Despite the right to protest existing on paper, demonstrators in many democracies face violence or internet shutdowns. Harsch observed that the democratic story across Africa is not uniform. According to him, some countries have managed to institutionalise competitive politics in meaningful ways.

"Some democracies in Africa are functioning quite well. Your own country [Ghana] for the past thirty-odd years has had regular turnovers between ruling party and opposition. That’s not a small achievement. Senegal, until recently, had pretty free and fair elections. South Africa has gone so far that even the ruling party lost its majority in Parliament, and they allowed it to happen. They stuck to the Constitution. Botswana and a handful of others have also maintained stable electoral systems," he told Ismail Akwei on Global South Conversations.

Harsch reiterated that Africa does not lack democratic success stories, and the crises coexist with a broader continental pattern he describes as "electoralism". Referencing Cameroonian political thinker Achille Mbembe, he draws on the phrase “administrative multi-partyism.”

“What you have in many places is an administration that runs elections with multiple parties, but there’s no real choice for ordinary citizens. You can’t get genuine opposition voices in. Alternative visions are systematically squeezed out. The rituals of democracy are there, ballots, campaigns, observers, but the substance is limited,” he explained.

One of the structural problems, he argues, dates back to the 1990s when “elections became tied to neoliberal economic policies . People could occasionally change who was in office, but they couldn’t budge on the economic front. That disjuncture between political choice and economic immobility is at the heart of the frustration.”

Watch the full interview attached to the story above. 

The conflict has killed tens of thousands and displaced more than 12 million people, including 8.6 million within Sudan. Many more are seeking safety in neighbouring countries like Chad, Egypt , South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Ethiopia.

However, millions of Sudanese professionals are fighting against this conflict in their own way, miles away from their home country. 

One of them is Dr Suliman Ahmed, who has worked as a paediatrician in Saudi Arabia, a medical interpreter in the U.S., where he is based, a health insurance broker and now the founder and CEO of Dr Suliman Advisory Group.

Speaking to Ismail Akwei on Global South Conversations, Dr Ahmed shared his personal journey from Sudan to the United States and reflected on the conflict that has reshaped the lives of millions in his home country.

He recalled his childhood years in Sudan despite being born in Yemen to Sudanese parents who were both physicians. He returned to Khartoum for medical school, and although he grew up mostly in Saudi Arabia, he said Sudan shaped his earliest memories.

“I spent the first two years or the first few years of my life in Sudan communicating with my aunties, uncles, a lot of friends. And I even went to the first grade school and the preschool. So I spent a good time in there and I have a lot of memories. I carry a lot of love to my grandma who passed in 1998 or 1999. And I had actually a very colourful, prosperous memory. Sudan was doing good. Sudan really was doing good,” he said.

For Sudan to feel like home again, Dr Ahmed said three things must happen: “Maintain national unity and prevent further fragmentation, exclude perpetrators of civilian atrocities from future political processes, and hold those responsible for destruction accountable and mobilise funds for reconstruction.”

He believed Sudan has the intellectual capacity to rebuild, but not the resources. “Sudanese people are capable of making the country stand again,” he said. “All we need is funding to actualise our ideas.” 

He shared the hope of one day retiring in Sudan, once peace returns. “Living among your people… is a blessing. I see myself retiring in Sudan,” he said.

He acknowledged the works of community groups such as the Sudanese American Physicians Association (SAPA), which has been providing medical support to hospitals inside Sudan. “They had a tangible impact… raising funds for medical centres, helping trauma patients move to Egypt, Germany, the US, and the UK,” he said. 

“All of them feel the tragedy… everyone is trying to donate, to help, to alleviate the misery... We are generous by default. If we utilise this momentum and turn it into practical plans, we can make a great impact,” he added.

To those still living through the war , he offered encouragement: “Stay your ground, don’t lose hope… we will go through this all together.”

Professor Mehari Fisseha, a human rights advocate and international law and diplomacy scholar based in Ireland, joined Ismail Akwei on the Global South Conversation to discuss how entrenched the neglect and abuse of children is in Ireland under the watch of Tusla. 

“...even my own family member was taken from the family members, and then this child was given a wrong medication and then he was sexually molested, physically beaten up. I mean, a lot of things happened to these kids. I mean, there are lots of children in the country that are actually sexually molested,” he said.

“Between 2019 until 2024, 1265 children have been missing. So where are these children? The Minister for Children said we cannot find these children; some of them died, and some of them are nowhere to be found. Is this not crime against humanity?” he questioned.

Recently, another investigation has been opened to find a child who is presumed dead after he was reported missing in North County Dublin, prompting a press conference on September 3, 2025, by Minister for Children Norma Foley, who has asked Tusla to conduct well-being checks on cases closed during the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to RTE , Ireland’s National Television and Radio Broadcaster, the Minister described the case as "hugely disturbing". This latest case comes just one year after schoolboy Kyran Durnin was first reported missing from his Drogheda home, also presumed dead.

Professor Mehari Fisseha has called for unity among families who have experienced injustice to speak up against the actions and inactions of Tusla as he does.

“They have to come together, and these are their children. They have to come together and fight for justice…I am an academician. I'm a human rights law expert and a professor. I will never keep quiet because if I do that, that is unethical…I will fight for social justice, I will fight for human rights, I will fight for African children and African people . In general, I will fight for humanity, whether it's a white, green, yellow, or red child. I will fight for justice, he said. 

Our attempt to reach Tusla at the time of this publication was unsuccessful.

Watch the interview attached to this story.

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“The United Nations , for example, people tend to forget that it is a bunch of governments, and it's only going to be really as good as those governments allow it to be or demand it to, and fund it to be. I think we can't rely on those institutions. We want them to be there. They're important, but we can't wait for them to act. 

“We have to be creative as civil society activists and we have to look to regional cooperation. We have to build new institutions. We have to be working with each other. We can't spend too much time bemoaning the dysfunction. We don't have that kind of time. So we have to be, you know, we have to be aggressive in finding new ways of working,” she said.

She also highlighted the declining human rights situation in the United States and how civil society has to learn from other countries that have gone through similar phases in their democracy to fill the void created.

“The authoritarians are sharing the playbook. They are learning from each other. They are perfecting their evil plans. And we have to do the same thing because so many of the challenges that we're facing are similar...I think activists in the United States have enjoyed such freedom of movement and freedom of activism for so many years, and that is also changing now with attempts to outlaw protest, the intimidation of protestors, the infringements on academic freedom and just the sense of fear that's being instilled through the actions against immigrant communities.

“We have a lot to learn from people who have been through this before and know what the next steps are going to be, because this is, in my lifetime, at least, relatively new, this kind of, ignoring the courts, deploying the military in domestic enforcement. But a lot of our friends and colleagues in other countries have dealt with that. And so I think the way for civil society to fill that void is gonna be through learning from each other,” she advised. 

Watch the full interview attached to this story.