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3 weeks ago | 
foreignaffairs.com | Ken Opalo |Zeinab Badawi
It is a common practice to divide African history into three epochs: precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial. Yet as the philosopher Olufemi Taiwo has convincingly argued, this approach is wrong on two counts. First, it compresses and misrepresents millennia of African history in the “precolonial” period and by so doing casts Africa as a land where nothing changed for vast stretches of time.
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3 weeks ago | 
foreignaffairs.com | Ken Opalo |Tom Gardner
Gardner’s account of the rise of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is essential reading for those interested in understanding how individual ambition and structural factors combine to mold a leader’s choices. His efforts to consolidate power and push through his vision of modernizing Ethiopia’s economy and politics have been hobbled by the country’s legacy of ethnic politics. A child soldier at 14, then a successful commander, military officer, and politician, Abiy became prime minister in 2018.
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Jan 24, 2025 | 
africanistperspective.com | Ken Opalo
Thank you for being a regular reader of An Africanist Perspective. If you haven’t done so yet, please hit subscribe to receive timely updates. As an estimated 50,000 people gather in Baku for COP29 (at which delegates hope to converge on concrete guidelines for climate finance), it’s important to highlight a few things about the political economy of climate change and development.
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Jan 24, 2025 | 
africanistperspective.com | Ken Opalo
Thank you for being a regular reader of An Africanist Perspective. If you haven’t done so yet, hit subscribe to join 17,000 others and to receive timely updates. This post is more of a pamphlet than my normal commentary here, and was triggered by a number of conversations I had following this year’s Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit in Beijing.
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Jan 18, 2025 | 
standardmedia.co.ke | Ken Opalo
It is now clear that the Kenya Kwanza administration has completely lost the war of narratives about its performance. Narratives matter for creating common knowledge about the true state of the world. For example, if everyone believes that an administration cares about their personal well-being, they are likely to give public officials the benefit of the doubt and patiently try to do their part in making administration policies work.
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Jan 12, 2025 | 
standardmedia.co.ke | Ken Opalo
By 2030, Africa will be home to 80 per cent of the world’s poorest people. In many ways, the continent will be the last major region to remain underdeveloped and scarcely governed. There is little indication that the many conflicts in the Horn, Sahel, Great Lakes, or even places like Mozambique will have been resolved. Investments in education, health, infrastructure, and other public goods and services will remain depressed due to low national output.
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Dec 7, 2024 | 
saxafimedia.com | Ken Opalo
Contradictory Policies: Trump will inherit an Africa policy characterized by both attention and neglect. Biden made efforts to engage more with Africa, but U.S. embassies in the region remain underfunded and understaffed. Transactional Focus: Trump’s administration is likely to prioritize short-term, transactional deals, which could undermine long-term U.S. goals, such as competing with China’s influence in Africa.
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Dec 6, 2024 | 
africanistperspective.com | Ken Opalo
Thank you for being a regular reader of An Africanist Perspective. If you haven’t done so yet, please hit subscribe to receive timely updates. This post explores how Trump’s stated intention to remake the American foreign policy toolkit will impact Africa-U.S. relations. It’s a follow up to the post before the 2024 U.S. presidential election in which I shared thoughts on the potential directions of Washington’s Africa policy conditional on the outcome.
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Dec 4, 2024 | 
foreignaffairs.com | Ken Opalo
When he returns to the White House, Donald Trump, the U.S. president-elect, will take over an Africa policy riddled with contradictions. Since 2022, President Joe Biden has sought to improve ties between the United States and sub-Saharan African countries with a focus on high-level engagement and stronger commercial relations. In 2023, senior officials made 17 visits to the region. Biden is currently visiting Angola, the first trip to the continent by a U.S. president since 2015.
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Nov 23, 2024 | 
standardmedia.co.ke | Ken Opalo
President William Ruto is learning the hard way and very publicly that personnel is policy. From the day he took office, he has repeatedly demonstrated that appointments are not his strong suit. His first cabinet was one of the weakest in our history. His choices of Principal Secretaries have left a lot to be desired. He had to fire his chosen Deputy President through a most unedifying impeachment process. Most of his senior advisers are little more than recycled failed politicians.
