By Sabine CessouPosted on 30-12-2019Changed on 30-12-2019 at 23:10

Despite the spread of the security threat in the Sahel and the recurring challenges posed by unemployment, poverty and climate change, Africa is making progress in all areas. Witness these 10 good news of 2019, political, economic, social, cultural and sporting.

Revolution in Sudan

Alaa Salah, a young woman dressed in white with a gold disc in an earring, becomes the icon of the revolution in Sudan . Perched on the roof of a car, she sings, raising her hand, among thousands of demonstrators who camp outside the army headquarters in Khartoum. On April 11, 2019, the staff dismissed Omar el-Béchir, in power since 1989 and ready to run for a third term in 2020, after four months of contestation. At the root of popular anger: the rise in bread prices. Omar el-Béchir is imprisoned, aged 75, under an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur. He was sentenced on December 14 to two years in prison for corruption, before two other trials, one for killing demonstrators, the other for crimes in Darfur. More than 100 demonstrators were killed in early June, but civilians won the showdown against the army. It agrees to share a transitional power which gives itself three years to lead the country to the elections. Is the “Arab Spring” of 2011 still blowing on the continent? In Algeria, it is the hirak ("movement") which keeps a whole people in suspense, from February 16, 2019, to contest the candidacy for a fifth term of the outgoing president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who resigns on April 2.

Fatwa of Al-Azhar University against child marriage

“ Marriage is based on consent, which requires that the young woman has reached the age of maturity and the reason for it to be validly given. The age of 18 marks the stage when a woman can validly express her desire to marry. This guarantees that she can enjoy her fundamental rights to childhood, education and the capacity to assume responsibility for marriage . ” Salah Abbas, Deputy Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the institution that makes reference in Sunni Islam, made this historic fatwa on May 18, 2019 in Dakar, during the first African summit on female genital mutilation and early marriage. Mozambique , where half of girls are married before their 18th birthday, passed a law in August making marriage of minors illegal. Tanzania did the same in October. According to UNFPA, four in 10 girls are married before 18 in West and Central Africa, and one in 7 girls before their 15th.

New museums open in Kinshasa and Lomé

The National Museum of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MNRDC) opened in June in Kinshasa on Boulevard Triomphal, next to the Parliament. The building, donated by South Korean cooperation for 22 million dollars, keeps 12,000 of the 45,000 pieces of the Institute of National Museums of the DRC. The new museum says it is ready to welcome, as a restitution that President Félix Tshisekedi said he did not want to do in a " rush ", some of the 180,000 pieces, mostly Congolese, that the AfricaMuseum in Brussels.

In Togo, it was the Palais de Lomé , "arts and culture park", which opened on December 7, after seven years of renovation work on the former governor's palace, abandoned since the 1990s. site includes a 10.5 hectare botanical park, multimedia exhibition spaces, a bookstore, an art gallery, two restaurants and a shop.

Cameroonian fashion designer Imane Ayissi's breakthrough in fashion

This former international dancer and model made a remarkable entry into the big leagues during Paris Fashion Week in late June. Imane Ayissi , 51, founded her label in 2001. Her haute couture pays homage to African fabrics , manjak or kita jacquards from Ivory Coast mixed with Italian or French silks or cottons, an alliance of the tradition of African drapery with tailoring or elements of graphic cultures specific to different African countries confronted with minimalism and simplicity. With his spectacular dresses, fuchsia pink or lemon yellow, he gives a boost to the world of African fashion, in full swing.

►Also read: 2019: the year of the rise of African fashion

Launch of the ZLEC

All member countries of the African Union (AU), except Eritrea, launched in Niamey on July 8, 2019 the African Continental Free Trade Area (ZLECAf). This aims to give a boost to intra-African trade, poor relatives of the continent's foreign trade (15.2% of total exports from Africa in 2015-17, against 47% of intra-continental trade in America , 61% in Asia and 67% in Europe according to the UNCTAD). This common market of 1.2 billion consumers is expected to become the largest in the world. It should be operational in July 2020, after negotiation of agreements on customs duties and rules of origin.

Over 1 million euros for a painting by the Nigerian Ben Enwonwu

"Christine", a painting that the model's family had kept for fifty years, hit the headlines for its amount, 1.3 million euros. This is the amount paid by a buyer on October 16 in London in an auction at Sotheby's. This portrait of a young woman made in 1971 by the father of modernism in Nigeria, Ben Enwonwu, who died in 1994, is close to his first record. The portrait of the princess "Tutu", nicknamed "The African Mona Lisa", had sold 1.36 million euros in London. Ben Enwonwu is one of the most expensive missing contemporary African artists on the market, along with the South African Irma Stern, whose work was purchased for 3.8 million euros by a Qatar museum in 2011. Others break records in their lifetime, like South African Marlene Dumas ($ 6.3 million for her painting "The Visitor" in 2008), and Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui (1.3 million euros for a work at Sotheby's New York in 2014 ).

South Africa, world rugby champion

For the third time in their history, after 1995 and 2003, the Springboks won the rugby world cup . They defeated November 2 against the United Kingdom, in Yokohama, 32 against 12. It is also the victory of a male swimsuit , in the colors of the South African flag. A star was born, the captain of the national rugby team, a sport that can no longer be considered "white": it is a young black man of 28 years, Siya Kolisi , who grew up in a township of Port Elizabeth, industrial city and port of the Eastern Cape.

Zozibini Tunzi, South African, Miss Universe 2019

Miss South Africa, this beautiful ebony complexion with short hair was crowned Miss Universe 2019 on December 8 in Atlanta. Her speech was noticed: “ I grew up in a world where a woman like me, with my skin type and my hair type, was never considered to be beautiful. It is time for that to change today ”. She impressed the jury with her outfits and an original approach: she ran an online campaign urging South Africans to write love letters to the women of the country. Missives which she incorporated into small knots in her “national” costume, in the colors of the South African flag.

Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopian Prime Minister, Nobel Peace Prize

In office since April 2018, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, 43, was rewarded on December 10 in Oslo for his efforts in favor of peace and international cooperation, in particular for " his initiative to resolve the border conflict with Eritrea ”. Is this controversial Nobel Prize winner premature? He raised eyebrows, as the main test for the current Prime Minister is to come, with the general elections of May 2020, against a background of economic uncertainty and rising community violence.

Announcement of the end of the CFA franc in West Africa

On December 21, the French and Ivorian presidents, Emmanuel Macron and Alassane Ouattara, announced in Abidjan the end of the CFA franc. The currency created in 1945 and which takes its initial name from the “French Colonies of Africa” will be replaced by the eco, the common currency that the Economic Community of West African States (Cédéao) has been planning to launch since 1983 . Links will be cut with France, whose Treasury will no longer hold the foreign currency reserves of its former West African colonies, to guarantee the convertibility of the currency. A page of history is turned, despite more than mixed reactions. " This is wonderful news, " says Kako Nubukpo, a Togolese economist, one of the most ardent slayers of the CFA franc, created in 1945 and which takes its initial name from the "French Colonies of Africa". " A faux pas that sows confusion, " analyzes Jean-Baptise Placca on RFI .

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