In Case You Missed It: 11/23/15 — 11/29/15

The most impor­tant in this week’s head­lines out of and con­cern­ing Africa, for those who need help catch­ing up.

In this week’s news, Pope Fran­cis vis­its Africa, the cit­i­zens of Burk­i­na Faso cast their votes, and the WHO is crit­i­cized for their Ebo­la response.

AFP

Crowds cheer for Pope Fran­cis in Uganda.

Pope Fran­cis Vis­its Africa

Pope Fran­cis embarked on a six-day mis­sion to Africa this week, vis­it­ing the coun­tries of Kenya, Ugan­da, and the Cen­tral African Repub­lic. The Pope — who was enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly greet­ed by crowds wher­ev­er he went — went to Africa to pro­mote peace and urge politi­cians to act respon­si­bly. Dur­ing his vis­it, he met with heads of state, and vis­it­ed dis­placed com­mu­ni­ties of both Chris­tians and Mus­lims alike.

Burk­i­na Faso Holds Election

Despite being delayed a month, the elec­tions in Burk­i­na Faso are under­way. Large num­bers of peo­ple turned up to vote, lead­ing to large lines form­ing out­side polling sta­tions. This is Burk­i­na Faso’s first demo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tion since an upris­ing over­threw long­time Pres­i­dent Blaise Com­paore last year. There are 14 can­di­dates run­ning for pres­i­dent in the elec­tion. Results should be in ear­ly this week.

Har­vard Pan­el Crit­i­cizes WHO for Ebo­la Response

A pan­el cre­at­ed by the Har­vard Glob­al Health Insti­tute has crit­i­cized the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion for how it han­dled this year’s Ebo­la out­break. The pan­el was formed to dis­cuss the ways in which dis­ease response and man­age­ment needs to be reformed in gen­er­al, and used the WHO as an exam­ple of the prob­lems with cur­rent sys­tems. Accord­ing to the pan­el, the WHO delayed too long in their response and in declar­ing a pub­lic emer­gency. For their part, the WHO says they will use the feed­back pro­vid­ed by the Har­vard pan­el and oth­er groups to improve their program.