Dad. Nairobian. Associate Professor at
@GeorgetownSFS
. Author of Legislative Development in Africa (
@CambridgeUP
, 2019). Lifetime travel companion of
@vwopalo
.
On Nigeria’s bold but rudderless attempts at structural economic reforms:
President Bola Tinubu’s lack of a focused agenda is blunting the impact of some of his bold reforms while also jeopardizing private sector growth:
One of the best things about this current moment is the protesters’ extravagant display of utu.
Michango. Blood drives. First aid clinics. Solidarity from private firms. All of it.
This is a good response.
People who live in high-income societies with energy abundance have no idea what they keep asking lower-income countries to give up.
“Let me stop you right there…”
Caribbean nation Guyana is booming after discovering oil. BBC’s Stephen Sackur puts it to President
@presidentaligy
; lobbyists say oil is bad for the climate.
Dude wasn’t having it. Mans was ready!
Over 150 people are feared dead in a massacre in central Sudan, with blame directed at the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group.
Local activists in Gezira state report that soldiers surrounded the village of Wad al-Nourah on Wednesday before launching two attacks. (1/1)
Finya Computer Pata DOLLAR.
Monetizing Facebook for our content creators is a game-changer, providing significant employment opportunities for our creative, youthful generation. The President has fulfilled his promise to empower the youth, enabling them to earn money from
What’s happening in Sudan will forever be a stain on the AU and the current cohort of leaders on the Continent.
The most complacent ruling elites in the world. Shame.
It’s bizarre watching the absurd theatre that is US news coverage of campus anti-war protests while also getting updates on the ongoing man-made humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
Focus on the issues. Not everything has to be swallowed by American culture wars.
Policymaking is hard. Lifting millions of people out of poverty is hard, boring, long-term work.
I wish more people appreciated these truths and weren’t hellbent on constantly pursuing faddist (and very costly) quick fixes.
This is a common misperception.
60 years ago Nigeria and South Korea (or Africa & East Asia) were not at the same level of development.
Not in levels of state capacity, human capital development, and certainly not in levels of agricultural & industrial technological capacity.
60 years ago, South Korea’s GDP per capita was lower than those of Nigeria and Ghana. Today, its GDP per capita is $34,000 and it is
#14
in the rankings of the world’s economies. The GDP per capita of Nigeria and Ghana today: $2,000.
#TransformationGap
#WhatLeadershipDelivers
It’s really stunning to see African policymakers buy into this crazy idea.
Especially since historical underpopulation is a significant explanation for state weakness and underdevelopment in the region over the last 500 years.
Lowering fertility rates will not end poverty. 1/2
There are so many important lessons to learn about international development from this awful case (thread).
1. Consider for a moment how ridiculously easy it is to do consequential stuff in low-income countries.
❗️❗️After two in depth investigations by The Intercept into a World Bank cover-up a child sex abuse scandal at a for profit school network in Africa, the World Bank has finally acknowledged wrongdoing.
WB head Ajay Banga in an email to staff apologized to the victims and
Newborn twins in Gaza were killed with their mother and grandmother as their father went to collect birth certificates earlier today.
According to local media, the family had been displaced from northern Gaza and had sheltered further south.
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but development necessarily means having a bunch of large firms — i.e., mass job creation.
Stop it with the fantasies of every low-income household saving and investing in their own business.
Military coups were a regular occurrence in parts of Africa. But after a period of relative democratic stability, there are signs they are on the rise. The Gabon takeover is just the latest and comes just a month after soldiers took control in Niger.
I wonder how much time and planning went into having the top civil servant in the education ministry receive a copier.
Also, in this day and age, who accepts “donations” of electronic equipment in government installations?
The Principal Secretary for the State Department for Basic Education, Dr. Belio Kipsang receives a state of the art photocopier from
@USAIDKenya
official in charge of Education and Youth Affairs, Ms Amy Pekol, in his office.
🚨🚨🚨 If the pro-Russian 🇷🇺 coup in Niger is a success, it is EXTREMELY serious for Europe.
🇫🇷 absolutely did not expect to be ousted from Niger (4th country…). 1/3 of uranium ☢️ used by 🇫🇷 comes from Niger
Congrats Emmanuel. Add Chad, & this will be 🇷🇺’s new colonial empire:
Your polite reminder that if you want to attend games in the US in the 2026 World Cup you may want to book your visa appointment now.
The wait times are ridiculous.
A lot of people seem to think that democratic states can’t commit crimes against humanity.
Which would be breaking news to lots of former colonies of ostensibly democratic states.
Even better would be to avoid protests through effective service delivery, no theft of public resources, and an aggressive pro-growth policy mix to enable our young people engage in meaningful work.
Policy failure is the private sector’s biggest enemy.
Part of the reason to regulate and firmly deal with violent and chaotic protests is that protestors do not internalize the cost of their actions. This cost is transferred and borne by someone else-the private sector. Like pollution, violent protests must be regulated before they
That there’s absolutely no AU capability to prevent this from happening is a source of constant shame.
Even more shameful is the fact that too many African leaders & diplomats harbor no sense of urgency about the situation in Sudan.
The latest famine estimates in
#Sudan
are cataclysmic: "estimated excess mortality of about 2.5 million people over next 5 months...about 15% of the population in Darfur and Kordofan will die from hunger and disease by September 2024." Let that sink in.
Chad is set to become the first of Africa's current junta-led states to move to democratic rule with Monday's presidential vote.
It will end a three-year transition imposed after the sudden death of long-serving leader Idriss Déby Itno.
It was a bad idea to kill higher education in the 1970s-80s, and it’s a bad idea today.
Kenya must endeavor to have excellent universities and research centres. That requires money.
60% of all low-income countries are under some form of U.S. sanctions.
“We don’t think about the collateral damage of sanctions the same way we think about the collateral damage of war ... But we should.”
NEW: THE STAGGERING RISE OF AMERICA'S GLOBAL ECONOMIC WARFARE
1st in a series
@federicacocco
& I found:
1. ~1/3 of all nations on Earth now face some form of US sanctions. Huge increase from when mostly applied to Cuba & a handful of regimes
2. +*60%* of *all poor countries*
Nic van de Walle has rested. May his family find strength during this difficult time.
Nic was a great scholar and mentor to countless students. The field of Political Economy will be poorer without him.
RIP.
I agree that we shouldn’t be in the business of thanking fish for swimming, but I’d like to acknowledge the Senate leadership for today’s kufungua roho session.
It’s important that we establish common knowledge of what’s wrong and how to start the long journey of fixing GoK.
The most complacent ruling elites in the world are about to mortgage away their peoples’ futures for trinkets, again.
The new ‘scramble for Africa’: how a UAE sheikh quietly made carbon deals for forests bigger than UK | Carbon offsetting |
@Guardian
Kenya has a tiny market. Barely 3m people out of a workforce of ~ 18m have formal jobs.
The overriding goal should be to export as many shoes as possible.
That should be the logic behind any protection of young shoe manufacturers. Not securing them a tiny captive market.
For the record, it’s a total disgrace that, like with most tragedies/crises on the Continent, the African Union has been patently useless for Sudanese.
This is not what May 25, 1963 promised us all.
It would be nice if academics didn’t always fall into the temptation of believing that the one thing they study is the solution to every problem under the sun (and if policymakers had strong BS detectors for this tendency).
Too many people seem to think that critiques of "research" in African development only applies to RCTs.
The same people forget that the "corruption & neopatrimonial explains everything" edifice was built and continues to be careful maintained by mostly qualitative researchers.
Direct flights to Brussels resume:
Brussels Airlines to operate six weekly flights to and from Nairobi. Brussels Airlines returns to the market after 9-year break. Nairobi set to have second highest frequency after South Africa
#CitizenExplainer
@YvonneOkwara
Incredible images coming out of Nairobi and throughout the Jamhuri.
This is what happens when entitled politicians show nothing but dripping contempt for hard-presses taxpayers.
The field of international development needs a sharper focus on helping private firms in low-income countries flourish:
Two unsolicited ideas on how to invest some of Melinda French Gates’ $12.5 billion
Following the devaluation of the Malawi Kwacha by 44% last month and the resultant rise in the cost of living, Malawi President Reverend Dr Lazarus Chakwera will be leading his country in a day of prayer Thursday, December 7.
Your regular reminder that *economic growth* is terribly underrated as a key ingredient in development.
Often, there’s no money for public services (or HH purchasing power) in our region because there’s no money.
We need to get to $5k GDP per capita on average to really unlock B2C across the board…both tech and non-tech.
And it is so well within reach it’s 😡 that we are stuck as a region because of basic reasons.
For African presidents, being labeled “darling of the West” by Western media is typically the surest sign that you are excellent at summitry and NGO-ese and not much else.
Summitry isn’t work.
The University of Dar es Salaam has fewer than 70 professors.
University professors’ exodus to politics: A growing concern for Tanzania’s higher education Part II
Economic growth is a necessary ingredient in the fight against endemic poverty (and entrenching accountable self-government). And it’s a terrible idea to cede the promise of rapid transformational growth & development to autocrats.
I started blogging again (it's a great weapon against writer's block!), this time on
@SubstackInc
. The content will be similar to the old one, plus regular longer deep dives.
To start with I did a three part piece on African Foreign Policy for the current era.
Improve (girls’) education attainment, boost agricultural productivity, enable mass job creation, enable ordered urbanization.
Do those before imbibing silly talking points.
Fertility rates are already declining in many parts of Africa due to economic/social change.
Your regular reminder to read all of Mkandawire’s works, starting with this one:
Neopatrimonialism and the Political Economy of Economic Performance in Africa: Critical Reflections | World Politics |
Praetorian politics are not making a comeback. Africa’s recent putsches have more to do with democracy’s failure to deliver than any fondness for military rule.
In partnership with Princeton and Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT), ASE will deliver graduate and undergraduate degrees in STEM and social sciences through three departments - the School of Arts and Sciences (SAS), School of Business, and the Engineering School.
More people should know about Foccart. This is how the
@nytimes
opened his 1997 obit:
“Jacques Foccart, who masterminded clandestine military coups in French-speaking Africa for Charles de Gaulle and three French presidents after him, died at his home this morning. He was 83.”
As I keep arguing, a singular focus on broad-based GROWTH is required in African states.
Too many people accept conditions like what Justin describes here as normal. It is not. And the peoples of our region deserve MUCH BETTER.
President William Ruto’s admin keeps failing test after test.
They should know that most of the footage of the protests are coming from the protesters themselves.
You know things are *really* bad when it’s not just education experts but also economic experts complaining about Kenya’s education system.
The country had a working system that needed reforms, then they went ahead and completely broke it (in the name of reforms).
Watching Kenya’s Gen Z memorial
#SabaSabaMarchForOurLives
event at
#UhuruPark
today, I was struck by how much a subset of this protest/movement is about the national flag, and who “owns” it. Haven’t seen anything like it in our lands
3. There is often a cartoonish assumption that basic rules of how things work don't apply to low-income countries. Forget about the sociology of learning. Forget about the politics of a national curriculum. Forget about teachers' unions. Forget all the rules!
BREAKING: 44yo opposition candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye is set to be elected president of Senegal, just over a week since he was released from prison.
The ruling party’s Amadou Bâ says he has called to congratulate him
Forex risk is a terribly underrated cause of poverty and underdevelopment in low-income countries.
It decimates firms. Is an important driver of macroeconomic instability. And limits the types of investments (and risks) that governments can make.
In this environment, nearly any African business that relies on domestic revenues but has international costs is uninvestable (for international investors). This dynamic overwhelms all others.
🇳🇪🇷🇺The outcome and trajectory of Niger's coup was not inevitable. Rather, it was shaped, in part, by concerted Russian disinformation campaigns. Read more from this section of our latest Infographic:
"Russian Disinformation around Niger’s Coup"
How to Write About Africa — by Binyavanga Wainaina.
(It’s weird when conservationists go well out of their way to sound like they care more about wildlife than people. Also, the angst about Africa’s population is terribly misplaced. Come on, people).
The global distributive politics of climate adaptation & mitigation isn’t and will continue to not be kind to low-income countries.
African development in an era of climate change:
So far there’s little evidence of the developmental state President Ruto promised.
It seems that he’s willing to sacrifice growth on the altar of revenue (which so far isn’t being spent on any transformational development projects).
“Traffic Nightmare: This isn’t something that started recently. We are pleading to the government to fix this quickly.” 20km snarl-up on Nakuru-Eldoret highway after culverts were destroyed and swept away by water near Timboroa Market.
This is an excellent way to frame this. And applies to much of democracy promotion efforts across African states.
Way too many people take democracy’s ability to demonstrably deliver on material advancement for granted.
2. Regardless of your track record or domain/context expertise, if you have the right passport or attended the right schools, you'll quickly get a credibility stamp from important players.
BREAKING: People have been told to boil their drinking water after 22 cases of a waterborne disease were confirmed in South West England.
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube
Of African governments that keep citing random IFI reports and consulting shops (read over-caffeinated 20 somethings that are totally winging it) instead of collecting and analyzing their own data.