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...

One of the main trends throughout Africa in 2019 was that people across African countries were starting to insist their voice be heard by their governments. In Sudan, Algeria, Uganda, Togo, Ethiopia, it was clear that “the people’s voice is growing louderâ...

In January this year, the British Government hosted an Africa Investment Summit at which the Prime Minister, fresh from his election victory, promised to prioritise Britain’s relations with the continent. At the time, I set out some suggestions for how that ...

The Government’s decision to merge the Department for International Development with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, whatever the claimed advantages in terms of policy coherence, Whitehall reorganisation and cost saving, does serious damage to Britainâ€...