. But although race is highly predictive, it can reflect inherent biases and prejudices. In this example, a predictive model which did not use race was found to be better, because the model which included race screened in low-risk black children and screened out high-risk white children.
In other words, this model made fewer false positive decisions (flagging children as “at-risk” in predominantly “black” families when the children were actually “non-risk”) and fewer false negative decisions (flagging “at-risk” children as “non-risk” in largely “white” families).
In the second example, it is well known that Australia’s Indigenous population has significantly lower levels of education, income, employment, and health and wellbeing, such that the proportion of Indigenous people in an area is highly correlated with socio-economic disadvantage. While this is a “statistically significant” variable, its use “problematises” Indigeneity.
Hence, in research I conducted with Sumonkanti Das, Mu Li and Alice Richardson, using geographic remoteness instead of the proportion of Indigenous people in an area was found to be most effective. This has the advantage of capturing the relative isolation of local communities both for Indigenous areas and rural neighbourhoods.
Applying a debiased predictive model to visa applications
The Department of Home Affairs deals with thousands of visa applications on a daily basis, and predictive analysis is extremely valuable in providing quick and efficient decisions. In most cases, “country of birth” or “nationality” is highly correlated with whether a person will violate their visa conditions. But this can be liable to prejudices and institutionalised racism. As a matter of fact, the country with most visa applicants who fail to comply with their visa conditions is the United Kingdom. This is not to say that British people per se are more likely to overstay their visas — it is, rather, back-packers and young people on working holiday visas who are the likeliest offenders.
In a fairer system, if two medical doctors of equal standing were both accepted to a conference in Sydney, then granting the visa should not depend on whether they possess a passport from Switzerland or Peru, from Germany or Ghana.
A few months ago, I wrote about the experience of my sister, who is an anaesthesiologist at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, Ghana. She was repeatedly denied a visa to come to Australia for a brief visit to visit me and my family in Canberra, on the grounds that she “had not provided sufficient evidence that [she] genuinely intended to stay temporarily in Australia”. The entire decision-making process was conjectural, arbitrary, and highly prejudicial. Since that article was published, many people have reached out to me, expressing similar concerns, sharing similar experiences, and thanking me for articulating what had happened to them, but lamenting the fact that they felt they didn’t have the agency to do what I did.
This experience is not limited to applicants from sub-Saharan, South Asian, and South American countries, however. The same thing has happened to people from a number of European countries. While I believe that secure borders are important for ensuring our safety and managing immigration, there needs to be some transparency and objectivity in the way the visa application process works. The biggest complaint people have is the unaccountable and seemingly “God-like” powers visa officials possess.
Removing the country of birth (or nationality) from the algorithm, and using instead observable background characteristics — such as occupation/education or labour force participation of the applicant or sponsor — will arguably be less influenced by prejudices and biases.
Indeed, well-established sponsors who are in good employment and in good standing in the community are unlikely to want to break the law by encouraging or condoning their sponsored family members or friends to break the law and flout their visa obligations. Furthermore, applicants sponsored by well-established sponsors pose less of a risk to flouting their visa obligations since their sponsors can easily be contacted or traced in the unlikely event that their sponsored family members do not meet their visa obligations.
Well-established sponsors who are in good employment and in good standing in the community are also unlikely to let their sponsored family members break the law because it will adversely affect their chances of sponsoring any more family members or friends in the future.
Transparency and fairness matter — ethically and electorally
Prejudicial treatment of visa applications could loom as a significant issue in future federal elections — people from the Global South comprise around 18.5 per cent of the electorate. In fact, this is almost certainly an underestimate, because it does not account for migrants with Australian citizenship. With more than half of the Australian population born overseas, or with a parent born overseas, it is easy to imagine how the manifest unfairness in the treatment of such a large portion of the of the population could have serious electoral ramifications.
Nor should this be seen as a problem remote from “ordinary Australians”. After all, the very idea that some citizens are subjected to a different set of rules, and thus are denied the fair treatment extended to others, could hardly be more un-Australian.
Bernard Baffour is an Associate Professor in the School of Demography and the Associate Dean of Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity and Access (IDEA) at the College of Arts and Social Sciences at the Australian National University.
-
Call for Abstracts: 3rd Annual Australian National University African Studies Network Conference
Posted on
by
Theme: Decolonising Knowledge: Reframing Australia-Africa Relations in the New Era
Dates: November 28-29, 2024
Location: Australian National University (ANU) Campus, Canberra (Virtual participation available)The Australian National University African Studies Network is pleased to announce the call for abstracts for its 3rd Annual Conference. We invite submissions from all disciplines related to the conference theme. The conference aims to explore the evolving dynamics of Australia-Africa relations, with a focus on decolonising knowledge and reshaping intellectual exchanges.
Submission Guidelines
- Abstract Length: Maximum 250 words
- Bio and Institutional Affiliation: Maximum 100 words
- Submission Deadline: October 30, 2024, by 11:59 AEST
- Email: africanstudiesnetwork@anu.edu.au with your name, followed by “ASN 2024” and complete the short online registration form.
Eligibility and selection criteria
We welcome submissions from students, senior academics, policymakers, corporates, and civil society leaders. Abstracts will be considered on a rolling basis. Presenters can choose to participate either virtually or in person.For any questions, please contact us at africanstudiesnetwork@anu.edu.au.
We extend our gratitude to the Student Extracurricular Enrichment Fund (SEEF) at ANU and the ANU Research School of Social Sciences (RSS) for their support. More information can be found in the attached flyer. Please share this call with your networks.
Contextual Background
Australia-Africa relations are evolving, with recent years seeing a shift toward ‘new engagement’ or ‘re-engagement’ with the continent (Mickler & Lyons, 2013). The Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) notes that Australia engages with all 54 African UN member states in politics, trade, investment, development cooperation, peace, and security (DFAT, 2024). Australia also maintains warm relationships with African regional blocs, including the African Union (AU), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the East African Community (EAC), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the International Conference for the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).
In trade and investment, DFAT reported AU$9 billion in total trade between the two continents in 2020. Over 170 Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) listed companies operate in about 35 African countries, with PwC (2024) reporting more than 200 companies. Despite recent aid cuts, the Australian government allocated AU$148.2 million to Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) to Africa for the 2022-23 fiscal year. However, Australia’s overall aid generosity has declined, with its ranking dropping from 14th to 26th among the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) countries from 2015 to 2023 (Development Policy Centre, 2024).
The 2020 census recorded over 400,000 people of African origin living in Australia (Abur, 2020). Australian Defence Force personnel currently serve in the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) and assist the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) in the Sinai, Egypt. Historically, Australian personnel have participated in UN missions across various African countries.
Despite these advances, the decolonisation of knowledge in Australia-Africa relations remains incomplete, as argued by Davis & Blackwell (2023) and other scholars. Reassessing how knowledge is produced, valued, and shared is essential. Decolonial approaches are crucial in the new era of Australia-Africa relations, reshaping intellectual exchanges, research collaborations, and educational partnerships.
We look forward to your contributions and wish you the best in your application!
References
Abur, W. (2022). Migration and Settlement of African People in Australia. In I. Muenstermann (Ed.), Human Migration in the Last Three Centuries (1st ed.). IntechOpen. https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107083
Davis, A. E., & Blackwell, J. (2023). Decolonising Australia’s International Relations? A Critical Introduction. Australian Journal of Politics and History, 69(3), 405–421. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajph.12947
Development Policy Centre. (2024). Comparisons. Australian Aid Tracker. https://devpolicy.org/aidtracker/comparisons/
DFAT (2024) Africa region brief, Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Available at: https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/africa-middle-east/africa-region-brief#:~:text=Australia’s%20two%2Dway%20goods%20and,Kenya%2C%20Egypt%2C%20and%20Sudan.
DFAT. (2024). Africa region brief. Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/africa-middle-east/africa-region-brief#:~:text=Australia.
Mickler, D., & Lyons, T. (2013). New Engagement. Melbourne Univ. Publishing.
PwC. (2022, August). Australia Africa Practice. PwC. https://www.pwc.com.au/mining/australia-africa-practice.html