Threads

Philosophy & Thought Contemporary (2000–present)

Ubuntu is not a slogan — it's a theory of mutual obligation

The phrase *umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu* — 'a person is a person through other people' — has been mass-printed onto coffee mugs, hashtagged onto corporate diversity slides, and generally …

5 min read · Southern Africa · 56 views

Economic Systems Medieval (500–1500 CE)

The Mali Empire's trade network — gold, salt, and scholarship from Timbuktu to Cairo

When historians describe medieval Mali they usually start with gold. That is the wrong end of the story. Gold was the commodity but the genius of the Malian …

5 min read · West Africa · 57 views

Governance & Political Systems Medieval (500–1500 CE)

Great Zimbabwe — what a stone city tells us about Shona statecraft

For a century after Carl Mauch publicized Great Zimbabwe in 1871, European antiquarians insisted the walls were built by Phoenicians, by Sabaeans, by anyone except the Shona who …

1 min read · Southern Africa · 48 views

Economic Systems Contemporary (2000–present)

The CFA franc peg — what holds it together and what would break it

Two CFA franc zones cover fourteen African countries — the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU/UEMOA) running through the BCEAO in Dakar, and the Central African Economic …

3 min read · West Africa, Central Africa · 3 views

Science & Technology Contemporary (2000–present)

M-Pesa as indigenous fintech — the regulatory accident that worked

M-Pesa, the Kenyan mobile-money system launched by Safaricom in 2007, is routinely described as African leapfrog innovation. That framing is partly right and partly misleading. M-Pesa did indeed …

1 min read · East Africa, Kenya · 47 views

Governance & Political Systems Contemporary (2000–present)

The African Union's governance dilemma — sovereignty, intervention, and the Sahel coups

Between 2020 and 2023 the African Union faced six successful military coups in its member states: Mali (twice), Burkina Faso (twice), Guinea, and Niger. In each case the …

1 min read · Pan-African, Sahel · 47 views

Governance & Political Systems Pre-colonial (1500–1884)

Osei Tutu and the Asante Confederation — federalism before Westphalia

The Asante state that Otumfuo Osei Tutu I and the priest-statesman Okomfo Anokye consolidated around 1701 is usually taught as a 'kingdom.' That is misleading. It was a …

5 min read · West Africa, Ghana · 49 views

Society & Community Contemporary (2000–present)

Marrakech, Cairo, Tunis — medinas as living infrastructure

The historic medinas of Marrakech, Cairo, Fez, Tunis, and Sana'a have been treated by UNESCO and by domestic planning authorities as heritage sites. That is the legal category. …

2 min read · North Africa, Maghreb, Egypt · 41 views

Philosophy & Thought Colonial era (1884–1960s)

Equiano's narrative — Vincent Carretta, Paul Lovejoy, and the unresolved authorship question

Olaudah Equiano's *The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African* (1789) is among the most important first-person accounts of the transatlantic slave …

2 min read · West Africa, Diaspora · 40 views

Economic Systems Contemporary (2000–present)

South Sudan oil — how a state managed its independence dividend, and didn't

South Sudan became independent on 9 July 2011 with control over approximately 75% of what had been Sudan's oil production — the Greater Nile, Petrodar, and Dar Petroleum …

2 min read · East Africa, South Sudan · 38 views

Governance & Political Systems Ancient (before 500 CE)

Aksumite trade — the debate over how state-formation worked

The Aksumite Empire — centred at the highland city of Aksum in present-day Tigray, flourishing from roughly the first to seventh centuries CE — has been the subject …

2 min read · Horn of Africa, Aksum · 28 views

Economic Systems Contemporary (2000–present)

Common Framework restructurings — Zambia, Chad, Ghana and the costs of slow sovereign debt diplomacy

The G20 Common Framework for Debt Treatments, launched in November 2020 in response to the pandemic-era debt distress wave, has now been applied — formally — to four …

2 min read · Pan-African · 30 views