Long reads on African history, governance, economics, culture, and what comes next.
The Yoruba religious system — the *orisha* pantheon, the divination practices centered on Ifá, the cosmology that links *ori* (the personal head/destiny) to *àse* (the vital force) to …
The premium-export fonio supply chain — Pierre Thiam and Yolele Foods, the specialty-grain channel through Whole Foods and Eataly, the Slow Food Ark of Taste recognition — is …
Public-infrastructure signage is the most visible everyday material expression of national-language policy. The Maghrebine signage politics of Tifinagh (Amazigh) inclusion alongside Arabic and French — and the differential …
The Democratic Republic of Congo produces roughly 70% of the world's cobalt. About 20% of that comes from artisanal and small-scale mining — *creuseurs* working with hand tools …
Ethiopia is the birthplace of *coffea arabica* — the wild progenitor still grows in Kafa and the Bonga forest. It is also Africa's largest coffee producer, exporting between …
Burkina Faso was, by the early 2000s, the largest cotton producer in sub-Saharan Africa, and SOFITEX — the state ginning company — was the institutional spine of a …
Flutterwave's 2023 Kenyan regulatory dispute — the Asset Recovery Agency's freezing of accounts holding roughly USD 56 million on money-laundering allegations, subsequently substantially unwound by Kenyan courts — …
The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) versus Rapid Support Forces (RSF) war that began on 15 April 2023 has killed an estimated 150,000 Sudanese, displaced over 10 million, and …
Touba, the holy city of the Mouride brotherhood, is the second-largest urban settlement in Senegal after Dakar, with population estimates ranging from 800,000 to 1.2 million depending on …
M-Pesa launched in Kenya in 2007. The Central Bank of Nigeria's Payment Service Bank (PSB) regulatory regime — the framework that finally let MTN, Airtel, and 9mobile take …
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam's fifth and final filling completed in September 2024. The dam now holds approximately 74 billion cubic metres at full reservoir, generating up to …
Cape Town's 2017–2018 drought brought the city within an estimated 90 days of 'day zero' — the point at which municipal water supply would have been shut off …