The 2020 Stephen Ellis Annual Lecture will be given by Jonathan Jansen, Distinguished Professor of Education at Stellenbosch University and President of the Academy of Science of South Africa. The late Stephen Ellis' work provides a solid foundation of historical scholarship from which it is possible to understand the pandemic of corruption within the post-apartheid South African government. Nowhere is this history more starkly reflected than in the massively unequal education impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which will have devastating consequences for generations to come. The lecture will take place on 26 November, online!

The Africa Knows! conference, the final activity of the Africa 2020 year, will kick off during the opening days from 2-4 December. Africa Knows! is about knowledge production in and about Africa. The knowledge landscape in African countries has changed radically in recent years. A growing demand for higher and scientific education has resulted in numerous (private) initiatives. Calls to decolonise knowledge and education are getting louder. At the same time, education has experienced a dramatic blow as schools have been forced to close their doors during the past year. The conference will take place completely online.

Philosophers beyond borders, published by the ASCL and made by Saskia Pfaeltzer and Maria van Enckevort, celebrates an array of philosophers hailing from Africa and the African diaspora, South America, South Asia, the Caribbean, and beyond. The diverse collection spans the ages, including philosophers such as Anton Wilhelm Amo, W.E.B. Du Bois and Frantz Fanon, as well as those alive and still teaching: Gayatri Spivak, bell hooks and Achille Mbembe. Succinct biographies are accompanied by characterful black and white portraits of each individual philosopher. Adriaan van Dis about the book: 'An inspiring introduction that makes your world bigger and frees you from the stuffy western – and sometimes overly white – thinking'.

Despite the dawn of a new era with the rise to power of Prime Minister Dr Abiy Ahmed, Jan Abbink sees grounds for deep concern about Ethiopia. The most recent indication is the eruption of armed conflict between the Tigray region armed forces and the federal army on 4 November 2020, provoked by an assault of the Tigray army. PM Abiy Ahmed always deeply resented taking any military action, but it seemed they now crossed a red line. Abiy still has to contend with the forces of the past, Abbink analyses in his latest blog.

In discussions about conflict in Africa the role of youth and minors is discussed often in a frame of victimhood. In a study funded by UNICEF, a team of researchers based at the African Studies Centre Leiden and in the Anthropology Department of the Univerisity of Bangui have tried to understand the realities behind this phenomenon of 'child soldier'.