Covid 19 - search results

The Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) announces the winners of a small research grants competition for African researchers and activists based in Africa. The competition is based on the premise that a shortage of funding for critical research is one of the problems faced by Africa-based scholars and activists wishing to carry forward a political economy agenda.

In a contribution to ROAPE’s debate on capitalism in Africa, Stefan Ouma provides a critical account of Africapitalism as well as an assessment of the future/s it imagines, what it silences and its potential to transform African economies. Ouma concludes that the ecologically destructive and dehumanizing architecture of our global economic system provides further evidence to condemn any variant of capitalism.

In an introduction to a special issue in ROAPE (free to access – see link below), based on our workshop in Johannesburg, Peter Dwyer argues that a radical academic journal must provide activists with a platform to get their stories and experience to a much wider audience. In the context of the economic crisis triggered by Covid-19, and an emerging global movement, this is more urgent than ever.  

The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare the inadequacy of mainstream arguments concerning the role of the African state in addressing existing health inequalities. In this blogpost, Joan Nimarkoh highlights the potential reawakening of progressive models for health delivery centred on the needs of poor as the pandemic exposes the stark inequities of privatised health systems. 

The situation is moving quickly in Libya with serious implications for the region as a whole. David Seddon argues that the forces of General Haftar have now been effectively defeated. However, the country remains a battle ground between competing imperialist forces seeking control of Libya’s resources and its location as a gateway to the continent.  

Heike Becker reflects on the Black Lives Matter movement on the continent, the development of radical art and how institutionalized racism and its root – capitalism – continue to kneel on all our necks.

The murder of George Floyd has triggered giant protests around the world. Demonstrations in Africa have been much smaller, with tens or at best hundreds of protesters on the streets. Baba Aye, Lai Brown, Heike Becker and Sabatho Nyamsenda reflect on the Black Lives Matter movement on the continent, the development of radical art and how institutionalised racism and its root – capitalism – continue to kneel on all our necks.

In the week that marks the fortieth anniversary of the murder of the revolutionary Walter Rodney, Jesse Benjamin – member of the Walter Rodney Foundation - speaks to ROAPE’s Leo Zeilig about Rodney’s astonishing work, life and activism and how he continues speaks to the dehumanization of Black lives everywhere. Rodney’s work, Benjamin argues, remains vital for those now seeking to overturn the systems of oppression worldwide.

On 3 June 2019 there was a massacre of protestors camped around the headquarters of the Sudan Armed Forces in Khartoum - the protestors were attempting to reinvent politics for a world to come.  Magdi el Gizouli and Edward Thomas write about the dynamics of the Sudanese revolution and the need to delve beyond the asphalt of cities and towns.

Cyril Brandt, Tom De Herdt and Stylianos Moshonas look at the implementation of the Free Primary Education policy (gratuité) introduced by Congo’s new President, the struggle over payroll management, the tensions between people allied to the current and the former president and the Covid-19 pandemic.