Follow the money
The city of Gqeberha in South Africa is an example of how water is increasingly becoming a commodified resource, benefiting the powerful and depriving everyone else.
inequality
The myth of French republicanism
In France, Black and Arab minorities are excluded from the country’s liberal values — and then treated as threats to them.
The inexpiable crime
The reaction to Nahel Merzouk’s murder by the French state showcases its tactic of depoliticizing the suburban uprising and diverting attention away from state violence.
Sierra Leone decides
What’s at stake in Sierra Leone’s elections on June 24? We discuss on this episode of the Africa Is a Country podcast.
Who is Addis Ababa for?
The planned demolition of one of Ethiopia’s most vibrant cultural centers forms part of an urban planning trend where African cities are re-designed to serve elites.
The valley is getting wider and deeper
Artificial Intelligence is here to stay. The question is whether we align AI to promote human rights or to defend private property and exploitation.
The dust, towers and false promises of modern Ethiopia
Successive Ethiopian governments have continued a 'modernizing' project that not only offers people false dreams, but actively dislocates them from the things that gave them purpose in the past.
Taper salam
For African women passing through Morocco en route to Europe, begging on the streets becomes a way to support themselves, but also reinforces humiliation and shame.
Consumed by numbers
The "follow-back" economy of Nigerian Twitter represents a struggle for recognition in a vastly unequal and status-obsessed society.
The used car problem
It’s tempting but unsatisfactory to blame poverty and weak regulation for the dumping of used vehicles in Africa.
A democratic energy transition in Tunisia
It may seem obvious that a real transition to renewable energies is urgent, but not all transitions are the same or fair.
The haunting draw of the West
To be African means at some point to desire to leave. African cinema can provide solace for our tortured relationship to the West and our own continent.
It could happen to us
Climate negotiations have repeatedly floundered on the unwillingness of rich countries, but let's hope their own increasing vulnerability instills greater solidarity.
Land grabs and conservation propaganda
To preserve biodiversity, protected area lands should be returned to African indigenous communities who play an essential role in conservation.
The promise of platinum
Platinum holds promise for a net-zero future. But the promise of platinum cannot be founded on the broken promises endured by those who live in its spaces of extraction.
Capitalism Mtaani at the Dandora dumpsite
In the third video for our Nairobi edition of Capitalism in My City, Gacheke Gachihi visits a site of environmental injustice.
Post-apartheid symptoms of morbidity
Ordinary working-class people have been forced to the belief that there can never actually be real solutions; stripped of the confidence that fundamental change can happen.
Vaccine apartheid
Just ten nations have administered 75% of the vaccines worldwide. Countries like South Africa are being left behind.
The global and class inequalities of fossil fuel subsidy reform
Climate activists and leftists should tread cautiously when they use the climate argument to support fossil fuel subsidy reform in Africa.
Homelessness and (un)affordable housing in Nairobi
I’ve lived a good part of my life in Mathare 4A, part of the larger Mathare slum in Nairobi. Decent housing remains a pipe dream for the majority of the city's residents.