Long reads on African history, governance, economics, culture, and what comes next.
Between 3 February and 24 March 2024, Senegal moved through a constitutional crisis that could have ended democratic rule and instead delivered the most decisive opposition victory in …
The eNaira launched in October 2021 as the first African central bank digital currency (CBDC), positioning Nigeria as a global pioneer alongside Bahamas's Sand Dollar (2020) and ahead …
The 2024 edition of *Le Robert* included roughly forty new Senegalese-French entries drawn from Wolof — *gor*, *mbeur*, *dem dik*, *teranga*, *thiof*, *yaye*, and others long current in …
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) was established by the African Union in 2017 as a Specialized Technical Institution of the AU Commission, headquartered …
Bola Tinubu took office in May 2023 inheriting a Naira regime with multiple official rates, a Central Bank of Nigeria parallel-market premium of roughly 60%, and an external …
Lesetja Kganyago, governor of the South African Reserve Bank from November 2014 through his second term ending in 2024 (with the third term commencing under expected continuity), has …
On 25 June 2024 protestors breached the Kenyan Parliament during a vote on the Finance Bill. The Bill, which would have introduced new VAT on bread and motor …
The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), launched commercially by Afreximbank and the African Union in January 2022, is a real-time gross settlement platform allowing African banks to …
M-Pesa's dominance of Kenyan retail payments — over 60 million registered users, agent network of around 200,000 outlets, transaction volume that exceeds Kenyan GDP annually in money-flow terms …
The 2020–2022 Tigray war devastated the Tigrinya-language publishing infrastructure. The Mekelle University press, the Ras Publishing house, and the regional newspaper-archive network were either physically destroyed, looted, or …
The Igbo apprenticeship system (*Igba-Boi* or *Imu-Ahia*) is the longest-running, largest-scale informal mass entrepreneurship programme in any African economy. A boy or young man (traditionally) is placed with …
Between March 2022 and March 2024, the Egyptian pound, Nigerian naira, and Ghanaian cedi each lost between 45% and 70% of their value against the US dollar in …