Day: September 2, 2021

Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei says it wants to train up to 3 million African youths to work with cutting-edge digital technology such as artificial intelligence. Already, Nigerian students who took part in a Huawei-sponsored information and communications technology (ICT) competition say the benefits, including possible job placements with the company, are enormous. But experts warn there could be potential negative impacts of China’s growing tech influence in Africa.

Computer engineering finalist Muhammad Maihaja is set to graduate from the Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria’s Kaduna state in November.

In 2019, he was part of a team of six from the school who represented Nigeria at the global Huawei ICT competition in Shenzhen, China, where they finished in third place.

Huawei introduced the competition to Africa in 2014 to identify and nurture highly skilled ICT professionals — what the company says is part of its expanding talent search in Africa’s tech sector that has benefited some 2,000 African students like Maihaja.

“We have been exposed to devices and technologies we’ve never experienced before. As normal university students, we would not have experienced what we did experience in the competition. So, I’ll say … this has made me much more ICT inclined, so to say,” Maihaja said.

The competition evaluates students’ competence in network and cloud technology. Maihaja and his team’s success in 2019 was a rare achievement for an African team, let alone a first-time participant.

The feat inspired many other students like Hamza Atabor who tried out for the next edition in 2020. He and the other Nigerian students this time won the competition.

“I was inspired by, you know, when they talked about their stories, how they won the competition, and also when they were given their prizes and everything. I just felt, OK, this is something to actually make a sacrifice for,” Atabor said.

Students like Maihaja and Atabor are meeting Huawei’s set objective, but critics say the company is only a fragment of China’s fast-paced dominance in Africa’s technology landscape.

Huawei reportedly accounts for more than 70% of the continent’s telecommunications network.

Mohammed Bashir Muazu, a professor of computer engineering at Ahmadu Bello University, says it’s no surprise China is gaining traction in Africa.

“Seeing the level of technological developments in China, I think what is actually happening is inevitable,” Muazu said.

Concerns about China’s presence in Africa grew in 2019 after U.S. newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, reported that Huawei had helped Ugandan and Zambian authorities spy on political opponents.

Huawei denied the accusations and declined an interview on the matter.

But ICT expert Samuel Adekola says China could use its competitive advantage for selfish gains.

“It’s really dangerous. I cannot quantify how much they could do, but whoever has data, you can do a lot of things. You have a lot of information about a group of people, the nation,” Adekola said.

As long as China continues to invest in Africa, students like Maihaja and Atabor will learn valuable skills, even though experts say Africa may have to pay a price for relying too heavily on foreign companies.

Source: Voice of America

Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency said Thursday that the terrorist group al-Shabab had killed a female employee who was abducted in Mogadishu in June. But close family members questioned the claim.

Ikran Tahlil Farah, 24, worked with the agency’s cybersecurity department. She was abducted June 26 near her home in Mogadishu’s Abdulaziz district, which is close to NISA headquarters.

The agency posted a brief statement on its website Thursday saying its investigation had determined that the young woman’s kidnappers handed her over to al-Shabab militants, who later killed her.

The agency did not release details about when or where it believed Ikran was killed.

Al-Shabab has not publicly acknowledged any role in Ikran’s disappearance. The Islamist extremist group previously has publicly executed people it accused of spying for the Somali government and for Western countries, including the United States.

The security agency issued its statement several hours after VOA’s Somali Service aired a radio program that focused on Ikran’s disappearance. Colonel Abdullahi Ali Maow, a former Somali intelligence official who was a guest on the program, speculated that the Islamist terrorist group was involved in Ikran’s fate.

‘This is a smokescreen’

But the young woman’s mother, Abdullahi Ali Maow, said she thought her daughter might be alive and detained in a clandestine location.

“I do not believe that al-Shabab killed my daughter, because when she was kidnapped, she was with people she trusted in the agency,” said the mother, who was also a guest on the program. “I think she is being held somewhere, and this is a smokescreen.”

Former NISA Director-General Abdullahi Ali Sanbalolshe told VOA Somali in July that “some people” told him Ikran had records about a program that secretly sent Somali military recruits to Eritrea to train. Allegations surfaced in June that those recruits have been fighting and dying in Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict.

Ikran “also could possess other sensitive information for which she could have been targeted,” Sanbalolshe said, noting that he hired the young woman in 2017.

Opposition leaders have been pressuring Somalia’s spy agency and Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble for information about the disappearance of the intelligence agency employee.

Source: Voice of America

A United Nations global report on nutrition says malnutrition is to blame for more than a third of Malawian children who have stunted growth and nearly a quarter of child deaths. To combat the problem, the U.N. and Malawi’s President Lazarus Chakwera launched a campaign Thursday to promote child nutrition and health.

The theme for the Scaling Up Nutrition 3.0 Campaign is “Unite to end all forms of malnutrition for sustainable human well-being and economic development.”

Launching the campaign, Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera says Malawi’s high malnutrition rate is largely because most of its citizens are overly dependent on Nsima as the only food.

Nsima is a hard porridge cooked from maize flour and often is eaten with fish, meat and vegetables.

“The painful truth is that those among us, who say, ‘we haven’t really eaten until we have eaten Msima,’ need to rethink our beliefs about nutrition and take seriously the science of how too much Nsima consumption affects our bodies,” he said.

Chakwera said the campaign has provided an opportunity for Malawi to re-engineer its society toward a more diversified diet.

“As a special challenge, I am calling on all of you to replace 10% of your Nsima consumption every year with other and more nutritious food. That kind of discipline and commitment will take all of us to make malnutrition history in our country,” he said.

Dr. Alexander Kalimbira is the associate professor in nutrition at Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

He said besides the effect on a person’s health, the malnutrition also has resulted in low productivity in Malawi.

“Do we have evidence? And the answer is yes, we do have evidence,” he said. “Back in 2012, a study done in Africa; Cost of Hunger in Africa, what shows in the report is that the country, in one year alone. in 2012 lost $597 million U.S. dollars. Your Excellency, this represented at that time 10.3% of our gross domestic product. These are the consequences of malnutrition.”

Chakwera said his government, however, is making efforts to address the problem.

He said this includes the allocation of budgets of local councils, placing malnutrition officers across the country, and providing specialized malnutrition services to all Malawians.

Gerda Verburg is the United Nations assistant secretary-general and also coordinator for the Scaling Up Nutrition 3.0 Movement.

She hailed Malawi for steps it is taking to end malnutrition.

Verburg asked Chakwera, who also is the chairperson of the Southern Africa Community Development, or SADC, to take the campaign beyond Malawi.

“Please bring these inspirational messages and this strategy also to all SADC countries because Malawi is really a frontrunner in the strong commitment and understanding that nutrition is the engine for change and for development,” she said.

Recent government statistics show about 1.5 million Malawians, about 8 percent of the population are currently food insecure.

Source: Voice of America