分类： world

For more than 450 years, the Mercator projection has stood as the world’s most widely used map format, found in classrooms, broadcast news, online platforms, and consumer navigation tools including Google Maps. But while it revolutionized 16th-century ocean navigation, it carries a long-criticized flaw: dramatic size distortion that shrinks equatorial landmasses and exaggerates the scale of regions closer to the poles. Now, the United Nations has formally backed a new mapping standard to correct this long-standing geographic inaccuracy.

Developed in 1569 by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator, the projection was built for a very specific purpose: helping European sailors plot consistent compass bearings. As University College London cartography professor James Cheshire explained, Mercator’s design intentionally preserved straight lines for constant directional travel, a feature that made it uniquely useful for maritime voyages. To maintain this accuracy on a two-dimensional plane, the projection stretches grid lines progressively further apart as they approach the poles, a necessary tradeoff that warps the perceived size of all landmasses. The most famous example of this distortion shows Greenland as roughly the same size as Africa, when in reality the African continent is 14 times larger.

Critics argue that this distortion is not merely a geographic triviality—it shapes global perceptions of nations and regions. Larger visual representation, they note, leads people to instinctively view landmasses as more geopolitically and economically significant, while shrinking equatorial nations implicitly downplays their global role. Kenyan geographer Kioko Muendo emphasized that maps do more than guide travelers: they frame how global audiences understand Africa’s vast natural resources, large population, and untapped investment potential. For decades, Muendo and other experts have pushed for a replacement that reflects geographic reality more fairly.

The UN’s “Correct the Map” resolution formally endorses the Equal Earth projection, a 2018 design developed by an international team of cartographers to accurately represent the relative area of all global landmasses. The projection was first adopted by the 54-member African Union before winning UN backing, as it resolves the most problematic size distortions of the Mercator format. Like all flat map projections, however, it requires tradeoffs: to preserve accurate land area, the Equal Earth projection sacrifices the straight directional lines that made Mercator indispensable for navigation, and cannot be used to measure true distances between points.

This tradeoff is an unavoidable constraint of cartography: it is mathematically impossible to perfectly represent the three-dimensional curved surface of a globe on a two-dimensional flat map, meaning every projection must prioritize some features at the expense of others. The Equal Earth projection is not the first alternative to Mercator: the Gall-Peters projection, developed in its modern form in the 1970s, also prioritized accurate area representation, but it severely distorts the shape of landmasses, stretching equatorial regions and compressing polar areas while remaining useless for navigation. Earlier initiatives also failed to gain widespread global adoption, leaving the centuries-old Mercator projection dominant despite its flaws.

As global organizations and educational institutions begin transitioning to the Equal Earth projection, cartographers note that the shift is as much about changing global perceptions as it is about geographic accuracy. The UN’s move marks the first formal global endorsement of a map that centers fair representation of lower-latitude, majority Global South nations, opening a new chapter in how the world visualizes itself.

For two decades, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has been a cornerstone of HIV response efforts across southern Africa, saving millions of lives and supporting national public health systems. Now, Namibia has become the latest southern African nation to face an impending end to this critical financial support, as the U.S. pushes forward with a continent-wide restructuring of foreign aid that has sparked disputes over national sovereignty and data privacy.

In a joint statement released by both governments, officials confirmed that the U.S. will provide Namibia $45 million in PEPFAR funding for fiscal year 2027, after which full financial responsibility for the country’s HIV programs will shift to Namibia. Going forward, U.S. involvement will be limited to technical cooperation, rather than direct financial support.

Since 2003, PEPFAR has poured more than $1.1 billion into Namibia’s HIV response, with the country receiving roughly $45 million in annual funding from the program in recent years. Remarkably, Namibia has already outperformed global targets set by UNAIDS: 96% of people living with HIV in the country know their status, 98% of those diagnosed are receiving antiretroviral treatment, and 98% of treated patients have achieved undetectable viral suppression, a milestone that both protects individual health and prevents new transmission.

The phase-out of funding had been anticipated ever since the Trump administration rolled out its “America First” foreign aid framework, which prioritizes reducing long-term donor dependency and safeguarding U.S. interests through bilateral country-specific agreements. To date, Washington has signed these new agreements with roughly 30 nations, the majority of which are located in Africa.

However, the timeline for Namibia’s funding cut follows the country’s outright rejection of controversial provisions that would have required sharing sensitive public health data and biological specimens with U.S. institutions. Namibian officials argued that the original terms of the proposed agreement violated national law, infringed on constitutional privacy protections, and undermined the country’s sovereign control over its biological resources. Both nations are currently in negotiations to finalize a new bilateral health agreement that aligns with Namibia’s domestic legal framework.

Namibia is far from alone in pushing back against the U.S. demands. Ghana rejected a similar agreement over concerns about access to sensitive health data, Zimbabwe pulled out of a $367 million U.S. aid package over identical sovereignty issues, a court challenge has delayed implementation of a $2.5 billion agreement with Kenya, and Zambia has also publicly objected to the U.S. data-sharing requirements.

The shift in Namibia comes on the heels of a similar announcement for neighboring South Africa, where the U.S. is winding down more than $400 million in annual PEPFAR funding that has supported the country’s HIV response for 20 years. Across the continent, PEPFAR is widely credited with saving more than 20 million lives from HIV and AIDS since its launch.

Last Saturday, a violent mutiny by dissident soldiers targeting a key strategic military installation in Niamey, Niger’s capital, brought Russia’s expanding regional footprint into sharp focus. In the aftermath of hours of fierce overnight clashes, Russia’s state-controlled Africa Corps stepped in to assist Niger’s ruling junta, helping pro-government loyalist forces retake full control of Air Base 101 at Diori Hamani International Airport.

Unlike its predecessor, the notorious private mercenary group Wagner, Africa Corps operates under the direct command of Moscow’s Ministry of Defence, with an estimated 200 to 300 personnel currently deployed across Niger. Russia’s ambassador to Niamey, Viktor Voropaev, publicly confirmed the intervention, confirming that Russian troops helped suppress the attempted uprising.

Security analysts frame the successful quashing of the mutiny as a pivotal symbolic victory for Moscow that extends its influence far beyond its stated mission of countering jihadist insurgency. For the military leaders that hold power in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, Russia now provides a far more critical service: direct protection for the regimes themselves.

“This is seen as a symbolic victory that will continue to put them at the centre of not just the counter-insurgency campaign, but even in the protection and prolongation of military rule,” explained Beverly Ochieng, a senior analyst at global risk consultancy Control Risks. While the intervention was not enough to resolve long-term instability in the country, Ochieng notes it provided a critical political lifeline for Niger’s junta, while also laying bare the regime’s deep dependence on Moscow for its very survival.

This is not the first time Africa Corps has intervened at the same airport: the group also played a central role in repelling a major extremist attack on the site in January 2025. Jacob Boswall, a security analyst who monitors jihadist activity for BBC Media Monitoring, says there is clear evidence that Africa Corps’ intervention was decisive in both cases. “Probably there is some substance to the claim that Africa Corps was able to restore power in that case [in January]. And I think, again, in this case as well, that intervention was very significant,” he said.

Niger’s current junta, led by General Abdourahamane Tiani, seized power in a July 2023 coup, justifying its takeover by pointing to the deteriorating security crisis and the failure of ousted elected president Mohamed Bazoum’s civilian administration to curb jihadist violence. The junta also publicly blamed Western partners for their inability to contain the spread of militant activity. Three years on, however, the insurgency remains entirely unresolved: militants linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State continue to launch regular deadly attacks across the Tillabéri and Dosso regions, inflicting heavy losses on Niger’s security forces.

Ochieng emphasizes that this latest mutiny stems from long-simmering grievances within Niger’s own military, compounded by relentless operational pressure on frontline counter-insurgency troops. “Counter-insurgency forces do not feel adequately supported by the military government,” she said. “There have been challenges in providing equipment and replenishments.” Today, Niger’s government faces threats on two separate fronts: extremist insurgents attacking state institutions from outside, and growing discontent within the very armed forces tasked with fighting that insurgency. While Africa Corps helped contain the internal threat this past weekend, it has yet to make meaningful progress against the extremist campaign.

Unlike the Wagner Group, whose private status allowed Moscow to maintain plausible deniability for its operations, Africa Corps is an overt instrument of Russian state power. “The whole point of Africa Corps is that it brings the power back under the control of the Russian Ministry of Defence,” Boswall noted. While the group’s official mandate is to support Sahel governments to combat Islamist militancy, the mutiny’s outcome sends a clear message to any dissidents considering challenging allied regimes across the region: Russian forces must now be factored into any planned unrest.

Analysts agree Russia has no plans to withdraw from the Sahel in the near term. Moscow’s interests in the region are explicitly transactional: in exchange for security support for allied military regimes, Russia gains access to critical natural resources. In Mali, that commodity is gold; in Niger, it is uranium, a key energy resource Russia has prioritized protecting. Beyond economic gains, Moscow also benefits from the diplomatic support of these friendly regimes in international forums, bolstering Russia’s global standing.

Like their counterparts in Mali and Burkina Faso, Tiani’s government has built its domestic legitimacy around a narrative of national sovereignty, pan-Africanism, and liberation from the influence of former Western colonial powers. All three regimes expelled French troops, formed the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), and withdrew from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), framing the new bloc as an assertion of regional independence. This narrative, however, stands in stark tension with the junta’s growing dependence on Moscow. Ochieng notes that the military governments argue they have chosen the partnership with Russia on their own terms, framing Moscow as a partner that respects their sovereignty, in contrast to former colonial power France, the European Union, and the United States.

In the wake of the mutiny, a Nigerien military captain appeared on state television to accuse Western powers including France and Chad of orchestrating the unrest, while Russia’s foreign ministry labeled the mutineers “extremists seemingly incited by European former colonial powers”. France has repeatedly denied all accusations of attempting to destabilize Niger, while Chad’s government has not responded to requests for comment. Boswall argues that Niger’s junta deliberately downplays Africa Corps’ central role in the country’s security while overemphasizing its narrative of resource nationalism and independent anti-jihadist action, as part of a broader regional battle for control of public narrative.

Russia’s ongoing full-scale war in Ukraine continues to shape the parameters of its Sahel strategy. The conflict consumes the vast majority of Russia’s military personnel and equipment, limiting Moscow’s ability to expand large-scale operations in Africa. “It’s quite a tightrope for Russia because ultimately its priority will always be Ukraine,” Ochieng explained. “It will maintain at least enough numbers to allow it to reassure the military governments in the Sahel that it continues to be a reliable partner. They’ll continue to deploy just enough weapons and supplies and logistics… to continue supporting Africa Corps.”

That support has clear limits: Moscow cannot afford to launch a sustained large-scale counter-offensive to eliminate insurgent control across the Sahel’s vast territory. This reality helps explain why protecting allied regimes has emerged as the core of Russia’s regional strategy. Defending a capital or helping crush a mutiny requires far fewer resources than recapturing and holding huge swathes of insurgent-held territory. “These are quite limited interventions, but with an outsized impact,” Boswall said. “I think at that level they’ll be able to sustain that over the foreseeable future, even with the war in Ukraine.”

While Russia’s intervention allowed Tiani to survive this latest challenge to his rule, it has done nothing to resolve the deep-seated grievances and structural vulnerabilities that fueled the mutiny in the first place. The conditions that could spark another challenge to the junta remain firmly in place.

In a landmark vote Friday, the United Nations General Assembly gave formal backing to a new global map projection that correctly depicts Africa’s actual geographic size, capping off a years-long advocacy campaign spearheaded by African nations and international geographic justice groups.

The non-binding resolution, put forward by Togo with unified support from the entire African Union bloc, passed with overwhelming global backing: 164 UN member states voted in favor of the measure, while only the United States cast a opposing vote. Six nations — Serbia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, and Ukraine — chose to abstain from the vote.

The resolution calls on governments and multilateral institutions worldwide to phase out the centuries-old Mercator projection, a mapping standard that has dominated global cartography since the 16th century, in favor of the Equal Earth projection, a modern alternative that geographers and advocacy leaders confirm renders continental proportions with far greater geographic accuracy.

First developed in 2018, the Equal Earth projection accounts for the Earth’s natural curvature to display all landmasses in their true relative sizes. By contrast, the Mercator projection, originally created by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator to aid 16th-century European maritime navigators, systematically distorts continental sizes: it inflates the apparent area of polar-adjacent landmasses including North America and Greenland, while drastically shrinking the size of equatorial regions including Africa and South America. One striking example of this distortion sees the Mercator projection depict Greenland as roughly the same size as Africa; in reality, Africa is 14 times larger than the Arctic island.

UN officials emphasized that the resolution does not implement an outright ban on the Mercator projection, nor does it force any entity to adopt the Equal Earth model. Instead, it acts as a formal global endorsement encouraging voluntary adoption of the more accurate projection for general use, from education to public policy and digital mapping.

Speaking ahead of the vote, Togo’s Foreign Minister Robert Dussey framed the shift as more than a technical cartographic adjustment. “Maps shape our understanding of the world,” Dussey told the assembly. “They guide education, nourish the imagination, and influence collective perceptions.”

Advocacy groups that led the multi-year campaign to secure UN backing welcomed the resolution as a critical step toward correcting long-standing geographic bias. Africa No Filter, one of the leading organizations behind the push, noted in a statement that the group now aims to see the accurate projection integrated into everyday global systems: “We want to see accurate maps in schools, textbooks, newsrooms, businesses and on the digital platforms billions of people use every day.”

International leaders also celebrated the vote as a small but meaningful step toward greater geographic and historical accuracy. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot wrote on social platform X following the vote: “Changing the map obviously doesn’t change the world. But correcting a representation that distorts it is already an act of truth.”

Geographers have long backed the shift away from general use of the Mercator projection, noting that its only practical, valid application remains the original purpose for which it was designed: maritime navigation. Mark Monmonier, a veteran geography professor at Syracuse University, summed up the widespread academic consensus in comments on the resolution: “Outside of that very narrow navigation application, there is no point in using it.”