Focus on Africa
Kenya airports: Who is Adani group?
Why are workers at Kenya's main airports objecting to a planned deal to lease the facility to India's Adani Group for 30 years? How Cameroon's simmering secessionist rebellion is affecting schooling for children And why African women need to be involved in developing Artificial Intelligence. Presenter : Audrey Brown Producers: Charles Gitonga and Susan Gachuhi in Nairobi, Todah Opeyemi in Lagos with Bella Hassan and Paul Bakibinga in London Technical Producer: Nick Randell Editors: Alice Muthengi and Andre Lombard
- Duration:
- 35m
- Broadcast on:
- 12 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
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Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it at Progressive.com. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law, not available in all states. Hello, I'm Audrey Brown and today in Focus on Africa, we are talking about how the continued separatist conflict in Cameroon is affecting children's education. If they do go to school, they could be kidnapped or even killed because in the past, we've had cases of separate and storming schools and kidnapping some teachers and even students. So it's very difficult at this time for students in these English-speaking regions who have got to grapple with this crackdown on education by these separatists. And there's not a lot of engagement with people who actually be harmed by these systems and also people who are not represented in these systems. And to make these systems better, we actually have to ensure that we include those who are not computer scientists, those also those who are not policymakers to ensure that one, their voices are heard so that they don't continue to be marginalized or harmed. We'll be talking to one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence, Chinasa T. Okolo is her name, to hear some answers to that question. It's Thursday, the 12th of September. First we go to Kenya. When the news that Kenya would be leasing its main airport to an Indian conglomerate first emerged in June, the country was convulsed by youth-led anti-government protests. So the deal was largely unnoticed because Kenyans had other fish to fry. But they've kind of caught up now. Not much is known about the deal, but what we do know is that the country is to lease Jomor Kenyatta International Airport, the biggest in the country and one of the busiest in Africa to an Indian company called Adani Airport Holdings. Adani will renovate and operate JKIA for 30 years. The deal is valued at nearly $2 billion. Many Kenyans are not happy with it, so they've gone to court and union members went on strike. Those chanting workers are afraid that the deal with the Adani group threatens their jobs. The strike is off for the time being because the Kenyan government has agreed to show them documents about the deal. The government says it has yet to be signed. The workers have 10 days to scrutinize the details. But who and what is Adani, the company waiting in the wings to take on such a major Kenyan asset? Ashina Shukla is a BBC correspondent in India. Adani is one of the largest conglomerates in India and they have interests spanning across the power sector, power generation distribution. Call mining and trading is one of their big businesses and they are across the entire infrastructure chain, managing airports and seaports in India. They have over eight listed entities in India and the combined market valuation of their businesses is around $200 billion. The group is owned by Gautam Adani who's the richest Asian and in fact he's a businessman who's seen to have close ties with the country's prime minister Narendra Modi. And what reputation does the company actually have? Are they a successful airport operations company? Airport business has been one of their recent businesses, so it's only in the last couple of years that the Adani group has expanded their purview and business across the airport building, operating and managing airports across India. It is one of their fastest growing businesses and also fastest expanding business. In fact, of the airports, the financial capital Mumbai is one of the airports that they manage and these are some of the big airports, so they handle about a quarter of India's passenger air traffic and about a third of the air cargo traffic. So they actually have a big presence as far as managing airports is concerned, but overall in the logistics space, Adani is a big name in India and also in some of the other regional areas they've been trying to expand when it comes to both seaports and airports. So let's take a look at how the managing airports are those airports well run? Well, most of the airports run by Adani group are well run airports. They invest a lot of money, but you know how they've bagged these airport contracts have been an issue of criticism for a new company coming into a business of airport managing and then bagging. Most of the government contracts has been a question raised mostly by the critics and also the political opposition who feel that they have been getting these contracts because of the close ties of the company with the ruling dispensation in India. However, the Adani group has denied these allegations and they say that they have won these contracts based on the merit, but this has been a long pending discussion. Is the company controversial in India? Well, the Adani group is one of the largest, but is also one of the most controversial in India. You know, Gautam Adani seem to have close ties with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They both hail from the same western Indian state of Gujarat, where Modi was chief minister for three terms before becoming India's prime minister. And the Adani group has often faced criticism that they are using these close ties with Modi for garnering big infrastructure projects and key deals. If you would look, the company's focus sectors have always mirrored in the last 10 years, the focus areas of the Indian government and the big growth in the company in the last 10 years, as far as the personal wealth of Gautam Adani and the company's market valuation is concerned has skyrocketed in the last 10 years. And that is something that most critics and even the political oppositions have been pointing out. In fact, you know, in the recent general elections in the month of May, this was a big issue that political opposition raised, calling it, crony capitalism. However, all these allegations have been denied by the Adani group. One of the big allegations last year also came from a US short seller who came out with a damaging report calling Adani group out for fraud using offshore funds to park money inside a trading and stock manipulation. While the Adani group refuted all these allegations, but there are multiple investigations ongoing by the stock market regulator and other regulators in India on the company. The deal is very controversial in Kenya with Adani taking over the main airport in Nairobi. The high court has suspended the plan. Airport workers went on strike and they have agreed to go back to work a while that, you know, because the deal according to the government in Kenya is not completely sealed yet. Has the company responded to what's going on in Kenya? Well, the company has not responded on the Kenyan airport issue at the moment, even the query sent by BBC remain unanswered. Does Adani have similar operations elsewhere in Africa and elsewhere outside of India? Adani has been trying to expand their airport business and in some of the previous interviews they've given to Bloomberg and other media outlets. They have indicated that airports is a business they want to take globally, especially in the South Asia region and in the Africa region. But at the moment, the Kenyan airport deal is the only one in Africa. I understand that they are in talks with some other countries, although they haven't made that public as yet. But apart from the airport deal, Adani recently also signed a power transmission partnership with the Kenyan government, a 900 million dollar deal in the energy space. So that's another business that they are getting into in the African continent. And they've also signed a port management deal with Tanzania. It's a big deal in Kenya. How big a deal is it in India? Is it being reported in the media? Well, the media has been reporting about the Kenyan airport issue and the strikes at the Kenyan airport. But while Adani has remained silent and not responded to queries, the reports mostly talk about what is happening at the Kenyan airport side and about what are the concerns of the workers there in Kenya. What would a deal like Kenya mean for Adani? It is strategic. Adani has publicly mentioned that they want to make Africa their next big destination and they want to expand their business there. And their entry into Africa, they are positioning it also as a challenge to China, which has funded big infrastructure projects in the continent. Adani has said that, you know, we are looking at Africa and we want to be a big player in that region. And Adani's other global infrastructure moves have also rivaled China and given India an important strategic and economic foothold in other countries. If you look at Australia, if you look at Sri Lanka, if you look at Bangladesh, this is the region where China has had a big influence and India on its part is now trying under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is now trying to get its influence in this region. And Gautam Adani and the Adani group somewhere is being seen as a company that is helping a Prime Minister Narendra Modi through this mission of trying to get bigger control in the region. Okay, then. Thanks very much. All right. And that's the BBC's Ashna Shukla in Delhi. School children are caught up in the fight for a separate estate in Cameroon's English-speaking region. It has led to thousands of deaths, at least 6,000 according to humanitarian reports and around 600,000 people have been displaced from their homes. Regular lockdowns forcing children to stay away from school has led to a myriad of social problems. We've been hearing about the difficulties firsthand from a Cameroonian parent. I have four kids in my house that go to school and they lock down. When these people say it is a lockdown, it means that let nobody be outside. Markets close, commercial places closed. So we cannot even go out, not to talk of sending kids to school. The risk is very high. I'm very scared, actually. Who is not to be scared? Well, we see what they do to others that attempt to maybe even go out or even walk the taxes that they burn around town. Tell me you wouldn't be scared to send your kids to school. That is what they have used to hold those hostage. It is true that once in a while or ask me, "Mommy, won't we go to school today? Mommy, won't we go to school today?" The thing is that as children, I don't think they really understand the impact of this on their education and their future. They will always ask questions, but all we can say is they will not start school now and they'll start later on. They already registered school fee speed. It's just that we want these people to say, "Okay, it's time to go out. It's time to go to school and there we go." We simply obey what they say. If I see people around going to school, my children as well go to school. If I see that, there's no fly outside, we always stay indoors. So how did we get here? Cameroon is divided into a French region and an English-speaking region, Francophone and Anglophone. This is an overhang from the colonial era when France and Britain controlled separate parts of the country. In 1960, the French-administered parts of Cameroon became independent as the Republic of Cameroon under President Ahmadou Ahijo. A year later, the Southern English-speaking part joined with it to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon. That federation was abandoned in 1972 and it has been a festering wound ever since then. The conflict broke out into the open in 2016 as I've been hearing from Paul Gier, our correspondent, in Cameroon. In very broad strokes, just remind us how we got to the point where we are now with this conflict going on. So it began as a crisis in 2016 with lawyers and teachers from the English-speaking regions of the country denouncing what they said was the Anglophone marginalization in the Francophone-dominated country. 20% of Cameroonians are from the English-speaking regions while the 80% majority make up the greater part of the country who are, of course, French-speaking. Then that turned out to be calls for a broader separation between both the English-speaking parts and the French-speaking parts as a 2017. There was a resort into violence where the tensions escalated and the separatists began a campaign against schooling in these Anglophone regions, banning students from going to school, sometimes ordering ghostal operations which has crippled economic activity. Right. So it became violent quite quickly with gendambery acting and basically an open conflict going on. So how often do these lockdowns happen and how are they affecting learning? So these lockdowns essentially happen when there is either a major national event or there's something like back to school like we are now. There is an order by the separatists saying to people you stay home, we don't want to see you out there because education in these regions is banned and it's a way for them to foster government activity and for them to show that there is no semblance of normality as the government is trying to paint. They are occasional as I would say but then there is what they call the ghost town every morning which is frequent that has been in place since 2017 where every Monday people are expected to stay home but the lockdowns are more extended periods of stay at home orders and when there is the what they call their independence they usually in October that also should be coming up this October but then broadly every Monday they are set to host ghost towns and that has been recurrent since 2017. So whenever there are these lockdown calls students are not expected to go to school. They stay at home because if they do go to school they are susceptible to attacks from the separatists they could be kidnapped or even killed because in the past we've had cases of separately storming schools and you know taking a hold of children there kidnapping some teachers and even students. So has there been any effort made to continue education in spite of the dangers that it poses during the lockdowns and during the ghost towns in major cities where it's a little bit is relatively safer there are few schools especially boarding schools opening the doors and then there are a few days schools also opening the doors but the attendance is very dismal it's not encouraging at all and even during the inspection tours to these different schools the administrative officials go there in armored vehicles which tells you the heightened security disposition and some students have left remote areas and are relocated to these relatively safer areas where they go to school and have pupils been largely safe coming out of the remote areas going into the urban areas with government security protection to allow them to to go to school. It has not totally been affected because of the lingering fear some years ago I think that was in 2020 there was an attack in a school in Kumba where students were killed so that fear still lingers even though they are in relatively safer areas you never can tell what could happen and that's what civil society organizations have been saying that the main goal should be to resolve the conflict once and for all so that these kids can go to school unperturbed about their security. And how do the ambisonians the separatists justify the campaign against children for instance at schools you know kidnapping them or killing them in order to pursue their political objectives you know how do they explain what they're doing? Exactly but what they are saying is that they do not want the Francophone donated governments to indoctrinate their anglophone children and that's why they are clamping down on education in these regions and broadly there has seemingly been some favor in form of approval for some schools to operate that's lay private schools confessional schools and community schools but then they have been hard-line reticent about letting government schools operate and in the recent years we've also seen some separatist hardliners also soften India's stance on the issue of education in these regions but there seems to be some sort of inconsistency among the leaders and the fighters on the ground. Let's talk a little bit more about the social consequences of children not being able to go to school can you tell us for instance I see that UNICEF says that there's a rise in the number of teenage pregnancies for instance. There are also fears of increase in crime rates because of the fact that those who are not going to school are there fears that they could turn to ban the tree and other petty crimes to survive. Teenage pregnancies when they're looking to the Francophone regions they do not have anything to do some some of them according to some local media reports in the past return to prostitution to make a living for themselves so these are some of the social consequences. Is there a political process and a way to try and you know stop this conflict from continuing? It is cost in lives but civil society organizations say they don't see any political will from both the separatists or the government to resolve these crises or conflict as a matter of urgency. That there have been international mediation efforts from Switzerland, Canada and you know other partners but seemingly these efforts have not yielded any fruits because of some perception of reticence among both parties and so now government continues to say they pursue dialogue they are open to discussing but then on the ground there is no semblance of view from any of the parties some analysts do say. So it's hard to tell when this conflict might even end it is soon near its 10th year that will be I think in 2026. People are wondering what would become of the future of children who are unable to you know go to school like they appears in the other regions some had to leaving these and four regions to relocate to different four regions to continue their education. The language barrier cultural differences have also been a major stumbling block to their integration in these areas so people say that the only solution is for the conflict to come to an end. Right groups have said that there have been arbitrary arrests sometimes kidnaps and killings broadly with operations like the lockdowns they are confined to their homes sometimes even if they don't have enough money to stock up on food they just have to stay indoors for fear of being attacked taxi drivers themselves especially recently have been caught in the web of the Separatists and government forces the Separatists have asked them to paint their taxis blue and white which is symbolic of the colors of their virtual state of ambisonia which they call it and while authorities are saying that these taxi drivers need to paint their taxis yellow acid they need to maintain it because these are the colors that the state recognizes. It puts them in a situation where people are now attacked because of what they do at teachers themselves hardly feel safe going to work some teachers have been noted for absenteeism and authorities are saying that they are going to you know punish those who are absent but then people are concerned about their safety it is not really easy living in these regions where you don't one minute you feel it's safe the next minute it's back to violence you don't know where to go you don't know what the future holds. That's Paul Ngier the BBC's correspondent in Cameroon. This is Focus in Africa from the BBC World Service. 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We talk about artificial intelligence or AI a lot and with good reason it is creeping into almost all aspects of our online lives I mean my phone keeps asking me if I'd like some help from AI I usually say no because it doesn't offer the help that I want but AI is unavoidable and we need to manage it so that it actually does help with the things someone like me wants or needs help with and how can we do that by including people like me in the development of AI is the easy answer because up to now AI has been growing at a tremendous rate but that growth and development is being driven by the people who are at the forefront of the industry and that is mostly men the media mogul and ultimate boomer influencer Oprah Winfrey was recently criticized for hosting an all-male panel on artificial intelligence many felt that the absence of women was a missed opportunity especially since so many other sectors of society are so absent from the conversation as well but maybe she was making that exact point who knows let's take a look at some of the stats according to this year's global gender gap report by the world economic forum women make up only 28.2 percent of the stem workforce by the way stem stands for science technology engineering and mathematics the numbers are even lower in AI big data programming and cybersecurity but things may be changing we'll be hearing from someone at the forefront of that change but we should first hear the problem in stark terms from SI or whom a data scientist and recent AI masters graduate she sent us a voice note when it comes to female representation in artificial intelligence at say the situation in one word is grim huge disparities exist in terms of team makeup only 27% of those in AI teams for example identify as women only one in four research as publishing on AI worldwide is a woman you know in papers with sole authorship that goes all the way down to 11% only 11% are authored solely by women when you think of most of the big AI companies research chips you name it think of open AI think of NVIDIA meta deep mind they are all male led open air for example currently has an all white male board this isn't to say women don't exist in see such roles in some of these companies and yet only 4% of stem new stories are centered around women why why indeed we may get some answers from chinasa t ocolo phd she's a fellow at the center for technology innovation at the Brookings institution chinasa was recently recognized as one of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence by Time magazine it sounds really interesting because in the UGLAS there's a super you know interesting history around competing itself particularly within fields like aerospace and nasa their hidden figures was a very popular movie a couple years ago and it's very interesting to see how black women were so fundamental to space launches and also just woman in general you know we're basically the first computer coders and after men we turned from the war you know these dynamics change and also had a very strong impact on how women choose to pursue competing education and higher education degrees and computer science and so I think it's really interesting to see how the trend is you know coming slowly coming back around to help foster a new era of women in computing and also in AI and so I think for me always interested in science and stem growing up and I had that encouragement from my parents but I just also had that natural curiosity as well so would you say that there are barriers right now for women entering these fields we see women starting in large numbers but then they fall off as they go on yeah so honestly would say that the encouragement for women to enter the field is very high right now there's a proliferation of different organizations and groups that aim to support women in tech especially particularly you know on the education side but I think there are many systemic factors that impact or impede you know how women have continued to progress through computer science education programs and also finish them I think there's honestly still a stigma of women in computer science also know that they're not necessarily technical enough to be or complete these respect of courses and also there's still a very big you know quote unquote boys club and you know men tend to partner together in groups of completed assignments and you know may unknowingly implicitly or even explicitly exclude women from the study groups and also study sessions as well and so I think that's also a big factor in not having that social support can honestly pay a very big role and how women feel included and also how they feel motivated in completing computer science degrees what about black women specifically and women who are not white essentially and how does that affect how something like artificial intelligence develops I would say despite all the progress that's been made within AI and also just computer science more broadly over the past five years I would say this still you know the archetypes of a computer scientist or an AI engineer or researcher is still most likely to be a young white male just given all the examples of people that we have despite that I think when it comes to black women you know and other people from marginalized backgrounds this issue of not being seen again as technical enough or even smart enough to be in these fields is also a big barrier to many of the systemic issues that we have in computer science and STEM education so definitely plays a big role in how these systems encode bias and also perpetuate it on you know marginalized communities particularly you know black people and other people you know especially from global South countries as well so what we just say the field is losing by not including or not doing enough to include people from the global South women people were just different what are the deficits that are being built into the system now I would say right now is that these AI tools are being presented you know as general artificial intelligence but they only really work well on Western cultures and perpetuate Western ideals particularly American ones for example and so if someone you know let's say from Nigeria or from Pakistan and when it to you see systems to learn more about their respective cultures their respective identities it would be really hard to do so because these AI systems are not trained you know on concepts that you know are basically not American or not British or not French for example and so I think that's the biggest issue I see and the select of representation in these AI systems can even encode or entrench bias further and negatively harm people who are not represented in these systems so it's literally a case of people not being seen by these systems talking of negative harms can you name a couple for us what are the possibilities yeah so right now I think there's still emerging but I think many cases where AI systems are being used let's say in situations where immigration for example a lot of these systems are primarily being used to help with translation services there's been a couple cases particularly in the US context where because these systems don't understand subject rubric remit they don't necessarily encapsulate correct stories and also there was a case where an Afghani immigrant was telling her story to one of the immigration officers and because of this respective issue they did not understand the system translated her story as including multiple people despite her actually saying that it was only her involved and so in the issue that she was having and why she wanted to pursue a asylum and so I think this is a very big issue as you know the US increases their usage of AI for migrant control and also to help process these respective applications and also countries in the UK and also in the EU that are primarily you know facilitated by the United Nations are operating without that within Africa and are using these systems as well to help with migrant control and refugee support can anyone do AI or you know computing or engineering and I simply ask you this because I'm imagining you know a 16 17 18 year old out there thinking oh but this doesn't sound like something I could do what would you say to them yeah so I think the biggest barrier right now is that uh for people into thinking about how they can get in TI is that they think it you have to be very super technical and to a certain extent you obviously have to if you're focused on developing the models for AI but right now we've seen how tools like chat tpt have to marketize access in terms of how people actually can participate and develop being and also using AI systems themselves and so there's a design aspect to AI there's a social aspect to AI there's also a governance aspect to AI you know which I primarily focus on and so while my computer science training um has been um effective in me you know being involved in many aspects of AI um I don't necessarily think you have to be technical and I would encourage you know people um especially young Africans to understand and also find out what areas of AI that they're interested in and what makes sense for them um you know and how they can best to get into these fields because there's so many different ways to do so so if we were to do one thing right now as the universe the world's population to make artificial intelligence viable for everybody and useful and valuable and representative of everybody what would you say we should do I think honestly the best thing to do is actually engage with local communities. AI is proliferating very roughly around the world and there's not a lot of I would say engagement with people who will actually be harmed by these systems and also people who are not represented in these systems and to make these systems better we actually have to ensure that we include those who don't have to go knowledge those who are not computer scientists those also those who are not policymakers to ensure that one their voices are heard as we develop these systems and also that they don't continue to be marginalized or harmed and by these systems as well. Thank you so much and congratulations and very well done. Thank you I appreciate it. And that was Chinasa T Okolo PhD from the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution. Focus on Africa came courtesy of Susan Gashoui and Charles Kitonga in Nairobi. Toda Obbeemi is in Lagos and Bella Hassan is here in London. Our technical producer was Nick Rundell senior producer Paul Batchabinger and our editors Andre Lombard and Alice Moudengi. I'm Audrey Brown. Thanks for listening. Hi everyone my name is Natasha Rothwell and I'm here to tell you about my brand new show on Hulu called How to Die Alone. I play the character of Melissa. She has no ambition, no love life and no money but what she does have is a reason to be the badass she was meant to be huh? I can't say okay she has a reason to be the woman she was meant to be. You know what just tell the belief guy to stick around because I'm just getting started. Stream new episodes of How to Die Alone Fridays on Hulu. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well with the name your price tool from Progressive you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it at Progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law not available in all states. [BLANK_AUDIO]