In an analysis of the Kenyan elections, Nic Cheeseman, Gabrielle Lynch and Justin Willis argue that the results look much more credible than any since 2002. Yet the country is still deeply divided, and with an opposition weakened by electoral loss, and with diminished credibility....
Our latest blogpost on Rwanda’s development myths asks how can total GDP growth average between 6% and 8% annual growth, with incomes in the agricultural sector decreasing for a substantial proportion of farmers. Something is amiss in Rwanda’s GDP growth figures. How has the country...
Continuing the debate about Rwandan poverty statistics, Sam Desiere argues that with an inflation rate of 30% - which is more in line with ‘real’ inflation - poverty has increased in Rwanda. His findings raise concerns, not only for Rwanda’s (rural) policies (and poor), but...
In her final blog in the series Lee Wengraf celebrates the life and work of Walter Rodney, the scholar, working class militant and revolutionary from Guyana who was murdered 37 years ago. His book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa remains a classic that must be carefully...
John Pilger exposes how the West is both fighting Islamic jihadist terrorism and using it for its own foreign policy objectives. The Manchester bomb was the result. Pilger shows how the British and French-led 2011 Nato offensive in Libya has strengthened Islamic terrorism in the...
The Rwandan government has used its record on poverty reduction and economic growth to legitimize its authoritarian rule and to deflect criticism of its human rights record, just as the previous regime had done up until 1990. Yet as this blogpost shows despite official statistics...
Ndongo Samba Sylla argues that the CFA franc - officially created on 26 December 1945 by a decree of General de Gaulle - used across much of Africa today is a colonial relics. For those hoping to export competitive products, obtain affordable credit, work for...
Africa as an ‘issue’ for global economic ‘growth’ – managed by imperialist elites – dates to an earlier Berlin project: the infamous “Scramble for Africa” in 1884-85. Patrick Bond sees similar processes at work in the recent World Economic Forum – Africa conference held last...
Fadekemi Abiru explores the growth miracle of the East Asian Tigers, always posited as prime examples of developmental states. Yet the failure to identify developmental states, she argues, in sub-Saharan Africa has caused many to fear that these Asian instances may never be replicated again....
Gretta Digbeu argues that domestic resource mobilization, which was a major preoccupation for early development economists in the period before the neoliberal counter-revolution, has become an increasingly pressing issue for African countries in the context of financial liberalization, rising external debt and capital flight. ...