Last week the British Government published Global Britain in a competitive age, its Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy. The aim is to demonstrate that, with Brexit achieved, Britain intends to play a constructive and influen...

  On the surface, Addis Ababa appears much as it always has. The streets are full of people, some wearing masks, most not; the roads are full of cars; businesses are open and busy; construction continues, at least on some sites. South of Addis, across muc...

This June, the British Prime Minister will welcome G7 leaders to a summit in Cornwall. He has announced he will also invite the leaders of India, South Korea and Australia for a meeting of major democracies, to be called the D10. He should now make it a “...

2021 looks like being a turbulent year in Africa. Economic convergence will go hand-in-hand with political divergence and a continuing heavy impact from the Covid-19 pandemic.   Despite the high hopes that the new vaccines will help insulate us from the c...

Jerry Rawlings passed away on 12 November this year, peacefully in Korle Bu Hospital. He was Ghana’s longest serving president and, if the current constitution is respected and his successors resist the temptation to change it to hang on longer, will remain ...

The current crisis in Tigray has not appeared from a clear blue sky. Its roots are deep in Ethiopia’s history and its outcome will dictate the country’s future.   It is unlikely that Ethiopia will fall apart. But a period of violence is probable and w...

Power is addictive. Almost no-one gives it up voluntarily. So societies evolve ways to transfer power from one person or one generation to another when a change is necessary. The question is whether these systems prove effective.   All eyes today are fixe...

The pre-colonial African economy was not poor. Not in the terms we measure it now, in GDP per capita, or in health and wealth. It was much the same as most other parts of the world before the coming of the industrial revolution: most people farmed, a few peopl...