When the peacemaker clocks out
Kenya’s shift toward trade-led diplomacy underscores the difficulty of sustaining regional leadership under conditions of fiscal dependence.
inequality
Kenya’s goon economy
Across the country’s urban centers, young men are being recruited into political militias that offer quick cash, fleeting power, and little chance of escape.
A sick health system
The suspension of three doctors following the death of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s son has renewed scrutiny of a health-care system plagued by impunity, underfunding, and a mass exodus of medical professionals.
Visiting Ngara
A redevelopment project in Nairobi’s Ngara district promises revival — but raises deeper questions about capital, memory, and who has the right to shape the city.
Has digital feminism peaked?
The scandal around Ezra Olubi has exposed the contradictions of Nigeria’s middle-class, online feminism.
Khartoum, the most selfish city: if we let it be
Khartoum’s recovery is not a national recovery. Until Sudan confronts the violence that has long been concentrated outside the capital, 'liberation' will remain a hollow word.
Nepal’s Gen Z reckoning
On the AIAC podcast, we speak with Feyzi Ismail about Nepal’s Gen Z uprising that toppled the ruling establishment.
Nepal’s new reality
The youth-led uprising in Nepal has toppled the old guard, but its endurance depends on whether anger at corruption and inequality can be translated into lasting political change.
Afropolitans and the fantasy of a digital nation
Web3 utopians promised a sovereign future for the African diaspora — but what they delivered was a networking club for elites, wrapped in crypto-libertarian hype and Afro-futurist aesthetics.
The politics of class from above
In Tanzania and beyond, political elites manage informal workers not by ignoring them — but by shaping their identities, dividing their ranks, and using class to tighten their hold on power.
The cost of care
In Africa’s migration economy, women’s labor fuels households abroad while their own needs are sidelined at home. What does freedom look like when care itself becomes a form of exile?
On Safari
On our year-end publishing break, we reflect on how 2024’s contradictions reveal a fractured world grappling with inequality, digital activism, and the blurred lines between action and spectacle.
Africa’s first children problem
No matter where they are, the children of African heads-of-state live lives comically far-removed from those of the average citizen in their home countries.
Taking the Lagos train
The arrival of mass rapid transit in the city offers a new metaphor for Nigeria’s social stratification.
Untangling the roots of Empire
The coterie of billionaires and foreign aid agencies intent on transforming African agriculture have mostly upturned people’s lives.
When economists shut off your water
Access to water in Nairobi is horribly unequal. The World Bank, Nairobi Water Company, and development economists exploited this unjust context to treat poor Kenyans like guinea pigs.
Decolonizing the South African climate movement
In South Africa, white climate groups are detached from broader struggles for economic justice and equality.
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.
The Airbnb’fication of Cape Town
AirBnb is making the idea of a liveable, walkable city unattainable, while deepening inequality and decimating local industries.
The myth of the apolitical commission
In response to the Johannesburg fire disaster, the South African government has announced a ‘politically free’ commission of inquiry. But there is no such thing.