A United States development aid agency whose return to the Solomon Islands has been delayed for years without explanation found “overwhelming support and enthusiasm” for its work, with the Pacific island nation’s leader telling officials “We need you”, a previously unreleased report shows.
The Peace Corps’ findings bring into focus the agency’s unexplained failure to resume operations in the archipelago nearly five years after it announced its return amid jockeying for influence between the US and China.
The “Solomon Islands Re-entry Assessment Report,” obtained by Al Jazeera via a freedom of information request, paints a picture of emphatic support for the agency resuming operations in the country after a two-decade absence, both among the local population and within the government.
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare is quoted in the report telling Peace Corps representatives, “We need you,” while Attorney-General John Muria is quoted as saying the agency “really had a lasting impact on people and communities in Solomon Islands”.
“On the ground, the assessment team was welcomed openly and enthusiastically by the Government of Solomon Islands at all levels from the Prime Minister to the provincial level,” the agency said in the report.
“The team enjoyed support in equal measure from other development partners, non-governmental organisations, international volunteer organisations, service providers and vendors, former Peace Corps staff, and community members who were taught by Peace Corps Volunteers.”
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has forged closer ties with China [cnsphoto via Reuters]
The Peace Corps, which withdrew from the Solomon Islands in 2000 amid ethnic violence, commissioned the report to examine the feasibility of resuming operations in the country after receiving a formal invitation from Honiara to return in February 2019.
In August, the assessment team submitted its report recommending the agency’s return after concluding the Solomon Islands offered an “enabling environment in which Volunteers can have meaningful work and serve safely with the necessary medical care and logistical support”.
“From the Prime Minister and national and provincial government ministries to service providers, local community members, and former Peace Corps staff, the team was warmly welcomed and strongly encouraged to bring Volunteers back to the ‘Hapi Isles,’” the report said.
“Peace Corps has had a lasting impact in the country and our absence is noticeable, particularly in the education sector.”
The Peace Corps publicly announced the re-establishment of its Solomon Islands programme that October, with the first volunteers scheduled to arrive in mid-2021.
The Solomon Islands, located about 2,000 kilometres northeast of Australia, is one of the poorest countries in the Pacific, with its population suffering from limited access to high-quality education and healthcare.
While the Solomon Islands closed its borders for more than two years during the COVID-19 pandemic, the agency’s ongoing absence and the current status of its planned return have not been publicly explained.
Although the Peace Corps temporarily suspended operations in the Pacific during the pandemic, its volunteers have since returned to neighbouring countries including Fiji, Tonga and Samoa.
Other comparable agencies have also resumed work in the Solomon Islands, including the Australian Volunteers, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the Korea International Cooperation Agency, and New Zealand’s Volunteer Service Abroad.
The US Congress has allocated just $500 to the Peace Corps’ work in the archipelago for the fiscal year of 2024, suggesting there is little prospect of its imminent return.
In December, Al Jazeera reported that opposition politicians in the Solomon Islands and US observers suspected that Sogavare’s government was deliberately stalling the agency’s return to curry favour with China, which has made major inroads in the archipelago in recent years.
Sogavare severed ties with Taiwan in 2019 to recognise China and signed cooperation agreements with Beijing on security and policing in 2022 and last year, prompting alarm in the US, Australia and New Zealand.
Despite being one of the world’s smallest countries with a population of about 720,000 people, the Solomon Islands has become a focal point for the heated competition for influence between Washington and Beijing due to its strategic location in the Pacific.
The status of Honiara’s relations with Beijing is currently in the balance as Sogavare vies to form a government with opposition MPs after general elections this week that produced an inconclusive outcome.
Sogavare is seeking a fifth term in office, but he is being challenged by at least three opposition leaders, including Peter Kenilorea Jr, who has pledged to restore ties with Taipei.
The Peace Corps and the Solomon Islands government did not respond to requests for comment.
Catherine Ebert-Gray, who served as US ambassador to Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu from 2016 to 2019, expressed hope the agency would be able to resume its work in the country.
“I am hopeful the next parliament and government will renew their interest in returning Peace Corps volunteers to rural villages to support the nation’s environmental, health and education plans,” Ebert-Gray told Al Jazeera.
Harare, Zimbabwe – At a shopping centre in Glenview, a busy working-class suburb of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, carpenter Arnold Mutiri stopped to buy a 2-litre (half-gallon) Mazoe Raspberry drink.
The price tag said US$3.70. With Zimbabwe’s volatile currency and years of economic crisis, most goods are priced in more stable United States dollar amounts with customers receiving their small change in local currency.
Mutiri handed the shopkeeper four US$1 bills and waited for his change. But the shop had none available. The 37-year-old then tried to pay the full amount in ZWL, Zimbabwe’s outgoing currency, which locals call bond notes, but the till operator refused to accept it, telling him to buy something else or forfeit the balance.
The scenario is one many Zimbabweans now face on a daily basis since the country launched its new currency, Zimbabwe Gold, or ZiG, two weeks ago, Mutiri said, lamenting how people have to budget more for basics just to make it through the day.
On April 5, Zimbabwe’s central bank announced the new gold-backed currency, immediately implementing changes on digital platforms with local banks converting ZWL to ZiG amounts on their systems.
However, the new bank notes will become available only at the end of the month after the central bank’s governor put in place a grace period to enable the transition. In the meantime, the central bank made assurances that bond notes would still be in use.
Despite this, many businesses like the shop in Glenview have already ceased trading in ZWL, significantly impacting millions who depend on cash for their daily needs, including people working in the informal economy.
New ZiG bank notes will become available only at the end of April [Calvin Manika/Al Jazeera]
“This comes at a time when we are already struggling with unemployment and the drought. Shops cannot give change, meaning they are rounding up all the transactions,” Mutiri said.
“They are profiteering a lot during this period of poorly coordinated currency transition. One has to double or triple the usual spending,” he told Al Jazeera.
Old notes not accepted
The ZiG is set to replace both existing ZWL bond notes and the Zimbabwean dollar, launched in 2016 and 2019, respectively.
Zimbabwe has been struggling with its currency for more than a decade. The ZiG is the country’s sixth attempt to launch a new one since 2008 when the rate of inflation reached 79.6 billion percent per month before soaring to an unprecedented level of 89.7 zillion percent by November that year, according to the International Monetary Fund.
The decision to move to the ZiG was an attempt to tackle inflation and also foster “simplicity, certainty [and] predictability” in Zimbabwe’s financial affairs, John Mushayavanhu, the governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, said at the launch.
But simplicity is not what many consumers in Zimbabwe are currently experiencing.
Several people in Harare and nearby towns and rural areas told Al Jazeera that despite assurances the old notes were still in use this month, government entities and the private and informal sectors were all rejecting them, leaving people in the lurch.
“This is beyond the shops. Last week at the tollgate, the government agency ZINARA was rejecting the bond notes, yet people do not have the ZiG cash,” Mutiri said, explaining how the agency insisted on US dollar payments at the tolls, resulting in a long queue as motorists protested but without success.
“Bond notes are still a legal tender for transactions, at least until April 30. The government itself is expected to reflect confidence and lead exemplarily, but they are also rejecting it altogether,” he added.
ZiG banknotes are displayed as the governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, John Mushayavanhu, announced the new currency in early April [File: Jekesai Njikizana/AFP]
People were also unable to use online platforms to pay for telecommunications and electricity services in the immediate wake of the changeover while some banking services temporarily went offline from April 5 to 8, local media reported. This also affected US dollar transactions.
Clara Choti from the suburb of Kuwadzana said transport was now more expensive because operators were taking advantage of the situation.
“Local destinations within our suburbs where we used to pay between 30 and 50 [US] cents are now priced at $1, unless you are travelling as two or three people, which is rare. Operators say they do not have the change,” she said.
According to Craig Nhodo, a financial expert: “All these efforts by the government to change currencies are in search of stability of a freefall economy. [But] without the government itself committed to the use of the local currency, currencies have failed.
“Now ZiG is here, but you can’t buy fuel, pay import duty with it. Already the new currency is set for failure.”
‘It’s painful’
In rolling out the ZiG, Mushayavanhu said the central bank would organise campaigns to educate people about the new currency and its security features.
However, many people, especially those far from urban centres, are concerned.
In Murewa, a rural area 90km (55 miles) east of the capital, Agnes Kwaramba is worried about the lack of consultation done before the launch. The 61-year-old does not feel very confident about the ZiG in general.
Kwaramba, who retired five years ago, lost her savings four times during her career as a teacher. She said her losses were connected with changes in the currency rather than other economic factors bedevilling Zimbabwe.
“In 2001, 2008, 2016 and 2019, I lost my savings after decades of working, saving in anticipation of my retirement,” she told Al Jazeera. ”The monetary policies have failed us for years. Even now, there was no proper messaging and education to the populace about the new currency.”
Agnes Kwaramba, a retired teacher in the Murewa countryside of Zimbabwe [Calvin Manika/Al Jazeera]
When in 2016 the central bank introduced the ZWL as legal tender, it set the bank rate 1:1 to the US dollar and assured the nation that the value would be equivalent. So people, including Kwaramba, left money in their bank accounts only to realise the local currency was depreciating. Just a few months into the ZWL, millions had lost the value of their savings. Kwaramba’s finances have not recovered.
Again in 2019 when the Zimbabwe dollar was launched during runaway inflation, Zimbabwe faced another bleak period when foreign currencies, including the US dollar, were banned until 2020.
This time with the ZiG, Kwaramba said elderly people in rural areas are left with bond notes while shops refuse to give them change for their US dollars.
“The shops are not accepting our own currency, and when buying foodstuffs, they have no change,” Kwaramba lamented.
“Imagine here in the countryside amidst the El Nino-induced drought – it’s painful. We are failing to buy some of the basics due to the inflated prices or being forced to buy other goods.”
She said the government should have deployed Reserve Bank officers around the country to help allocate ZiG digital currency to use for mobile transactions while people wait for cash.
Lack of confidence or timing?
The Reserve Bank has assured the nation that the ZiG is backed by gold and is strong compared with the ZWL. But people like Mutiri and Kwaramba vividly remember the hope and eventual disappointment of prior currency swaps.
“We cannot be fooled again,” Kwaramba said. “I have spent my life as a civil servant, but I cannot point to anything today. After prices, this will go and affect our already paltry pensions.”
Economists said the 2016 launch of the bond notes was not informed by economic fundamentals and lack of political will in enforcing the use of that currency resulted in it failing and depreciating.
Economist Tashinga Henry Kajiva said the rationale behind the launch of the ZiG this year is mainly to curb inflation and introduce a medium of exchange stable enough to facilitate domestic and foreign trade.
But he added that the context is unfortunately wrong.
People queue to withdraw money from a local bank in central Harare [File: Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters]
“The idea itself is normal. If you have a gold standard, a currency backed by actual physical precious minerals, it means it would introduce price stability, increasing investor confidence, because they are actually backed up by precious minerals.”
While the initiative was advantageous to a certain extent, Kajiva said, the ZiG is not being launched in the right context because there are fundamental issues that need to be addressed within the financial sector for it to succeed.
“The first thing that the government of Zimbabwe through the Reserve Bank and the Ministry of Finance have to address is consumer confidence stakeholders. Zimbabweans are not confident in the domestic currency,” Kajiva added.
“We know Zimbabwe’s economic history has been marred by hyperinflation, no policy consistency when it comes to the financial sector. All those things have eroded the public trust, and the government needs to be very proactive and instil confidence in this newfound currency.”
The currency challenges have been visible even before the launch of the ZiG, so much so that Zimbabweans have stuck with the US dollar, which they draw out at banks or money exchanges, get via remittances from abroad or buy on the informal market, relegating their local currency merely to money for “change”.
Kajiva noted that fuel, excise duties and key commodities being paid using the US dollar have further limited public trust in the new currency.
“If some of them are being bought using the US dollar, what it creates is a necessity of the US dollar to the average citizen or to the public or to the stakeholders. And what then happens is when you cannot get the proper amount of US dollar within the banking sector, within the formal channels, what will happen is people will resort to going to the informal market to have those monies changed,” Kajiva said.
Nevertheless, the US dollar is in Zimbabwe to stay. Governor Mushayavanhu said at the ZiG launch that the government would not stop its use of the greenback as a medium of exchange, even with the introduction of the new currency.
Cape Town, South Africa – In the backyard of a small house in Cape Town’s Mitchells Plain stands a one-room corrugated iron structure.
Inside, Cheryl-Ann Smith, her husband and three grandsons have made a home. They are among thousands of so-called “backyard dwellers” in this impoverished area locals call Lost City.
Here, residents often sublet part of their small plots to others who are even less well-off than they are, creating invisible households without access to basic services like electricity and sanitation.
In the Smiths’ single-room dwelling, there is barely enough space for their two beds, a makeshift cupboard with a two-plate stove, and a round bucket for doing dishes. The one tap they use is situated at the front of the property, and they have to use buckets as a toilet.
Smith, 54, has lived in this limbo for most of her life, waiting for a house from the government for the last 30 years – since before the ruling African National Congress (ANC) won the first democratic elections after apartheid.
“I applied in June 1993 for a council house and imagine it’s 2024 and I am still waiting!” the part-time domestic worker told Al Jazeera.
When the ANC came to power in 1994, providing houses for all was a key government policy. The country went a step further in its 1996 constitution, stating that all levels of government should address the “legacy of spatial apartheid” and that mechanisms in the law would allow for the release of land for affordable housing.
On paper, there is a commitment to provide housing for all. However, in reality, the pace of delivery has not kept up with the growing demand, resulting in an enormous backlog.
The decades of unfulfilled promises have also left voters disgruntled with both the ANC national government and the leading opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) party that runs Cape Town and the Western Cape province.
As the country heads to a crucial general election in May – which analysts say will be the toughest one yet for the ANC – some polls suggest the DA’s majority in the Cape is also slipping, in a sign of an electorate ready to hold their leaders to account.
Though millions have been helped with social housing, waiting lists are long and informal settlements have sprung up in areas like Mitchells Plain on the outskirts of Cape Town [Gianluigi Guercia/AFP]
‘A nightmare’
From 1994 to February 2022, the state housed about five million people in need, according to data from the Department of Human Settlements. However, nationally some 2.3 million households and individuals are still waiting for a home.
In the Western Cape, official waiting lists say more than 600,000 people are in line for a council house, with over 350,000 of those in Cape Town alone.
And housing activists say those on the official lists are only a fraction of the people in need.
In Mitchells Plain, where Smith lives, the local residents’ association said there are more than 15,000 people from the area waiting for homes, but no political will from the authorities to help house everyone who needs it.
“The housing waiting lists are a nightmare and there seems to be no coherence when someone like Cheryl-Ann and others have been on the list for 20 to 30 years,” said Michael Jacobs, the deputy head of the Mitchells Plain United Residents Association.
As a civic organisation, Jacobs said they have tried to engage with the city, provincial and national government to release parcels of land to build houses, but no one is listening.
“The list is a joke; people will die and their children will be adults and they will never ever have a house at the rate we are moving.”
Spatial apartheid
The DA has governed the Western Cape for more than 16 years, while the other eight of the country’s nine provinces are run by the ANC.
DA leaders have consistently painted their territory as an oasis in a country plagued by inefficiency, with party leader John Steenhuisen telling voters in Cape Town this month: “While the eight ANC-led provinces crumble, there is one place left in this country where the hope that we all shared for a better future shines ever more brightly. That place of hope is this DA-led Western Cape province. The Western Cape of Good Hope.”
The segregationist legacy of apartheid is still visible in the spatial dynamics of Cape Town and other cities [File: Johnny Miller/Reuters]
But for the majority of poor, non-white residents, this rhetoric does not reflect their lived reality.
Cape Town is a geographically segregated city, with the scars of apartheid often hidden away from the pristine beaches and multimillion-dollar properties that make it a global tourist hub.
Mitchells Plain – which sits on a flat, sandy stretch of land some 30km (19 miles) away from the city centre known as the Cape Flats – was set up in the 1970s as a place for the apartheid government to house people of colour following racist forced removals.
It was designed to be separate and segregated from then-whites-only areas, but also from economic opportunities and services. And that unjust spatial legacy remains.
Today, Mitchells Plain is home to close to half a million low-to-middle-income people living in about eight neighbourhoods of varying socioeconomic status.
The area also recorded one the highest numbers of attempted murders nationally during the first quarter of the year, according to crime statistics – and repeatedly makes it into the country’s top 30 areas with the highest crime rates.
Smith and her family have not been spared. Living in Lost City, one of the poorest areas in Mitchells Plain, she has lost three children, two to gang violence, she said, wondering aloud if they would still be alive if she had a real home to keep them safe.
“Lost City is so far from everything,” Smith said. “People say the name is from the fact that we are lost here; no one listens to us or helps us as the backyard dwellers waiting for a house.”
‘Out of touch’ politicians
With the elections less than two months away, housing is not at the top of the agenda for the leading political parties in the province.
The ANC only has two lines in its manifesto related to the issue, where it states it will continue building subsidised housing for vulnerable groups and invest in people partly by ensuring everyone has decent housing and basic services.
In its manifesto, the DA makes no mention of housing at all. But an earlier housing policy from the party says it believes in “adequate shelter” and supports the section of the constitution that requires this right to be “progressively realised”.
Housing is a big election issue for voters. In a photo taken before the 2014 polls, an ANC supporter in Cape Town holds a sign criticising the opposition DA’s housing policies [File: Mike Hutchings/Reuters]
Nick Budlender, an urban policy researcher at the housing activist group Ndifuna Ukwazi (NU), sees political parties’ lack of focus on housing as “both interesting and disheartening”.
“Land and housing were key issues in previous elections and, for many, political parties have drifted away and the struggle for housing has less capital. It slipped down the list for politicians,” he said.
Last month, Cape Town’s Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis, a member of the DA, unveiled what the city calls its “pro-poor budget” for 2024-2025, telling a council meeting that the mission going forward was to invest in infrastructure “on an unprecedented scale”.
“With boldness of vision and firmness of belief, we know that Cape Town can show that it is possible to roll back poverty, that we can overcome the long shadows of our past,” he said.
However, Budlender said: “We have a housing and segregation crisis that is extreme here – but we don’t see enough government action to match this crisis,” adding that the leadership was “failing to use public land to serve the public”.
“This is an example of inequality and segregation in our city,” he said.
Jacobs from the Mitchells Plain United Residents Association said he would also like to see “a rapid release of land from the national government”, which the city could then use to build homes for people who need it.
But “the city is not geared up for the delivery of houses”, he admitted, adding that Mayor Hill-Lewis was “out of touch” with the realities on the ground.
‘They forget about us’
In Lost City, Smith sat with her family outside their single-room dwelling, still hoping that change would come.
Her husband, Russel, 61, lost his right leg years ago and is unable to work. He gets a small disability pension that helps them pay rent to the owner of the plot they stay on, but Smith does domestic work twice a week to earn a bit more money.
A big chunk of what she makes goes into public transport to visit the city council to follow up on her housing application – and sometimes that isn’t enough.
“I usually have to borrow taxi fare to go to the city’s housing office to find out if there is any news on getting a council house, I am so tired and frustrated,” she said, telling Al Jazeera that different officials usually send her from one office to the next.
“In January, they told me I have to wait longer because of some issues, and the houses were not going to be built, so I have to wait another three to four years. This is so depressing.”
Hundreds of thousands of people live in backyard housing, activists say [File: Mike Hutchings/Reuters]
Budlender from the NU, whose non-profit group of lawyers and community organisers works to tackle spatial injustice in the city, said: “Sadly, we see cases like Cheryl-Ann and her family all the time.”
“This idea is that the housing waiting list is a rational list, meaning those who are on the earliest will get [homes] first – but that is not how it functions at all and it’s a lot more random.”
For Smith that has meant going to the housing office almost every day to follow up on her application. But so far, it has yielded no results.
Budlender said though millions have benefitted from the state’s housing policy since 1994, for many more, there is no help at all.
“We know of hundreds of thousands of people that live in backyard housing and that number continues to grow,” he said, adding that it is a section of the population the government seems to want to ignore.
“So far there has been no real policy response to backyard housing,” he said. “It’s like they put their heads in the sand.”
As the elections approach, the politicians campaign around rolling back poverty. But to the Smiths and their neighbours, talk means little when the reality of poverty is all they have.
“They only come here when they need us to vote for them and then they forget about us,” Smith said, putting little faith in their party promises.
“I dream of the day I have a house where there is a running tap that I can simply open and wash my grandchild in a bath instead of a bucket,” she said, “and have a toilet I can flush.”
Dakar, Senegal – “Finally, we can breathe,” the cashier at the American Food Store supermarket in Dakar said while swiping a pot of Greek yoghurt through checkout.
It was three days after Senegal’s contested March 24 presidential election – the day provisional results were announced – and there was a sense that something had turned: a new vigour for democracy brought about by the election of opposition candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye.
The 44-year-old was sworn in on Tuesday after years of political turmoil and fears that outgoing President Macky Sall – who had already been in power for 12 years – would try to extend his mandate into a third term.
For months, the nation was on tenterhooks.
But after a whirlwind election cycle and last week’s landslide win for the young, anti-establishment candidate who was in prison just 20 days ago, there is now a palpable feeling among Senegalese that change has come.
‘Vote against the system’
On election day, voters began arriving at dawn, hours before polling stations opened.
Inside the playground of Nafissatou Niang Elemtary School in Dakar that served as one of the polling stations, voters in flamboyant boubou robes, old suited men with newspapers in hand and young men in fake Balenciaga T-shirts, lined up, all standing in silence.
A drone view of people lining up to vote at the polling station at Ndiaganiao in Mbour, Senegal [File: Zohra Bensemra/Reuters]
Among them was 37-year-old Julia Sagna, who said she was determined to use her vote to fight back.
Dressed in a grey power suit, she stood poised and a little nervous because she had never voted before. She said she never wanted to until she felt it really mattered. This time, she was sure: “The new, young voters would vote against the system,” she said.
Coming out of the polling station with a smile, she waved a pinky finger dipped in ink to mark that she had voted. “I feel lucky” to have participated, she said.
The delayed vote was supposed to have taken place in February. But days before campaigning was set to begin, Sall postponed the election for the first time in Senegal’s history, accusing the constitutional judges tasked with drawing up the list of candidates of corruption. Critics saw it as a last-ditch effort by Sall to cling to power.
But the Constitutional Council overruled the decision, ordering Sall to organise elections before the end of his mandate on April 2.
So on March 24, 66 percent of the seven million Senegalese eligible to vote went to the polls – a high turnout for a high-stakes election.
Arrested, then released
At the Medina polling station in downtown Dakar, large crowds gathered at the ballot boxes, some out of a desire for justice, others out for revenge.
Sall’s 12 years in office had been overshadowed by the political turmoil of the final few. In 2020, COVID-19 restrictions badly affected the informal economy and people’s livelihoods. The following year, the attempted arrest of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko ignited widespread anger towards the government, which was accused of ignoring the struggles of common people in favour of clamping down on political opponents.
Riots broke out, and the clashes turned deadly.
Scores of people were killed and hundreds injured by armed, masked men. The opposition and civil society saw them as goons hired by the ruling party, acting with impunity and paid to hurt people.
The attempted arrest of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko in 2021 ignited protests against the government [File: Aliou Mbaye/EPA-EFE]
From March 2021 to February this year, thousands of people were arrested – among them Bassirou Diomaye Faye.
The former tax inspector had taken to Facebook to protest, writing a post in February 2023 that accused magistrates of being in the pocket of the state while overlooking actual crimes. The authorities deemed the post threatening to state security and, therefore, illegal.
That April, Faye was arrested and sent to prison, where he stayed for 11 months before being released just before last month’s vote.
At the time of his arrest, Faye had been working for Sonko, also a tax inspector. They were figureheads of the union of employees of the tax office upset with injustice and disparities at the tax department.
In 2014, Sonko, a firebrand with a soft tone and a sharp tongue, created the political party PASTEF (African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics and Fraternity). The party attracted middle management civil servants who felt frustrated and powerless as they watched their superiors steal money and receive kickbacks with impunity.
Sonko came to fame by denouncing corruption in contracts for the lucrative oil and gas sector after natural gas reserves were discovered in 2014. In 2023, he was arrested on multiple charges, including provoking insurrection, conspiring with “terrorist groups”, endangering state security and immoral behaviour towards individuals younger than 21.
Shortly after, the government banned his party.
Ousmane Sonko was arrested and jailed in 2023 [File: Seyllou/AFP]
In 2018, Al Jazeera met Sonko in a small rented house overlooking a busy highway. During the interview, he lashed out at the government’s then-new law to control social media.
Little did he know then that the law passed in 2018 would be used five years later to arrest his deputy and the future president of Senegal, Faye.
On March 6, 18 days before the election, Sall passed an amnesty bill approved by parliament to release and pardon all those involved in crimes during the political violence that took place from 2021 to 2024.
Rights groups criticised the amnesty law, seeing it as a guise to protect the security forces and hired men involved in police brutality and the killing of protesters – crimes that will now no longer be investigated and, therefore, go unpunished.
But the amnesty also ensured the release of Sonko and Faye, who were freed less than two weeks before the election, bringing their presidential campaign to life.
The ruling party candidate, Amadou Ba, may have had the help of dozens of PR companies, but for many Senegalese, his messaging appeared tone deaf to the aspirations of the young majority, who desired change instead of more of the same.
Ba frustrated the media by arriving late to his own meetings or not showing up at all. Despite being the ruling party candidate, Sall also never appeared by his side.
Supporters of Faye attend a final campaign rally in Mbour, Senegal, before the presidential election [File: Mosa’ab Elshamy/AP]
‘Diomaye is Sonko’
Meanwhile, Faye and Sonko put on a show. They crisscrossed the nation, surrounded by bodyguards holding back frenzied crowds of young people wanting to get a glimpse of the men – as if the two were rock stars and not former tax inspectors.
The crowds sang the anthem to their campaign: “Sonko is Diomaye, and Diomaye is Sonko.”
Largely unknown to the public, Faye was until then riding the wave of Sonko’s popularity. But Faye stepped into the limelight.
Broom in hand, he promised “sweeping” change from a new currency and the renegotiating of oil and gas contracts to changing Senegal’s relationship with France and the French language. Under Sall, critics viewed Senegal’s government as a puppet to Western interests and one that put France’s interests above Senegal’s.
Faye promised he would put “Senegal first” and make the Senegalese his priority.
Overwhelmingly funded by the Senegalese diaspora from Europe and North America, Faye and Sonko ran an American-style campaign, campaigning as a duo “Diomaye Sonko” on a pan-African ticket. They filled up stadiums and lit up the sky with fireworks.
The show paid off. Two hours after the polling closed, a landslide victory appeared certain. One after the other, candidates conceded defeat and congratulated Faye.
By Friday, the official final results were confirmed. He had won 54 percent of the votes.
‘Sweeping’ victory
From political prisoner to president in fewer than 20 days, Faye is now Africa’s youngest leader at 44.
For his supporters, Faye was not the only winner. In the wake of the vote, people rushed to Sonko’s home. Under a flyover leading to Sonko’s house, where police had manhandled people trying to get to work in June, a victorious crowd gathered.
With horns blaring, young men on the rooftops of SUVs waved the green, red and yellow flag of Senegal. Some approached the area with their families and children. Supporters with brooms in hand swept the streets, a symbol of what they viewed as a sweeping victory.
But once the dust settles, people will want to know who is actually holding the broomstick.
When Sonko was barred from running in the election because of his criminal convictions, he chose Faye to stand as a candidate in his place. “A rational choice made not from the heart,” Sonko said in November at the time of his decision when Faye was also in jail.
Humble beginnings
Released on March 14 under Sall’s amnesty law, Faye will now settle into his presidential role. But his beginnings are far different from the elite he is replacing.
An hour-and-a-half drive from the capital is a long dirt road leading to Ndiaganiao, the village where Faye was born and raised.
It was here in 2022 that Senegal’s new president campaigned to become the village mayor but lost.
“Overcoming adversity and failure made him a success,” his father, Samba Faye, told Al Jazeera a day after the initial results were announced.
Samba Faye, father of presidential Bassirou Diomaye Faye, at his family home in Ndiaganiao [File: John Wessels/AFP]
The elder Faye lives in a modest cement home in a sandy settlement. Blue plastic chairs were stacked in one corner, others strewn across the courtyard. Pots emptied of food lay around after the previous night’s victory celebration.
Not far from the home is a mosque, and nearby in the sand, the final resting place of Faye’s grandfather.
The family is recognised among the villagers, and the newly elected president is a respected figure.
Faye’s grandfather fought as part of the colonial French army against Nazi Germany in World War II. But after that, he brought the fight home and took on French colonial administrators over the construction of a district high school, a battle that proved more difficult than the trenches of war because the French colonists saw educated Africans as a threat to their rule.
His persistence landed him in jail, but the school was eventually built.
This is where the future president went to school, his father said. And during his time off, the young man would help his mother and sister plant cereal grains.
Samba Faye has been a lifelong member of Senegal’s Socialist Party. His son grew up with left-leaning ideals, his father said.
“It’s easy to be proud of your son now when he gets so much recognition, but there was a lot of pain, a lot of hard work, to get where he is,” Samba Faye said.
Senegal’s new president, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, left, shakes hands with the outgoing president, Macky Sall [Senegal’s Presidency/Handout via Reuters]
As Bassirou Diomaye Faye takes office at the presidential palace, in his shadow is his mentor Sonko. Tight friends, for now at least, but what role will Sonko play? Especially since Faye would likely have never won without him.
Some see uncertainty ahead. Others see hope for a new beginning. But what is clear is that there will be change.
Before the handover of power, Sall met his successor. Sall, in a suit and tie, shook the hand of president-elect Faye and opposition leader Sonko, both dressed in traditional attire.
To some it may just be a symbol, but to the Senegalese who voted for Faye, it is a cataclysmic shift.
Dakar, Senegal – For the traditional, small-scale fishermen of Ouakam Beach in Senegal’s capital Dakar, inequality is just a glance away.
Adama Gueye, a 58-year-old canoe captain, points towards the coast, where imposing villas of the upper-class, including politicians, sit tall and mighty a stone’s throw away from where he fishes.
“We can see the inequalities with our own eyes,” the fisherman told Al Jazeera.
For him, the injustice is compounded by decreasing fish stocks in the West African nation, where the centuries-old tradition of artisanal fishing is menaced by foreign industrial boats that export the fish away from Senegal.
But hope is on the horizon and it lies in his country’s new president: Bassirou Diomaye Faye.
Newly elected this week after years of tribulations and political crises – including a recent failed attempt by outgoing leader Macky Sall to delay the vote – Faye is Africa’s youngest leader at 44.
For many disenfranchised Senegalese fishermen who feel they have been wronged by their former leaders, he is also a symbol of change.
“[Faye] knows how much a kilogram of rice costs,” said Gueye, “he’s young, he was born in poverty, he didn’t go to private schools abroad – he’s one of us.”
Traditional fishing canoes, called pirogues, are parked at the Ouakam beach [Andrei Popoviciu/Al Jazeera]
For the past years under President Sall, legal fishing by industrial foreign trawlers from China and Europe who had signed contracts with the government, decimated Senegal’s fish stocks, leaving artisanal fishers with empty nets.
This scarcity also led local fish prices to soar, according to fishermen – something that could significantly affect people’s nutritional intake, as Senegalese get about 40 percent of their animal protein from seafood, according to 2017 figures.
In 2018, the value of Senegal’s legal fish exports reached more than $490m, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, accounting for 10 percent of the country’s exports, behind only phosphates, oil and gold.
Senegal also loses $272m per year because of unauthorised and illegal industrial fishing by foreign boats, according to the Institute for Security Studies.
Foreign boats are restricted from fishing in certain areas and have strict indicators as to what type of catch they are allowed to fish. But often, they turn off their satellite transponders to avoid being tracked and use illegal nets.
The fishing industry contributes nearly 1.8 percent to Senegal’s GDP, providing more than 600,000 jobs, according to the Environmental Justice Foundation – a number that could be higher due to lack of registration.
Without fish, many livelihoods that depend directly and indirectly on fishing are lost, and a sizeable number of fishermen choose to immigrate to other countries or use their sailing skills and take dangerous boat journeys to Spain’s Canary Islands. In 2023, the UN refugee agency had registered more than 15,000 arrivals to Spain.
But now, the president-elect wants to change the fate of fishermen.
‘An agreement to steal our resources’
When Faye announced his electoral programme at the start of the month, he mentioned shifting the fishing zone exclusive for artisanal fishermen by 20km (12.4 miles) to protect it from foreign boats.
He also announced his intent to develop and implement a National Plan for the Immersion and Management of Artificial Reefs, an attempt to reconstruct marine habitats and ecosystems degraded by years of damaging industrial and artisanal fishing practices.
“We will apply without concession and in all its rigour the regulations on sea fishing to put an end to the political and complacent management of the sector,” local media quoted him as saying.
In advance of the vote, Faye also signed a charter for sustainable fishing, alongside other candidates. Proposed by Senegal’s National Coalition for Sustainable Fishing and supported by Greenpeace during this month’s election campaign, the charter included a commitment to oversee stock management at the sub-regional level, conduct audits on a fishing agreement with the European Union, and allocate a portion of revenue generated from oil and gas exploitation to the fishing sector.
Fishing is a central part of the Senegalese economy, providing more than half a million jobs, much more according to some [Andrei Popoviciu/Al Jazeera]
Under Sall’s government, Senegal renewed a fishing agreement with the EU that had been present in one form or another since 1979 and has been renewed every five years. The deal gives European vessels access to fish in Senegalese waters and exports that catch back home in exchange for 800,000 euros ($863,104). The EU also provides Senegal with an additional 900,000 euros ($970,992) in investments in artisanal fishing and to improve stocktaking capabilities, enhancing research and data gathering in the fisheries sector and issuing health certifications for seafood products.
But the deal has been controversial. While most fishing agreements have a transparency clause regarding how much fish is exported by European vessels, the EU-Senegal deal does not. While the EU invests in the artisanal fishing industry and fishing governance, fishermen like Gueye have argued that if there are no fish to catch, there is no point to these investments.
Chinese and Turkish industrial boats have also been heavily criticised for their practices. For instance, it has not been uncommon for the government to give licences to boats with a history of illegal activities. Chinese and Spanish fishmeal companies based in Senegal, which turn the catch into fish feed to then be used to raise farm fish in China, have garnered criticism in recent years. In 2022, fishermen sued a Spanish fishmeal factory, accusing it of polluting drinking water.
As president, Sall focused on developing the country through investments and deals with foreign countries. He was harshly criticised by the opposition – led by Faye and his ally Ousmane Sonko – for deals that were not in the interest of the Senegalese but of companies and politicians who extract resources for exports with little trickling down to other citizens.
Faye believed it was one of the biggest grievances Senegalese had with the former government, so he ran on a campaign to revamp Senegal’s natural resource export deals with foreign countries and lend an ear to artisanal fishermen, who felt they had not been consulted before these contracts were signed by the previous government.
“The EU signed an agreement with Senegal to steal our resources, that’s why people are going to Europe,” said Gueye, referring to the thousands of local fishermen migrating to Europe on small boats.
“I hope Diomaye will put them in their place,” he said, adding that the new president also needs to crack down on illegal fishing, illegal nets and regulate how both industrial and artisanal fishermen operate.
“We have hope he will work for us.”
Helping Senegalese fishermen
Fishermen could see the impact themselves. Moussa Gueye (not related to Adama), a 30-year-old fisherman at Ouakam Beach born in a family with a tradition for fishing, told Al Jazeera that during the COVID-19 pandemic, when restrictions limited the presence of industrial boats, fish were plentiful.
Moustapha Senghor, coordinator of the local artisanal fisheries council of Mbour, a city on the southern coast of Senegal, told Al Jazeera that Sall had made efforts to address issues with fishing but they were “insufficient”.
“There is a lack of transparency in fisheries governance in Senegal,” said Senghor, who stressed the need for open data resources that show the vessels operating in Senegalese waters, where they can fish and where they can not, and how much fish is there.
He concurs with the other fishermen’s call for a revision of fishing agreements.
Fishing also converges with migration in Senegal. “Most of the fishermen are looking to the Canary Islands to reach Europe because they’re worried about the continuation of their fishing activities, especially in view of the cohabitation with oil exploitation,” Senghor said.
Many fishermen have lost their livelihoods because of depleted fish stocks [Andrei Popoviciu/Al Jazeera]
In 2014, significant natural gas reserves were discovered offshore near the Senegalese city of St Louis. International players like British Petroleum (BP), which has the highest stake in the project, and US-based Kosmos Energy have invested in the project together with the Senegalese government. After the project was announced, European statesmen made official visits to court former President Sall for potential export deals.
The extraction of gas was expected to bring $1.5bn in exports by 2025 if it were to start when it was scheduled at the beginning of the year, but there have been several production delays. Offshore oil exploitation for exports is also expected to start production in the following years.
Meanwhile, fishermen in St Louis have complained of the effect the oil and gas rig has on their activities, including the cut off of fishing near the rig and the impact on what is one of the world’s biggest cold water reefs.
Bassirou Diarra, a fisheries and aquaculture engineer and researcher at the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar and campaigner at the Environmental Justice Foundation, told Al Jazeera there is a need to invest in scientific research as well.
A centre for oceanographic research would be able to monitor the stock of fish and report on how much can be fished sustainably, while also monitoring the pollution and impact of the rig on the biodiversity in the region. Diarra said Senegal’s current fishing agreements are remnants of his country’s colonial past.
“Macky Sall has implemented [fishing] policies that continued the system of exportation,” added Senghor. “[Faye] needs to help the Senegalese eat and produce their own fish and not export all of it abroad.”
Not just economic interests threaten the fishermen.
Back at Ouakam Beach, Gueye, the canoe captain, pointed out how the shore has been swallowed by the sea for the past 30 years, due to rising sea levels. He is hopeful Faye will also address this key issue and protect the fishermen from the effects of climate change.
As the beach is flooded by a bright sunset, Gueye makes his last caveat clear. Despite the faith he puts in the new president, recent political upheavals in the last years of Sall’s rule have made him more cynical.
“We’ve woken up as a society,” he said. “If [Faye] doesn’t do the job well, he won’t last more than one term.”
Aveiro, Brazil – The flames roared higher than a hundred feet, sending smoke billowing across the jungle.
Boars scattered from the underbrush. Toucans shot from the trees. And thousands of acres of Amazon rainforest soon crumbled into ash.
It was 1928, and a vast stretch of land in north-central Brazil was being cleared for a monumental undertaking: Fordlandia, a $20m city dreamed up by the richest man in the world at the time, American industrialist Henry Ford.
From the charred earth rose a hospital, a cinema, schools and bungalows. A golf and tennis courts were built for the arriving Americans to feel at home. The sawmill and factory floors, meanwhile, were the purview of the local workers.
But over the past eight decades, Fordlandia has lain largely abandoned, slowly falling into disrepair.
Still, smoke continues to hang in the air, as Brazil contends with an ongoing legacy of deforestation and fortune-seeking in its world-renowned rainforest.
About 2,000 people remain residents of Ford’s utopian experiment, a decaying reminder of the ambitions that shape the forest.
Plagued by poverty, these residents find themselves caught between competing pressures: to protect the environment that surrounds them — or exploit it to make ends meet.
“Yes, I deforest. How else am I going to farm?” said Sadir Moata, a 31-year-old resident of the area.
A muscular farmer with dark, bushy eyebrows, Moata took it upon himself to rehabilitate one of Fordlandia’s larger houses, originally intended for American expats. He mucked out the bat droppings and tamed the overgrowth in the garden so that his father could use it as a home.
But his income from farming is meagre, and clearing the land through fire allows him to grow more crops.
“I get 600 reals [$120 per month] from a government programme. There’s me, my wife, two children and a brother who eats with us. What kind of life am I going to have with 600 reals?”
But experts, advocates and other residents warn that the cost of Amazon deforestation will inevitably be higher than any gains.
UN warns Africa’s youngest nation is facing a food crisis.
South Sudan is on the verge of a devastating hunger catastrophe, the World Food Programme has warned.
In its short history, Africa’s youngest country has been battered by armed conflict and the effects of climate change.
Now, the influx of half a million people – escaping the violence in neighbouring Sudan – is worsening an already precarious humanitarian situation.
Aid agencies say more funding and unhindered access is vital to provide millions of South Sudanese with desperately needed food assistance.
But how challenging is it to secure this funding? And what can be done to address the mass displacement of people from across the border?
Presenter: Mohammed Jamjoom
Guests:
Angelina Nyajima – Executive director of Hope Restoration South Sudan, a non-governmental organisation that runs humanitarian and peace-building programmes
Alan Boswell – Horn of Africa director for the International Crisis Group
Gemma Snowdon – Head of communications at the World Food Programme in South Sudan
The families of 37 Tunisians from El Hancha near Sfax who went missing at sea have taken their protest to the capital over what they say is official silence about their missing relatives.
Relatives of the missing people, aged between 13 and 35, said they received phone calls from their family members on board the boat at around 2:30pm on January 11.
However, by 10pm, all contact had been lost.
The boat has remained lost since.
‘The whole of Hancha is miserable’
In the wake of the disappearance, extensive searches have been undertaken by Tunisia’s coast guard, supported by teams from Italy and Malta.
But search operations appear to have faltered, with the last official comment on the issue coming by way of a press release in mid-January.
Fatma Jlaiel, whose 25-year-old brother Ali is missing, was among the families who travelled to the Syndicat National des Journalistes Tunisiens in Tunis on Tuesday, trying to bypass officials and take their case directly to the media.
“No one has contacted us from the government,” Fatma Jlaiel, whose brother, 25-year-old Ali, is among the missing.
“The whole of El Hancha is miserable,” she told a translator. “All you hear in the street are questions about news or rumours. Everyone you meet is hollow-eyed.
The families took their demands to Tunis on February 6, 2024 [Fethi Belaid/AFP]
“Our mothers are sick. We’re constantly checking their blood pressure and sugar levels. They’re devastated.
“It’ll shortly be a month since the boat disappeared,” she said. “We’ve been receiving bits of information from here and there, but we’re doing most of the work ourselves. We’re undertaking the investigations the police are supposed to do,” she said.
Ali was one of the thousands of Tunisians who made their way without papers across one of the world’s most dangerous migratory routes.
Unable to secure regular employment at home, his most recent job had been as a nighttime security guard in Sfax, some 50km (30 miles) distant, which barely left him with enough money for coffee and cigarettes, his brother Mohammed said.
Rumours
In the absence of official information, a variety of theories are taking hold within a population starved of information and desperate for news of family members.
Rumours that the boat may have foundered off the island of Kerkennah, near Sfax, the country’s principal departure point for irregular migration, have been dismissed by relatives over a lack of evidence.
Other theories, like that the boat may have been diverted to Greece, have been investigated and dismissed by the El Hancha families.
Likewise, Tunisians in Italy have gone as far as appointing lawyers to work with authorities in scouring the detention centres where irregular arrivals are often held.
Poverty, police brutality and lack of opportunity have made life unmanageable for many Tunisians [File: Riadh Dridi/AP Photo]
Contacted by Al Jazeera – and stressing he had no knowledge of the case – Italian prosecutor Salvatore Vella, who deals extensively with undocumented migration, said it was unlikely the disappeared Tunisians had arrived in Italy.
“Typically, the first thing Tunisians do on arrival is contact their families,” he said. That they had not done so, he said, did not bode well.
For the El Hancha families – refusing to accept that their relatives may have been lost at sea – Libya, some 320km (200 miles) distant, remains an increasingly tantalising, prospect.
Armed gangs from western Libya have long traded in the labour of captured refugees, often intercepting convoys of undocumented Black migrants as they seek to cross into the country and bringing them to detention centres where conditions are reported to border upon the medieval.
Ali Buzriba, deputy for the Libyan coastal town of Zawiya told Italian news agency Nova that no boats from Tunisia had arrived in the region in the days after the El Hancha boat’s departure, saying that the seas had been particularly rough at that time.
In addition, Buzriba said he had contacted the head of the maritime division of Libya’s Stability Support Apparatus who also had no information on the missing boat.
Refugees attempt to cross to Italy on metal boat as they are spotted by the Tunisian coast guard, off Sfax, Tunisia, April 27, 2023 [Jihed Abidellaoui/Reuters]
Silence
Majdi Karbai, a member of parliament who is in contact with the El Hancha families, told Al Jazeera that Tunisian authorities’ silence on the issue was because of the character of Tunisian officialdom, as well as concern over the implications of any statement.
“They do not talk to the citizens, they do not talk to the press. Their concern is that this may lead to a repeat of the previous unrest at Zarzis,” he said, referring to the disturbances that followed the loss of a boat carrying 17 Tunisians from the small southern town two years ago, which eventually became a national incident.
“The families have this idea that as long as there are no bodies, their relatives are alive.”
On the phone from El Hancha, Fatma is still angry.
“We need the government’s help and that of the Ministry of Interior’s,” she said of the department with overall responsibility for the search.
“All we’ve been given is a phone number to call when we hear news from our sources. That’s what we do: call the police ourselves to say that our children might be at a certain place.”
“We need to know where our flowers are,” she said, referring to her term for the missing passengers, “We need our government to do its job and look for our precious kids. We’re devastated.”
More than 97,000 people crossed the Mediterranean from Tunisia to Italy in 2023, according to the UNHCR, the majority of those transiting through Tunisia from sub-Saharan Africa. Of those, at least 2,500 are thought to have died.
In annual State of the Nation Address, President Ramaphosa addressed domestic issues and Israel’s war on Gaza.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has reaffirmed his country’s commitment to helping secure a ceasefire in the war on Gaza and an eventual two-state solution between Israel and Palestine, during his annual State of the Nation Address.
Speaking before lawmakers at Cape Town City Hall on Thursday, the president said that “guided by the fundamental principle of human rights and freedom”, South Africa had taken up the Palestinian cause “to prevent further deaths and destruction in Gaza”.
South Africa has filed a case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. Last month, the court issued an interim ruling, saying it has jurisdiction to hear the case and ordering Israel to take all measures to prevent genocidal acts.
“We have welcomed the ruling of the International Court of Justice that Israel must take all measures within its power to prevent acts of genocide against Palestinians,” Ramaphosa said in his address.
“We condemn the killing of civilians on all sides and call on all parties involved in the conflict to commit to a peace process that will deliver a two-state solution,” he added.
Al Jazeera’s Fahmida Miller, reporting from Johannesburg after the address, said South Africa thus far considers its case at the ICJ “a success”.
“Ramaphosa had said that there really is no conflict across any part of the world that is intractable and can’t be resolved through negotiations, and that’s what he said when dealing with the issue of the war on Gaza and saying that South Africa was firmly behind the Palestinian people … and that they would use all diplomatic and legal methods to continue that fight and bring a ceasefire and a two-state solution to that region,” our correspondent added.
30 years of democracy
This year is a key election year for South Africa. Ramaphosa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) has led the country since the first democratic election after the end of apartheid took place in 1994.
Though historically dominant, the ANC is struggling in the polls, and many analysts say it will for the first time get less than the 50 percent parliamentary majority it has won in past elections.
On Thursday, the third-largest opposition party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) also boycotted the State of the Nation Address after its leader and deputy leader were suspended from parliament for storming the stage during last year’s address.
Ramaphosa, 71, used his address to highlight how far the country has come since the end of apartheid.
“Ramaphosa used the occasion to talk about some of the progress that has been made over the past 30 years,” Miller said. “The ANC is going through a very difficult time. The governing party in South Africa, many would say, has failed millions of South Africans in that little has changed, but the ANC would say something different.”
“Ultimately [Ramaphosa] used the speech to try and highlight what the governing party has done over the past three decades, and to try to get South Africans to come out to the polls, and try and sort of renew their hope in the party, try and fix some of the difficulties the party has experienced,” she added.
Ramaphosa also spoke about the steps his government has taken to address the country’s prolonged energy crisis. “We are confident that the worst is behind us and the end of load shedding is finally within reach,” he said using the local term for blackouts.
He also pledged thousands of new jobs, saying his government “made significant progress on measures to grow the economy, create jobs and reduce poverty”.
Without naming him, Ramaphosa also took a swipe at his predecessor Jacob Zuma, 81, who last month was suspended from the governing party after backing a breakaway party that threatens to take votes away from ANC.
Listing the challenges South Africa has faced in recent decades, Ramaphosa said “perhaps the greatest damage” to the nation was inflicted by the period of massive corruption that marked Zuma’s rule.
“For a decade, individuals at the highest levels of the state conspired with private individuals to take over and repurpose state-owned enterprises, law enforcement agencies and other public institutions,” he said.
“Billions of rands that were meant to meet the needs of ordinary South Africans were stolen.”
South Africans are expected to go to the polls sometime between May and August this year.
New York City, USA – Makalah Monroe works at an Outback Steakhouse in Laurel, Maryland. She is a student and the only one in her household with a car. By any account, Monroe has a full plate of responsibilities that she is working hard to keep up with. She works full-time and yet struggles to get by.
“I often leave an eight-hour shift with only about $60 in hand,” Monroe told Al Jazeera.
With credit card, phone and insurance bills piling up, her current pay is just not cutting it for her. Often, she has to decide which gets paid and what has to wait.
“I usually have to call the car and insurance companies and tell them I either need to pay late or pause payments entirely,” she added.
Monroe is like the millions of Americans whose financial situation hinges on the outcome of the US presidential election. President Joe Biden is set to focus on a number of economic wins during his first term, including record job growth, low unemployment and tumbling gas prices, among other key economic indicators that have made it evident that the US economy is on the upswing.
But the incumbent president, his Republican opponents, third-party candidates and Biden’s longshot Democratic challengers face the harsh realities of underemployment in the United States.
However, with significant economic growth, the question is: Do Americans like Monroe have a better chance for social mobility under the eventual Democratic nominee – most likely Biden – or the most likely Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump?
According to data compiled by the Economic Policy Institute, underemployment sits slightly below 7 percent – the lowest since the agency began tracking the data in 1990. When Trump left office, underemployment was at more than 14 percent. After a peak in March 2021, there has been a steady decline since.
“Since the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment has declined pretty steeply and quickly,” said Lonnie Golden, professor of economics and labour-human resources at the Pennsylvania State University.
Cost-of-living surge
While the Biden administration saw record job growth, it is not clear that the new jobs in question are well-paying sustainable jobs that meet the cost of living across the US.
“In the last year, we’ve seen an uptick in the way the Bureau of Labor Statistics measures the number of people working part-time but would prefer to be working full-time hours,” said Golden.
“These figures kind of mask the extent of underemployment for people because they’re seeking a second job for more income,” she added.
Despite the economic gains, child poverty is up 137 percent, and average rent prices have surged nationally.
According to a new report out from Zillow, the percentage of income needed to rent a median-price apartment in the US jumped by 40 percent since before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In some cities, it is even higher.
In Miami, Florida, renters need to spend 43 percent of the average income to afford a median-price rental apartment. The minimum wage in Miami is $12 an hour.
Nationally, the minimum wage’s buying power peaked in 1968 and has not kept up with the cost of living since.
According to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the number of those underemployed is much higher – 33 percent among college graduates. That is because its metric considers graduates working jobs that do not require a college degree.
Amid the recovery, much of the consistent job gains were in the leisure and hospitality sector – an industry that is notorious for low wages.
“The low wage pool is what’s growing the American workforce,” Saru Jayaraman, founder of One Fair Wage, told Al Jazeera.
Jayaraman asserts that Biden, who historically is more pro-worker than his Republican challengers, could do much better strategically if he fully embraces issues about payment.
“It’s getting harder and harder to tell workers to vote for a Democrat who will raise wages when that doesn’t happen,” Jayaraman said.
However, during the last election cycle, Biden did follow through on many of his promises.
One of Biden’s first actions as president was to raise wages across the board via the Raise the Wage Act. But that did not pass as the bill was blocked by Republicans. Biden, however, was able to raise the minimum wage for all federal contractors. The US government is the nation’s biggest employer.
Biden has not acted on abolishing the subminimum wage that allows tipped workers to make a wage of only $2.13 an hour – although many states require higher direct wage amounts for tipped employees. The rest is supposed to be made up in tips – a move that is widely accepted in the food service industry and other domestic industries.
The Trump administration, however, actively tried to limit tipped wages for these same restaurant workers. The former president pushed for business owners to take control of tips and pass them along to workers as they see fit.
Proposed solutions to underemployment include a number of compounding proposals, one of which is the nonprofit One Fair Wage’s push to abolish the subminimum wage nationally.
One Fair Wages efforts have helped get wage measures on the ballot all over the country, garnering more votes than either presidential candidate.
“In 2020, more people voted for a $15 minimum wage in Florida than [the number of votes for] either Trump or Biden,” Jayaraman said.
Faults in proposed fixes
One proposed fix has been a Universal Basic Income. Americans got a taste of that in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic when the government released one-time payments. That stimulated the economy. Consumer spending surged.
In May 2020, personal spending rose 8.2 percent from the month prior. That had the same effect during the second round of government payouts. Consumer spending ticked up by more than 4 percent in the months following the second release, which was in early 2021.
However, that was one of the many reasons why inflation soared in the years following.
Printing more money means that the individual dollar is less valuable than it once was, driving up prices. Yet wages did not grow nearly fast enough.
“Only a few years ago, it used to be that one in three Americans working full time lived in poverty. We are inching closer to one in two,” Jayaraman said.
The Department of Labor for its part is taking steps to address massive shifts in the economic makeup of the US. In September, the department announced a $57m grant to expand job training programmes, including in large population centres like New York, California, Illinois and Ohio.
The move is aimed at helping those who are underemployed pivot into high-demand and expanding industries related to addressing climate change and staffing up the US’s infrastructure projects.
While the programme is expected to have widespread effects, the Labor Department says it will help about 10,000 workers.
It also comes alongside a wave of unionisation efforts across big businesses like Amazon to even small independent coffee shops. Several companies and trade have successfully lobbied for higher wages and fairer contracts.
That, however, came from empowered workers in individual sectors rather than overarching policies from Washington.
The Biden administration has been largely supportive of unions that have called for fairer contracts like the United Auto Workers, for instance.
Movement, however, is slow. Wage increases are often staggered marginally over several years. The required wage increases for federal contractors were unilaterally implemented by executive order in April 2021 – three months into Biden’s presidency. It took effect a few weeks ago.
But as Washington hypothesises over a myriad of potential solutions, people like Monroe still have rent and electricity bills piling up.
“I’m basically living paycheque to paycheque right now,” Monroe said.
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