The new normal
Reflections from New Orleans, Louisiana—the US's most African city—on the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
economics
Unpacking South Africa’s COVID-19 “rescue package”
South Africa's R50bn ($26bn) rescue package is 10% of its GDP. It is a major step forward, but some warning lights are flashing.
People Power in the age of COVID-19
Will the coronavirus pandemic extend Museveni’s authoritarianism or the lockdown instead provide openings for Uganda’s opposition?
South Africa’s one-sided lockdown: coercing the poor, coddling the rich?
The Ramaphosa Presidency has been praised for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, but the compensating measures that accompany it are inadequate to protect much of the population.
The world has lost a giant of development economics
Thandika Mkandawire (1940-2020) bravely stood up for social policies and the developmental state.
Can we end the chocolate industry’s labor abuses?
A new effort to block chocolate imports from Cote d’Ivoire to the US brings attention to cocoa’s problematic supply chain.
Young South Africans are set up for failure
With 7.9 million young South Africans out of work or with very little education or training opportunities, who looks out for their aspirations?
The end of the CFA franc?
Are plans for ‘reform’ of West African currency, fueled by anticolonial sentiment, merely ‘rebranding’ the status quo?
Where will neoliberalism end?
The question is not how, or where, or when neoliberalism will end, but if it will, and what the left will do about it. The case of South Africa is instructive.
Kenya’s mobile money revolution
Mobile-phone-based, person-to-person payment and money transfer systems are innovative—but are they really good for poverty reduction and development?
What kind of ancestor do you want to become?
Medical anthropologist Julie Livingston argues that the conditions of capitalist modernity in which we live are not sustainable and are leading to increased rather than lessened inequality.
The poverty of poor economics
The winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics experiment on the poor, but their research doesn't solve poverty.
Self-devouring growth
In Africa, the consequences of the growth-at-all costs model are starting to reveal themselves, and they're not pretty.
How Africa shaped Immanuel Wallerstein
Africa and its peoples were central to the great Immanuel Wallerstein's intellectual development and political activism.
Monetary imperialism in Francophone Africa
The transcript of a conversation with Senegalese development economist, Ndongo Samba Sylla, about monetary policy and its colonial legacy.
Demystifying the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Technological change is not simply a neutral and inevitable process—it is shaped and driven by existing social relations.
Making sense of regional integration in Africa
The problem of African countries' memberships to multiple regional bodies? There's no problem.
Drawing the wrong lessons from Magufuli’s rule in Tanzania
The Tanzania government's brand of heavy-handed state intervention risks fueling skepticism about the role of the state in development.
Samir Amin and beyond
The authors of an upcoming edited book to revisit Samr Amir's legacy in economics, write about what they wanted to achieve.
How to manage post-colonial African economies
For one, take economic management out of the control of neoliberal technocrats.