The winner of the Africa Thesis Award 2018 is Cynthia Aghunotse Olufade for her thesis Oath taking and the transnationalism of silence among Edo female sex workers in Italy. Cynthia Olufade completed an MA in African Studies (Diaspora and Transnational Studies) at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan (Nigeria) in March 2018. The prize will be presented to Ms Olufade at the LeidenASA Annual Meeting on 13 December 2018 at the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden.

The Africa Yearbook covers major domestic political developments, the foreign policy and socio-economic trends in sub-Sahara Africa – all related to developments in one calendar year. The Yearbook is mainly oriented to the requirements of a large range of target groups: students, politicians, diplomats, administrators, journalists, teachers, practitioners in the field of development aid as well as business people.

The Library of the African Studies Centre Leiden is planning two important relocations in the coming months. From Wednesday 5 December 2018, 30,000 books from the ASCL collection will be temporarily moved to Leiden University Libraries at the Witte Singel 27. All books can be requested and picked up either at the ASCL Library or at the Witte Singel. From 2 January 2019, the library will undergo major maintenance. The ASCL Library will be temporarily relocated to the nearby Library of Social Sciences in the first week of January 2019. The library will return to its own location at FSW at the beginning of March.

On 5 October, Ousmane Dan Galadima, a leader of the Sawaba movement and commander of its guerrilla army, died in Madaoua, Niger. Dan Galadima was one of the most important leaders of Sawaba, the nationalist movement that formed Niger’s first autonomous government during the struggle for independence. 'Niger has lost a remarkable son', Sawaba expert Klaas van Walraven writes in the ASCL Africanist Blog.