Taking Africa’s Pulse with Afrobarometer

This transcript is from a CSIS podcast published on November 16, 2023. Listen to the podcast here.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Welcome to Into Africa. My name is Mvemba Phezo Dizolele. I'm a senior fellow and the director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. This is a podcast where we talk everything African, politics, economics, security and culture. Welcome.

Data collection is a challenging, but very important endeavor, whether we're talking about statistics, about any sector or economic indicators, data collection is at the center of it. It is important that people get the right information in the right form. Again, it comes to different venues, surveys, public opinions, in order for them as policy-makers to make the right decisions. If we get this wrong, then it is likely that decisions that we make may not be aligning with the realities of society, communities or countries even.

We saw situations whereby, for instance, during the COVID pandemic where pundits in the north had predicted that Africa will suffer badly from the consequences of the pandemic. This was due to discourses that were being developed over the years. Africa was considered, uh, poor, and in so many ways it is. Africans, uh, were looked upon through the lens of public health infrastructure. We have plenty of those in the West. Africa doesn't seem to have a lot of those. So data, of course in that sense, at least the way we had the illusion of data suggested that.

But the reality is Africa has fared pretty well within the context of the pandemic. People didn't die as, uh, much as people in the West here, policy analysts and health analysts had predicted. That may be because there are other data point that we may not have taken into consideration, such as the young demographics of Africa, such as the, uh, knowledge that African physicians have. They often deal with calamities and challenges like this quite often.

So a doctor in Uganda is often very well-trained in everything that is within this realm of stuff, or what we may call tropical medicine and so on. Whereas a doctor in, let's say Norway may not have the same training. Over here it might be considered specialized medicine. So the list goes on. We often talk about the fastest growing economies in the world being in Africa. And you wonder what does that mean? That's the reverse. That's sort of the opposite side of that.

We get numbers 7% growth, X percent growth, and then you go in the field, you go to the market, you talk to the market woman at Wuse in Abuja or the Grand Marché in Libreville, or you go Ghana, you talk to the women in the market, they will tell you, "Papa, people are starving." And you're like, "How are they starving? The economy... The IMF and the World Bank said they're doing well 'cause because it's the fastest growing eco-" But the woman at the market who said, "Papa, people are starving," in a country that eats a lot of, uh, fufu, where they use a lot of flour, she tells you, "I only sell half a bag this time. In a good day, when people eat well, I may sell six bags a day." So there are other indicators that are not making into the public discourse.

And I think this is where groups like Afrobarometer, which is a Pan-African, independent, non-partisan research network, measuring public attitude on economic, political and social matters in Africa are important. I'm curious today, just like a lot of our audience members out there, how we circumvent a challenge of collecting data. To go back to that COVID moment, I remember listening to NPR or other platforms where they said, "Sierre Leone, people have not died enough. We've not seen the number of death that we, uh, we had, uh, anticipated." And the reporter and the person who was online with the reporter start talking about bad reporting, says, "The numbers are not being reported properly." But then everybody who has lived in Africa knows that in Africa you don't hide your dead. It's impossible to hide the dead. So there's a gap there between this analyst who was on NPR and the reality on the ground, and this is just not in public health. Joining me to discuss the challenge of, uh, collecting data in the wide space and varied space like the African continent is Doctor Joseph Asunka, who is the chief executive officer of Afrobarometer. Joe Asunka, welcome to Into Africa.

Dr. Joseph Asunka: Thank you so much, Mvemba, for having me. I'm really glad to be here.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: You've been the CEO of Afrobarometer since April 2021. So you've had a good, uh, two years under your belt to do this work, and I'm sure you were associated with this work before. Where are the challenges when it comes to data collection in Africa?

Dr. Joseph Asunka: Thank you so much for that. I think... I mean, how we talk of data, of course, is a combination of both official data that is gathered and collected by governments for decision-making, but also data that is collected by outside, external actors like the private sector or civil society groups or think tanks like ourselves that work in this space. I think there, there are many challenges to it. Of course, first of all is just the quality of the data or, or even the accessibility, is the data available in the first place to be collected?

And so gi- to get to give an example. If you come to official statistics, say, the government wants to know, you know, how many clinics and how resourced are these clinics in the living services to people on the continent. Sometimes, there are major gaps there. And so even that is the very basic level where it might be easier to get official data on, it's often not the case that you don't have that information. And it's a combination of factors, the challenges being, yes, documentation. Access may be taken, but they are not documented, and so we don't... we can't actually trace to see where... whether or not what's, I mean, the government may report that is happening is actually happening or not.

And so it's one thing, there's a lack of documentation.

But I think there are many other issues, too, when it comes to data collection on the continent, partly because of insecurity. Sometimes, you know, when you don't have a very stable political environment, collecting data can be a bit tricky, especially for the type of work we do. If I zero down on Afrobarometer's work, our work is mostly face-to-face interviews with citizens, and the purpose is to gauge citizens' experiences of all the services, all the services that governments provide. And when you don't have a stable political condi- uh, situation, it can be difficult to be able to walk into people's homes to ask them about their experiences. So that's, that's one big challenge on the continent with respect to the type of work we do.

The second challenge being the ability to really engage or access people in very remote locations. And given how vast the some of our countries are and the continent in general, it can be extremely difficult to get to certain locations just because of the mere fact of lack of infrastructure. So you don't have the infrastructure available to facilitate the data collection that we would want to be able to do. Of course, we try to go beyond that to be able to reach the most remote places on the continent, but not many people would be willing to sacrifice that much. And, and so it comes down to also affect the quality of data that people collect, that you may end up collecting data only in urban areas and not really considering the rural communities.

I think that's a big, a big setback. So the data that people may have, like you alluded to, it may just be urban-biased in some ways, and urban-biased data may not reflect the total reality of the country, and given that a majority of people live in rural areas. And so there are a series of challenges there, and yeah, I'm more than happy to, to elaborate more if necessary.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Some of the challenges that you mentioned, uh, Joe, lack of documentation, face-to-face engagement seem to be the way you've done it a lot, but also the remoteness of large parts of the country or lack of access to this remote area for the scientists who is doing the research. So how have you circumvented that? 'Cause in the end we still need data, this was very important for the public health contingency, we just went through over the last three years.

Dr. Joseph Asunka: Yes, and so I mean for us what we would normally do, there, there are a cou- couple of things. So, first of all, before we enter a country, you cur- you know that Afrobarometer currently covers up to 40, 40 countries. We are not yet into all 54 countries, partly because of our inability to access some countries. So, it's either there are two things, uh, three things that happen. First of all, as I mentioned, the political stability. So if there's insecurity, we are not able to access countries to interview people. But the second component is population census data. If you want to draw a truly representative sample of a country, you need a census framework that is as recent as 10 years or less. And for some countries, the i- last census was conducted maybe 15, 20 years ago, and if you rely on that framework to draw your sample, you are unlikely to get a good sample from that. And so, if a country doesn't have a good population census frame, that is a big challenge for us.

In how we overcome the, the barriers to reaching the remote areas, we try to invest quite a lot in the data collection. And we do this because we want everybody from all corners of the country to have their views heard. That is what makes our service quite expensive. Once we select a random sample, it doesn't matter where, how remote the location is, as long as we can guarantee security, we will often provide our interviewers the means to get there. If it, it will include hiring vehicles so that they can drive to the location. Sometimes, maybe you just have to actually do... create makeshift bridges for people to cross rivers to be able to access some of these remote locations. We have gone on boats in many places, horsebacks, any means that we can get to get to the particular location that was selected, we do that. And we wouldn't allow our respond... our interviewers to change a particular location just because it is difficult to access. We will put in all the resources that are needed to make sure that they actually reach those remote locations.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Is telephony part of this? Do you use, uh, phones at all? We hear a lot about telephone penetration in Africa being the highest, at least one of the highest in the world. We understand that people don't always have the money to use their phone, but it seems like that is taken off quite a bit. Is that one of the, um, the remedies that you use?

Dr. Joseph Asunka: So as at this point we are now working on that. So we have started to pilot a number of phone interviews, and this is to allow us to build a methodology that works well for the continent, works well in the sense that we can use telephone interviewing to get good quality data, as good as we will get from the face-to-face interviews. And so that process is ongoing. We pilo- We did four pilot phone surveys the last survey round. In the upcoming survey round, that is to start sometime this month, we are going to repeat a number of pilot phone surveys again so that we can develop a methodology that works for the varied context, because phone penetration in Namibia is very high. If you go to Burkina Faso, it's not as high. And so if you rely on phone te- uh, telephones alone, you may not be able to get a truly representative sample in the country.

But what we are now trying to do is, what type of methodology can we develop to give us as near good quality of data that we can get from the face-to-face interviews? And that is still in the process. Once we build the, the methodology, we'll then make it public, and then researchers can, just like they use our face-to-face survey manual, which is like a textbook for survey research on the continent, or build a similar thing for phone surveys, make it public, and then people can use that as a means for conducting phone surveys on the, on the continent.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Is there a huge contrast between the quality of information you get when you do face-to-face vis-a-vis when you do on the phone?

Dr. Joseph Asunka: Right, so we are now actually running those analyses to do a comparative. So, what we did with the pilot was we were doing the face-to-face interviews at the same time that we're doing the phone pilots. And so, we are now running across analyses to see whether there are any mode effects. If you ask one question using phone and you ask the same question face-to-face, do we see differences or are there similarities? And that is the analysis that we are now doing, and that analysis will then inform the methodology that we develop for the phone service.

But in general, I think the, the, the biggest difference is this, that for face-to-face interviews, you can actually spend more time with the respondent than you can with telephone. And so the instrument that we have will sometimes have questions in excess of 100. For phones interviews, and sometimes we can use up to an hour with somebody if we are doing face-to-face interviews. Phone interviews you have to be more measured in the sense that 15 minutes is a lot of time to be on the phone with somebody that they would keep responding. And so you will have to cut back on how much you can ask on telephone interviews.

But the quality of the data from phone and in our face-to-face interviews, that is what we are now currently assessing. And some of those analyses we'll start publishing the results later this year and into quarter one of 2024.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: I was talking to a friend earlier today who was telling me about online interviews. I know that, uh, phone penetration is pretty high in Africa. How different is that on the online? Of course, online means all kinds of things, but can you discuss that a little bit? Uh, 'cause that's also part of the spectrum, right?

Dr. Joseph Asunka: Right. Yeah, so that's another tool that can be used. I mean, online, it just comes down to people's accessibility to the internet. And, uh, we... Afrobarometer, we've been asking questions about people's ability to access the internet, and that is still pretty low in many countries. And of course, especially when it comes to gender dynamics, it systematically would capture women in the process because when you look at accessibility and opportunity, whether it is technology or other aspects of services, women consistently lag behind men.

And so, but the fact that internet penetration is still pretty low in some countries, plus the fact that it systematically would undermine women's participation, we don't think that we are at a point where we can consider online surveys as valid. It will depend on a specific topic. If the topic is more on technology and then you are only focused on people who have access to technology, that may be one platform to use. Otherwise, if it is more about getting people's expe- daily experiences of governance, the economy, society, and everything else, online surveys will be hugely skewed in favor of young people who are relatively wealthier and mostly young men.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: I want to understand a little more, you said it would stimy women's participation. Can you expand a little bit on that?

Dr. Joseph Asunka: So when you look at Afrobarometer data, we try to look at attitudes towards things like democracy governance and other issues and then we also look at access and opportunity for different categories of respondents. So when it comes to attitudes, so whether or not people are satisfied with democracy, their support for democracy, rejection of authoritarian governance, all of these men and women are almost at par. There, you don't see any gaps. But when it comes to access and opportunity, whether you have access to a mobile phone, you have access to a bank account, decision-making at the household level, who makes it. We see huge gaps in those. And those gaps are actually very strong in some, some regions. So the gaps between men and women are high across the continent, but even much higher in some regions. So you go to West Africa or North Africa, you see bigger gaps in access and opportunity for men and women.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Why is that?

Dr. Joseph Asunka: Well, that's just the data that we have. The question is, why don't women have access? So it just comes down to, I mean, do they have the means, the economic means to obtain, say, a mobile phone or to obtain a computer or to have access to the internet in some other form? Yeah, I do think it comes down to just economic opportunity for that, for women. And women who don't have the economic opportunity and access then fall behind in terms of engaging, I mean having access to the internet for example.

And if you then have systematic, uh, women who may have a phone but the phone does not have access to internet, then that means that if you were to do a survey online, you may get some women participating but the gap between men and women will surface there because more women will not have the access, as much access as men have.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: But then you say the youth seems to be also more represented than people of a certain age?

Dr. Joseph Asunka: Yes. So if it comes to technology in particular, then younger people, of course, would be much more savvy in the use of technology than it is with the older generation. So, in, uh, an online survey, might see a hu- a bigger representation of young, relatively wealthier men.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: We are looking at some of the topics that you work on. They include conflict and crime, democracy, gender equality, you've mentioned that already, macroeconomics, market, poli- You work on a spectrum of topics here. How do you determine those topics and what you're learning from them? We can dissect a little bit. I like to hear what people think of democracy. I wanna hear this global power con- great power competition that has become a big conversation in the West, if it even resonates on the continent.

Dr. Joseph Asunka: Right. Yeah, we do cover a wide range of topics. When Afrobarometer started in 1999, their signature topic, which continues to be our signature topic, was democracy and governance. And that was partly because from, if you recall, I mean in late 1980s through the early 1990s, that's when Africa was becoming more and more democratic, and more and more countries are beginning to hold elections. And so at that point, Afrobarometer came into being likely because the co-founders felt if we want democracy to take roots on the continent, then people have to be part of that conversation, the, the debates about democracy and its development.

And so the establishment of the Afrobarometer was to create that platform for citizens to provide feedback on how they are experiencing democratic governance on the continent. And we have been on this busine- in this business for the past 20 years, making sure that we continue to gather, you know, data on people's experiences of the economy and governance issues and feed that into policymaking processes. And of course, this has evolved over time, so we have a set of questions that we track over time. The democracy and governance, the economy, people's living conditions, all issues that we have been tracking over time. So we have kept about 60% of the instruments to what we call the tracking questions, the standard set of questions.

And then each time that we are going into the field, we ask ourselves, "What are the topical policy issues on the continent and globally that are worth tracking or that are worth ga- gathering information on from African citizens?" And so those topics are then determined by a combination of us having conversations internally with our technical group, plus engaging with policy actors on the continent and beyond to see what is it that is emerging that we should capture. And so, for example, the last time, of course, when COVID hit, we developed a module on COVID-19 that we'd administered. And then, of course, climate change has become a topical issue now, and so on. The last survey round, we covered it extensively. This time, going into the next round of the survey, we're also going to cover it. So the topics are informed by what is it that is of great interest on the continent.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Of great interest are unemployment, access to public health, as I was saying earlier, this great power competition.

Dr. Joseph Asunka: Right.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: What are we finding on those?

Dr. Joseph Asunka: So let me start with just democratic governace. So on the continent overall and over time, Africans are solidly behind democracy. And so I always want to say, when people say, "We need an African democracy," I would say that's not true. The principles of democratic governance is very appealing to a majority of African citizens. Whether you are talking about accountability, government accountability, which has become a critical issue on the continent, and citizens want their governments to be accountable to them. If you're talking about term limits in the office of the president, Africans will want their government, their presidents to be limited to two terms in office.

And so those core democratic norms and values are deeply gaining ro- have gained roots on the continent. People really want to see these come to fruition. So you can see support for democracy has been solid over time. Support for the basic democratic norms and institutions have also remained very high across the continent. It's just that what we're beginning to see now is, ten years ago, the extent to which Africans resisted military rule has weakened a bit. It's still a majority view that majority of Africans don't want military rule. It's just that the extent to which they resisted it ten years ago is lower now. It used to be around 75%, it's come down to 65%.

And so we have seen that trend as concerning because then when the delivery side of people's expectation is not met, that they don't get the good quality elections that they hope for, the freedoms that they a- aspire for, and whenever we ask African citizens, "What does democracy mean to you?" Freedoms always come up as the top issue. People mention freedom more frequently than any other thing. And so when they don't get these things, then you can see a sense of feeling more attracted to some authoritarian alternative, especially when it comes to military intervention.

So we're not surprised, when we asked this time, "Should the military come in if elected leaders abuse their power?" We had a small majority of Africans actually saying, "Yes, if elected leaders abuse their power, the military should intervene." That's quite concerning. So that's on the democracy side.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Why do you think... By the way, on that one, why do you think is so concerning?

Dr. Joseph Asunka: I think it's, it's concerning in the sense that governments, elected governments, are not meeting the core demands of citizens. And what they are aspiring for under a democratic government, they are not seeing it from their elected governments. And that's the big concern. It's not about just the intervention. It's about what governments are failing to do.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Okay.

Dr. Joseph Asunka: The second piece is, of course, on the most important problems. So when we ask Africans about, "What is the most important problem that you want your government to address?" The top one comes up as unemployment. There's variation across countries, but on average, u- unemployment is the top issue that people say should be addressed on the continent. And unemployment is followed immediately by management of the economy. But this particular indicator is surprising this time around because any time we asked about most important problems in the previous surveys, it used to be unemployment, health, and then education.

It is only this time that we have seen management of the economy, which used to be in the middle of the pack, actually rise to almost tie with unemployment as a top issue that people want their governments to address. And the question is why is that? We do think it's a combination of factors. COVID-19 was and a big issue, and that actually derailed the number of economies and people have felt it. And the second piece being the war in Ukraine that caused hikes in prices, inflation to run very high in many, many countries. And so people have come to see economic management as a bigger issue than even health. Now health is in third position when we look at the ranking of the most important issues.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Great power competition i- is one that we discuss a lot, especially here in Washington.

Dr. Joseph Asunka: Yeah.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Um, it's about the Russian, it's about the Chinese, it's about, about, about, about. I always think that when it comes to Africa, it's not about the Chinese and the Russian, it's about choices and options. But then I don't collect data, you do. What are you (laughs) finding about this discourse?

Dr. Joseph Asunka: Right, so in the last survey run, and then I'll come to the current one. So the last survey run, we did ask African citizens both whether or not they think different powers have an influence and whether that influence is positive or negative. By and large, when you look at the, the data, especially for US and China, they are almost at par in terms of the positive influence on the continent. Roughly the same percentages say that the US and China have similar influence, positive influence on their coun- uh, countries.

The good, the... What we have seen is that actually it's not the case that it is either or. Whenever Africans see the US influence as positive, they almost equally see the Chinese influence as positive. But the thing is that the influence of China is often seen in economic terms, because whenever we follow up and ask why, people point to things like the ability to have goods that they can afford, so they can go to a market and buy a cell phone. I guess, of course, you can buy a, a China-made cell phone that is useful and usable, and so it's easier to have that access to the phones. Unlike, it's not the, the, the same with US products, because Apple products will not be accessible to most of them.

And so it often comes down to, especially on the Chinese side, it's on the economic side, and especially China's investment in infrastructure and the like, that's the case. The US also has its va- the... No, let me call it, contributions in many ways, where Africans value. But as I said, when the US is seen in positive light, then China also goes up. When the US goes down, China also goes down. So it's not an either or, they don't alternate.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: What is the, the link there between the two? Why they go... they rise and fall together? That's not the story we hear from here.

Dr. Joseph Asunka: I mean, I think it's generally comes down to when... so this, just thinking out loud, that when global powers are on the continent and supporting any development, it gets to a point where what you bring and what the other party brings, there's no competition between them, because these are things that the Africans want. So if China is bringing infrastructure, yes, we want infrastructure. Is the US is bringing Agua or they're bringing PEPFAR or others? This is still a valid thing.

And so the powers are not coming in there deliberately to do something wrong that influences Africans in some negative way. But when there are negative effects, then that was al- also reflected in the perception, in the values. So, for example, when you talk about Chinese presence in the communities and the interaction between Chinese employers and Africans, that can sometimes just have a negative effect on perceptions of China. And so in that particular case you will see the perceptions of the negativity vary a little, otherwise in terms of the engagements on the continent, good things come from both sides and those good things are valid equally.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Do you see something similar with Russia's involvement?

Dr. Joseph Asunka: Right. So we just in the last survey run we did add Russia, but we added a question a bit late and so we are only as- able to ask the question in five countries. And in those five countries, we did see a semblance of quite don't knows, because in most countries, our responders would just tell you they have no idea, they don't know about that. But more generally, in the five countries that we are able to ask the question, we had either relatively lower levels of perceptions of positive influence.

So in countries like, we ask the question in Seychelles, including South Africa, and in South Africa for example only a quarter of South Africans think the influence of Russia is positive. In equal proportion was assessed the influence is very negative, but the bulk of South Africans have no sense of what the impact of the Russian influence has been. And so we do see that even if the effects of Russia is anything to go by, its effects on people's experiences is not being reflected at all, at least in the five countries that we've asked that question.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: The goal, at least one of the goals of this kind of work, is to reform policymaking. Are African policymakers engaging with your data, at least engaging directly with you? Do you have evidence of that? If so, how? And on the other hand, are Western policymakers engaging with you? And do you see that they're listening or not?

Dr. Joseph Asunka: Right, so on the African side, yes. I think, first of all, Afrobarometer, our protocol is that whenever we finish a survey, the first point of contact is to make a confidential briefing to the government. And we would often do that with governments that are willing to accept the confidential briefing, or as we brief them, they would go public with the data.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Is this standard for government to accept?

Dr. Joseph Asunka: Many governments do accept, and they, they kind of listen. Yeah, but some would just not, uh, listen to us. But still, we'll put their data in the public domain anyway. I think for those governments that accept, often we get a good response from them. After the briefing, you would have, you know, a, a government entity maybe invite us to provide them with more information, example, the... when we recently released the latest survey in Malawi. We had the police service invite us because the data on corruption was something that they wanted to pursue and think about ways that they can continue to develop programs to fight corruption in the police service. We did have the Public Accounts Committee invite us as well to provide them more data on the issues of corruption.

In some countries, we can talk of judicial corruption. Then we'll have the judiciary or the chief justice and their office invite us to come and provide more data. So we've had those positive interactions. But of course, sometimes the governments also respond negatively, largely because some of the data may not be flattering to them, and they would respond in, in, in negative ways. But we know that at least behind the scenes, often some of this data actually gets used by government, and we hear members of parliament and the legislature across the continent citing this data in their debates on the floors of parliament. So at least we see that as a valuable addition.

We have had governments use the data on corruption to develop anti-corruption programs on the continent, which has been very useful. So that's just at a country level. But at the regi- sub-regional and continental level, and especially at the African Union level, that is where we are beginning to see a lot of momentum in the use of the data. One piece that the Peace and Security Council is particularly in- interested in is early warning signals in terms of what is happening in different countries and what might that mean for stability or making sure that there's early intervention to prevent conflicts. And so the data can be very valuable for that. It does give some early warning signals.

The second piece is the African Peer Review Mechanism, of course, taking into account people's views and experiences of governance has been a critical piece, and so the African Peer Review Mechanism does use the data quite extensively. For external actors and bilaterals, yes, that is also used extensively. If you look at the current US strategy towards, uh, Sub-Saharan Africa, a lot of the priority areas that were highlighted for engagements on the continent were actually driven by the Afrobarometer data in terms of what people's policy priorities are.

And if you look at that strategy vis-a-vis Afrobarometer questions, there is just that systematic matching between what we ask and what the strategy was actually developed to address. And so there's that synergy there. Same with the German strategy towards Sub-Saharan Africa. A lot of the data that Afrobarometer collects does go into that. And all the... many of the bilaterals that engage on the continent, often especially on democracy and governance, they resort to our data as a, as a useful sour- resource in making decisions about where to prioritize their investment. So we think it's used quite extensively both in the continent and outside.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: That is encouraging, 'cause as I said at the beginning of this program, it's not always clear that we look at data. Sometimes we get so caught up in discourses that are not... eventually we find, not anchored in the realities on the ground. So thank you very much for joining us, Joe Asunka, today. We really appreciate you and the insight that you shared with us today.

Dr. Joseph Asunka: Excellent. Thank you so much, Mvemba, for having me on this. And yes, I'm happy to be here and more than happy to contribute in the future.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele: Thank you for listening. We want to have more conversations about Africa. Tell your friends. Subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts. You can also read our analysis and report at csis.org/africa. So long.

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