A regular blog from RAS Director, Nicholas Westcott.
Nicholas Westcott
Thursday, 10 October 2019
This blog was co-authored by Dr Julian Eaton (Co-Director of the Centre for Global Mental Health at LSHTM and Mental Health Director at CBM International), Dr Nicholas Westcott (Director of the Royal African Society) and Prof Stanley Okolo (Director-General of the West Africa Health Organisation) ahead of two major conferences taking place in London and Burkina Faso focusing on Mental Health in Africa. Entitled “Mental Health in Africa: Innovation and Investment”, the London... more
Friday, 9 August 2019
I visited Tanzania last month for the first time in five years, and the first time since John Magufuli was elected President. I have been visiting the country regularly since 1976, spending a year living there in 1979 as a student, and three years in 1993-6 as a diplomat. I have followed its fortunes through the decades with close interest, meeting all its Presidents (except the incumbent) at one time or another.
While I was there on this occasion, the journalist Erick Kabendera... more
When a prominent Liberian women’s rights activist, let us call her Mary, was personally invited to Britain by DfID to speak at the 2017 Family Planning Summit, she leapt at the opportunity to give direct testimony to a key meeting. But first she had to travel to Ghana, at her own expense, to apply for the necessary visa, and then despite active support from DfID so much additional information was requested and so many delays took place, that when the visa was finally issued the... more
Friday, 31 May 2019
On 23 May, the Royal African Society, with the SOAS Centre for African Studies and London Business School’s Africa Club, held an open workshop on ‘The African Middle Class Re-examined’.
The discussion explored who exactly the ‘African middle class’ are: do they exist at all in any meaningful way, and if so how do they define themselves, where do they live, what do they consume, and how do they behave politically and socially? We brought together insights and... more
Tuesday, 7 May 2019
Last month, in mid-April, I visited Addis Ababa with a group from SOAS’s Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy to talk to people about multilateral diplomacy in Africa and the respective roles of the African Union, United Nations and individual national governments. We struck lucky, arriving as public protests in Algeria and Sudan were reaching their climax, with President Bouteflika already gone and President al-Bashir removed while we were there, and with the AU and UN... more