Threads

Culture & Traditions Contemporary (2000–present)

Bambara fonio renaissance — Pierre Thiam, Yolele Foods, and the millet politics

*Fonio* (*Digitaria exilis*) is a small-grained millet that has been cultivated in the West African Sahel for at least three thousand years. The Dogon plateau in Mali, the …

2 min read · West Africa, Sahel · 22 views

Economic Systems Contemporary (2000–present)

ROSCAs and susu — the rotating savings circles that quietly bank the continent

Across West Africa they are called *susu* (in Akan and adopted into Caribbean English). In East Africa they are *chama* (Swahili). In Cameroon they are *tontine*. In Egypt …

1 min read · Pan-African · 30 views

Economic Systems Contemporary (2000–present)

Ghana's cocoa collapse — Cocobod debt, farmgate prices, and a smuggling economy

Cocoa was supposed to be the politically stable commodity. Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire produce roughly 60% of the world supply, the Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod) has run a …

1 min read · West Africa, Ghana · 24 views

Governance & Political Systems Contemporary (2000–present)

Kigali masterplan and the politics of relocation

Kigali's 2013 masterplan, revised in 2019/2020, is the most ambitious top-down African urban transformation programme of the last two decades. The plan reorganizes the city around mixed-use density …

1 min read · East Africa, Rwanda · 21 views

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

Asante succession — the asantehene, the Queen Mother, and how the Golden Stool changed hands

Among the institutional features of the Asante state that the colonial encounter imperfectly understood, succession to the asantehene is one of the most consequential — and one of …

2 min read · West Africa, Ghana · 22 views

Economic Systems Contemporary (2000–present)

Sahel acacia gum — when Sudan's war disrupted the global Coca-Cola supply chain

Gum arabic is the polysaccharide you have eaten today without knowing it. It stabilizes the Coca-Cola formula, holds the sugar coating on M&Ms, and is the emulsifier in …

1 min read · Sahel, Sudan · 22 views

Economic Systems Contemporary (2000–present)

Andela's pivot — from talent network to enterprise marketplace

Andela was founded in Lagos in 2014 by Jeremy Johnson, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, and co-founders as a developer-training-and-placement company aimed at the global remote-engineering market. The original model — …

1 min read · Pan-African · 19 views

Culture & Traditions Contemporary (2000–present)

Tigrinya literary deep-dive — the Mehari quarterly and the new diaspora press

*Mehari* (Tigrinya: 'compassionate' or 'merciful'), the Mekelle-based Tigrinya-language literary quarterly, was the most important post-Derg Tigrinya literary venue from its 1994 founding through the 2020 war shutdown. Ras …

2 min read · Horn of Africa, Tigray and Eritrea · 21 views

Economic Systems Contemporary (2000–present)

Ethiopian Airlines after ET-302 — the fleet expansion and the institutional response

Ethiopian Airlines flight 302, a Boeing 737 MAX 8, crashed near Bishoftu on 10 March 2019 killing all 157 people on board, six minutes after takeoff from Addis …

2 min read · East Africa, Ethiopia · 21 views

Economic Systems Contemporary (2000–present)

Diaspora remittances — IFAD data on Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria and what corridor economics look like

Diaspora remittances to sub-Saharan Africa reached approximately USD 54 billion in 2024 according to World Bank Migration and Development Brief data, exceeding both foreign direct investment and official …

2 min read · Pan-African · 20 views

Economic Systems Contemporary (2000–present)

The CFA franc debate — Sanou Mbaye and Ndongo Samba Sylla read the same currency differently

The CFA franc — the common currency of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU, eight states) and the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC, six …

2 min read · West Africa, Central Africa, CFA zones · 21 views

Economic Systems Contemporary (2000–present)

Afreximbank's intra-African trade financing — the institutional theory of African trade plumbing

The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), headquartered in Cairo and founded in 1993 under AfDB and OAU sponsorship, is the African institution that most consistently delivers operational outcomes against …

2 min read · Pan-African · 22 views