APN Innaugural Essay Competition – Winners Announced

December, 2020

The African Paradiplomacy Network (APN) in collaboration with De Montfort University Leicester, University of Johannesburg, City of Johannesburg and Afronomicslaw.org is pleased to announce its inaugural post-graduate/early career researchers essay competition.

Subnational Government Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Africa: The Role of International Partnerships and Linkages

Context

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the associated socio-economic impacts, as well as the anticipated aftershocks, have reverberating effects and consequences for subnational governments (SNGs)[1] around the world. This is not surprising because SNGs are closest to the communities which have been hard hit by the pandemic. Subnational governments are also at the heart of national and global responses to stop the spread of the virus, mitigate the adverse effects of the worldwide shutdown while planning for life after the pandemic.

Given the monumental task and constraints faced, SNGs have demonstrated resourcefulness, sometimes testing the boundaries of what is constitutionally acceptable nationally to get results. The experiences and responses of SNGs across the world to the pandemic have been as varied as they have been innovative, reflecting significant disparities in legal and institutional contexts, as well as socio-economic circumstances.

Importantly, the ongoing global health crisis comes at a time of increased internationalisation of SNGs, captured in concepts such as paradiplomacy, city diplomacy, decentralised cooperation, city-to-city cooperation or the globalisation of cities. This practice does not only underscore unprecedented transformations in the global political economy but also speaks to a growing recognition of our interconnectedness and shared human destiny, a reality that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought into sharp relief. In this context, partnerships and collaboration across national borders and communities, which allow us to learn from one another and complement our individual capacities have become indispensable.

It is also in this context that the internationalisation of SNGs assumes salience as a support mechanism for communities worldwide in their attempt to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus and adapt to its lasting socio-economic and cultural effects. This is not without precedent in the pre-COVID-19 period. Consider, for example, how, through the Fast Track Cities network, cities have been learning and supporting one another to end the HIV, tuberculosis, and viral hepatitis epidemics by 2030, or the World Bank-funded partnership between the cities of Johannesburg and Addis Ababa, which among other focuses allowed the two African cities to learn from each other to strengthen their HIV-AIDS interventions.

With its limited financial and technological resources but immense innovative potential, these international partnerships become even more crucial for SNGs in Africa as they navigate the new terrain reality imposed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Aims and Nature of Competition

Through the essay competition, the APN aims to:

1. Document the various initiatives adopted by SNGs in Africa to contain the spread of the coronavirus and adapt to its effects, including through leveraging international partnerships and linkages.

2. Focus scholarly attention on the nature and significance of the internationalisation of African SNGs as a proactive response to the continent’s myriad and complex development challenges, including understanding and interrogating the competences and capacities that underpin this practice.

3. Build capacity by encouraging interest among a new generation of students and early career researchers in issues of paradiplomacy from an African perspective.

We invite essay submissions from postgraduate students and early career researchers who are from Africa or researching about Africa in the fields of international relations, political science, law, federal studies, globalisation, global governance, urban studies, local government, comparative constitutionalism, development studies, and comparative foreign relations law.

In keeping with the theme and aims of the competition, each essay submitted for the competition should not only demonstrate familiarity with the response(s) of the candidate’s selected SNG to the COVID-19 pandemic but should also reflect critically on the value of the international dimension of these interventions. Where SNG responses have lacked an international component, the essay should reflect on how these interventions could be strengthened through targeted international partnerships and linkages.

To these end, all essays should be made up of three parts as follows:

1. A critical account of the interventions of a selected African local, state, provincial or regional government in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting areas of innovation, success, gaps and challenges

2. A critical reflection on the value of any international engagements that have formed part of your selected SNG’s COVID-19 response, or how the effectiveness of this response could have benefitted from international partnerships of linkages.

3. At least three concrete policy recommendations for your selected local, state, provincial or regional government on how it could strengthen its COVID-19 response through a targeted international involvement.

Prizes

1. The top 10 papers will be published as a symposium issue, and the authors will be invited to present their ideas to subnational government policymakers and academics in a virtual webinar.
   

2. The top-ranked papers will win cash prizes: First Prize (£500.00), second prize (£300.00) and third prize (£200.00).

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First Prize Winner – Enock Ndawana

Enock Ndawana is a PhD student in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa and a temporary-full time lecturer in the Department of Peace Security and Society at the University of Zimbabwe. His research interests include African security, human security, gender and conflict, conflict resolution and transformation. More recently, his work has been published in refereed journals that include Africa Review, African Security Review, African Security, Migration and Development, Jadavpur Journal of International Relations, Journal of African Military History, the International Journal of Military History and Historiography, Small Wars and Insurgencies and the South African Journal of International Relations.

Enock’s paper focused on the City of Harare’s Response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Second Prize Winner – Nelson Otieno Okeyo

Nelson Otieno Okeyo is a Kenyan Advocate and a member of the Law Society of Kenya. He has spent his professional life handling complex litigation, dispute resolution, and legal research. He has also been involved in extensive regulatory work, where he has cut a niche in the conduct of legal, compliance, and governance audits, and legislative drafting for corporate clients. Often witty at worst times, he exudes zeal and charisma both in his advocacy and personal life.

Nelson subscribes to the philosophy of Rene Descartes and considers emotional intelligence to be the best character any being should desire to have. He also knows that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to life and its activities, so he continues to blend his legal activism with a passion for leadership and community activities. To this end, his education at Kenyatta University for a Certificate Leadership Development and Mentorship (Distinction) has heralded him to platforms of running The Jalowa Foundation, a community-based organization and doubling as the Chairperson and Board Member of the SERID Center, a Kenyan-based NGO.

He received his education at the Kenyatta University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Law (First Class Honors) where he received an academic silver award of being the Best Performing Student, and at the Kenya Law School with a Post-Graduate Diploma in Law. He has furthered his studies at the University of Dar es Salaam with a Masters Degree in Law with specialization in East African Community and Regional Integration Law through academic scholarship by the Tanzanian-German Center for East African Legal Studies. He is an avid researcher and his works have been published Global Chambers and Partners, Kenyatta University Institutional Repository, Kenya Legal Issues, and the African Journal of Mining, Entrepreneurship and Natural Resources Management. Currently, he is on his path to; being a legal expert in cyber regulation, University don, renowned publicist, and a leader in Africa and beyond. Nelson is currently in private law practice as an Associate at Munyao, Muthama &Kashindi Advocates, a medium-sized law firm having its offices in Nairobi in Kenya.

Nelson’s paper focused on the response to the COVID-19 Pandemic by the Lake Region Development Economic Bloc in Kenya.

Third Prize Winner – Ms. Janet Jebichii Sego

Ms Sego is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya and a Member of the Law Society of Kenya. She undertook her Bachelor of Laws (LL. B) at the University of Nairobi and graduated in 2017 with a Second Class Honours (Upper Division). She pursued her postgraduate diploma in law at the Kenya School of Law between 2018 and 2019.

Ms Sego undertook her Master of Laws (LL.M) in Regional Integration and East African Community Law at the University of Dar es Salaam, the United Republic of Tanzania under a scholarship offered by the Tanzanian-German Centre for Eastern African Legal Studies (TGCL) in 2019/20 at the School of Law of the University of Dar es Salaam, in collaboration with the University of Bayreuth, Germany.

Before her admission to the University of Dar es Salaam for her LL.M, Ms Sego worked as an Advocate Trainee at M/s. Mahida and Maina Company Advocates, Nakuru-Kenya. She handled various litigation matters, commercial and conveyancing transactions. She also utilized her excellent research skills in cracking complex legal problems in the firm. Ms Sego is an enthusiastic young lawyer who can deliver either independently or when working in a team. Ms Sego believes that hard work and determination are key drivers to the fulfilment of personal goals in life.

Ms Sego’s paper focused on the response to the COVID-19 Pandemic by the Uasin Gishu County in Kenya.