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...
André Tibiri was a central figure in the last two decades of social struggles in Burkina Faso, a charismatic leader of the student and youth movements, an honest and dedicated militant for democracy and social justice, André passed away, aged 46, on 24 May 2017....
Nungari Mwangi contributes to our debate on capitalism in Africa by looking into export horticulture in Kenya and its role in the expansion of capitalism. Using a case study of marginalized small scale flower farmers, she challenges the orientation towards European export markets, and calls...
In the forth in a series of blogs for roape.net, writer and activist Lee Wengraf explores China’s recent investment and engagement in Africa. China, she argues, is no kinder, gentler imperial option: just like 19th century colonialists, when the Chinese build roads and schools, the...
In the third in a series of blogs for roape.net, writer and activist Lee Wengraf exposes some of the myths about corruption in Africa. The notion of “African corruption” persists despite the reality of widespread and established practices of illicit activity in the West, and,...
In an interview with ROAPE Explo Nani-Kofi looks at his involvement (and opposition) in the project of radical change briefly embarked on by Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings in 1980s Ghana. After several years, left-wing opponents of the regime were imprisoned and at the same time...
Writing about the Rhodes Must Fall movement Simukai Chigudu argues that the notion of decolonisation involves questioning the hegemony of white, western thought in fields of study as diverse as history, politics, philosophy, modern languages, and literature. Following Edward Said, he argues that we all...
Gary Littlejohn introduces the Mozambique News Reports and Clippings, distributed and collated by Joseph Hanlon. ROAPE will regularly post Hanlon’s reports. By Gary Littlejohn The latest issue of Mozambique News Reports and Clippings, No. 335, distributed by Joseph Hanlon, shows that the drought induced by the...
In October 2014 the World Bank presented its “South Africa Economic Update No 6” concluding: ‘The fiscal system is already achieving a lot of redistribution, and there is little space left in the government’s purse to do more to alleviate poverty and inequality via fiscal...
Patrick Bond writes how the World Bank is blinded by its own dogma and unable to see the extent of South African poverty.To do so would violate the Bank’s foundational doctrine, that states the central problems of poverty can be solved by applying market logic....