Dr. Kwegyir Aggrey "Only the best is good enough for Africa."
Kwame Nkrumah "The independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of Africa."
On March 30, 2022, Russia’s minister of foreign affairs, Sergey Lavrov, in a conversation with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, said “we together with you and our sympathizers will move towards a multipolar, just, democratic new world order,” Lavrov was echoing his boss, Vladimir Putin’s exact wish. Putin is reacting to the punitive sanctions of […]
JOHN M. MUGANE Once just an obscure island dialect of an African Bantu tongue, Swahili has evolved into Africa’s most internationally recognized language. It is peer to the few languages of the world that boast over 200 million users. Over the two millennia of Swahili’s growth and adaptation, the molders of this story—immigrants from inland […]
ABU MUBARIK Magatte Wade recently recalled returning from the United States to Senegal and finding out that many Senegalese preferred foreign drinks to the country’s traditional hibiscus drink, known as bissap. “When I went to Senegal, I was sorry to see that many young people were turning away from the bissap. They wanted to drink […]
AMY FELDMAN Calendly was built out of frustration. Now the scheduling app is worth $3 billion—and the subject of a heated Twitter spat among Silicon Valley elite. Tope Awotona, the 40-year-old founder and chief executive of Calendly, leans back in his chair and lets loose a loud guffaw. “You call it on message, I call it […]
ABDELLAH CHEBALLAH It’s the Algerian start-up that made good: despite the country’s notoriously complex business climate, taxi and home-delivery firm Yassir has millions of users and is expanding across Africa. “We made it our mission to create a model of success that was genuinely, 100-percent Algerian, to develop local talent and show that it’s possible […]
Egyptians adored Isis, divine protector of the dead, for two millennia before her cult spread beyond the Nile to the rest of the Roman Empire. JAMIE ALVAR Archaeologists working in London in 1912 might have been surprised. When they discovered a first-century A.D. Roman jug bearing the inscription “Londini ad fanum Isidis—London, next door to […]
HENRY WILKINS As Ivory Coast beefs up its border security with Burkina Faso, ethnic Fulanis say they are being labeled as supporters of Islamist militants and persecuted by security forces. Rights groups warn the heavy-handed tactics could backfire, providing fertile recruiting ground for the insurgents. Since armed groups attacked military targets near the border with […]
Social media is enabling Africans actively engage in participatory governance cycle in the global public square, but their leaders kick back forcefully. Africans are taking to WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter in ever greater numbers to voice their opinions. Many of their leaders aren’t happy about this. In the latest example of an African nation threatening a […]
KATE BARTLETT It’s the classic postcard image of Ghana: brightly colored, narrow wooden fishing boats pulling into the dock of seaside village, bringing in the daily catch. But increasingly this way of life is under threat, with a new investigation showing how Chinese vessels engaged in illegal fishing are depleting stocks, sometimes even selling the […]
The Akan of Ghana have a proverb that literally says “when two elephants fight, it is the forest (or grass) that suffers. And once the damage is done, the ripple effect is felt not only by those close to the vicinity of the battleground, but also those far and beyond. Such is the story of […]