Introduction to Comparative Constitutional Law in Africa

Abstract

Africa is home to 54 countries, 1.26 billion people and some of the most important and intractable governance challenges worldwide. 1 These include challenges of democratic transition and consolidation, peace-making and governance. Major development crises exist with regard to poverty, inequality and access to education, health-care and employment. In 2020, Freedom House listed only seven countries in Africa as fully free and democratic (Freedom House 2020). There are roughly 15 countries with active armed conflicts in Africa. Seventy per cent of the world's poorest people live in Africa, and one-third of people in Africa live in poverty. As a continent, Africa has large reserves of natural resources yet only 1 per cent of global wealth. And the health challenges facing African countries are enormous: one in five African children have not received necessary vaccines, and sub-Saharan Africa is home to 12 per cent of the world's population and yet 71 per cent of HIV cases. To study constitutionalism in Africa, therefore, is to study constitutions in some of the settings where they matter most, and where constitutional scholarship to date has lagged constitutional 'demand'.The study of African constitutionalism is increasingly part of the global repertoire of comparative constitutionalism. For instance, the nascent work of the African Network of Constitutional Lawyers and other networks across the continent, as well as increasing interest in the continent from the International Association of Constitutional Law and International Society of Public Law, have all spurred interest in and understanding of African constitutional studies as part of a transcontinental and transnational conversation. There are also an increasing number of important single-and multi-country studies of constitutionalism in Africa (e.g. Gebeye 2021). 1The 54 is the number given by the United Nations, but other accounts include unrecognised countries like Western Sahara or Somaliland, bringing the total to 55 or even 56.