The global gateway to nowhere
Europe’s flagship development plan promises investment and partnership—but delivers debt, displacement, and old colonial patterns dressed up in green.
neocolonialism
South Africa’s American refugees
Cape Town’s digital nomads chase cheap luxury and scenic backdrops—but behind the matcha lattes and “social impact days” lies a deeper story of economic power, displacement, and global inequality.
Pan Africanism under elite capture
Recent celebrity investments in the continent raises the question: Who is it really for?
As aid ends, empire endures
Western donors are cutting budgets, but the aid model they built—rooted in control, dependency, and depoliticization—still shapes Africa’s development.
New route for old exploitation
A US-backed infrastructure project in the DRC is framed as development, but history suggests it’s just another pipeline for foreign powers to profit from Congo’s riches.
The wrong way to end aid
The humanitarian industrial complex should be dismantled—but not by a billionaire-backed administration with no plan beyond abandonment.
Between blackout and embargo
In Cuba, new forms of marginalization and racism have surfaced, but the dream of a good society based on the core principles of “buen vivir” for its people has not died.
When justice means impunity
Twenty-one years after Liberia’s political elite acquiesced to “negative peace,” the US now champions the fight against impunity. Except when their own companies are involved.
The mine dumps of Silicon Valley
While it might be cathartic to compare Elon Musk’s tech firms to apartheid-era mines, the connection between ex-South Africans and American capitalism is complicated.
What does Africa want?
To navigate multipolarity, the continent needs a common narrative that strategically mediates its conversations with China and other world powers.
Pretty girl from Soweto
In South Africa, a popular beauty contest is revealing the specter of ultranationalism and anti-blackness.
Ecowexit?
Caught between pro-West loyalists and anti-West populists, West Africa’s regional bloc has come apart.
Keeping our eyes open
BBC’s new documentary about T.B. Joshua’s human rights abuses has stirred debate about the British broadcaster’s intentions.
Not that complex
A new HBO documentary exposes the harm caused by unqualified aid workers in Uganda, but its attempts to complicate the narrative ultimately fall flat.
Reading List: Joeva Rock
We often hear from Western donors that Africa suffers from food ‘scarcity.’ The real problem is the exploitation of African land, labor, and knowledge.
Nothing good comes of France
France is not a new problem for Africa. Since the 19th century, it has stood in the way of the continent’s self-determination.
The coloniality of global health
The full recognition of the neocolonial structure of international economic and global health relations demands much more radical political alternatives.
After we wash our hands, what do we do next?
Lest the WHO forget, containing infectious diseases is less about culture than the racist structure of international relations that condemns countries like Haiti to cycles of epidemics.
Ignore and rule
What do Europeans do when they hear the war waged by the government of Ethiopia has killed more people than the war in Ukraine?
Western media is missing the point
The excessive reporting of the interplay between non-African powers in the Sahel—however crucial it may be to understand regional dynamics—betrays a Western-centric bias in international news coverage.