In what has become an annual offering at the end of the year, the Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) family once again shares their best reads of the year 2024. The journal’s family – from the Editorial Working Group (EWG); contributing editors; International Advisory Board and contributors – share both fiction and non-fiction book which they found interesting, educating, shocking, moving and inspiring in 2024. Some of the books include information about where to access them.

ROAPE’s Peter Dwyer interviews the South African socialist David Hemson. Hemson was a leading labour militant and trade unionist during the mass working class uprising and strikes in Durban in 1973. In this introduction to the videoed interviews, Peter Dwyer discusses working class politics and the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, a history often forgotten or marginalised in popular accounts.

The winner of ROAPE’s Ruth First Prize, awarded annually for the best article published by an African author, is Dr James Musonda. His 2023 article, "He who laughs last laughs the loudest: the 2021 donchi-kubeba (don’t tell) elections in Zambia", is available to read here.

In memory of his father, who passed away earlier in October, Yusuf Serunkuma offers a heartfelt political reflection on his father’s unfulfilled dreams since Uganda’s independence in 1962.  Recounting the story of his father's dismissal from a textile factory in the early 1990s, he illustrates the devastating impact of the neoliberal austerity policies imposed by the World Bank and the IMF on the lives of ordinary Ugandans. These imperialist interventions dismantled the material progress and aspirations of the generation that won independence, and continue to suppress the hopes of both present and future generations.

Writing for ROAPE, Thelma Arko argues that while often presented as a solution to the climate emergency, the growth of carbon offset markets are fueling a new scramble for African land and perpetuating colonial-era exploitation. We must move beyond market-based solutions, Arko urges, to embrace strategies that centre on social equity, ecological integrity, and the rights of local communities. 

ROAPE's Ray Bush introduces Volume 51 Issue 181 of the journal, a special 50th anniversary issue on imperialism and Africa. The role of imperialism in undermining African sovereignty and independence has been a recurrent theme in ROAPE since the journal's first issue editorial back in 1974. Here, Bush interrogates what imperialism is, how it may have changed over time, and with what consequences.

Reflecting on the mass protests that recently shook Kenyan society from top to bottom, Joel Mukisa argues that we must go much further than a choiceless democracy to find answers. A systematic questioning of the underlining political and economic structures underpinning the choices on offer must be undertaken.  

This blogpost examines how climate finance mechanisms and policies, while ostensibly designed to support sustainable development in Africa, have reinforced neocolonial economic structures and exacerbated financial vulnerabilities across the continent. To confront the challenges, Thelma Arko argues that African countries must strengthen regional integration and South-South cooperation to reduce dependency on external powers.

At the beginning of August this year, tens of thousands of Nigerians rose up to denounce the government in a movement that was organised under the slogans #endbadgovernance and #endhunger. For too long, protestors complained, they had been suffering from hunger, high petrol prices and corrupt and incompetent government. Salvador Ousmane writes about those arrested, imprisoned and tortured, and the many still incarcerated, for the crime of protest.

After ten years working on the Review of African Political Economy’s website, Leo Zeilig reflects on the struggles, history and analysis that has been published on the platform. The website has proclaimed loudly for a radical agenda on the continent and has been resolute in supporting struggles of communities and working people fighting for justice and liberation.  As he steps away, Leo shares his reflections on ROAPE and the website.

Before the mass revolt in Kenya spread countrywide in June, it had started in the informal settlement area of Mathare, in Nairobi, following forced evictions after flooding in the area. Wairimu Gathimba writes about how this wave of brutal action in the city was simply the latest in a long history of brutal evictions. Gathimba looks at the long struggle by residents to remain in the city in the face of such evictions, and what we can learn from their battle to keep their homes.

In April 2024, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of ROAPE and the 10th anniversary of www.roape.net, Ebb Books published Voices for African Liberation: Conversations with the Review of African Political Economy. The edited collection presents 38 interviews with African and Africanist socialists conducted by the Review of African Political Economy between 2015 and 2023, bringing to life older voices of liberation and lost radical histories alongside newer initiatives, projects, and activists who are engaged in the contemporary struggles to reshape Africa – to make, win, and sustain a revolutionary transformation in our devastated world. Here, we publish the book's introductory chapter.

We are told that Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to be a powerful tool for advancing democratic concerns and human rights across Africa. Yet, there are also early indicators that AI could undermine democratic institutions and processes, especially if these technologies prioritise colonial-capitalist development trajectories. Scott Timcke looks at some of the issues at stake.

ROAPE’s Njuki Githethwa writes that the current regime in Kenya has been struck a devastating blow by the uprising of youth. The state has been weakened and is now vulnerable. This regime can fall. A revolution in Kenya is in the air. But the success of this revolution, Githethwa argues, depends on how well placed the social forces, revolutionary movements and organisations are to harness, sustain and extend this uprising.

Angela Chukunzira writes about a protest movement in Kenya that has changed the country. The current regime has constantly bowed to western imperialism and the Finance Bill was an effort to offset Kenya’s debt to the Bretton Woods Institutions by imposing heavy taxation and economic hardships on the poor. Armed with smartphones and dance moves, Gen-Z took to the streets to redefine Kenyan protest culture.