The 3 things that make it harder for government to crush them or to politicise them COMMENT | AWONO OKECH | On 25 June 2024, a youth-led protest primarily composed of Gen Zs, as they are popularly referred to, stormed Kenya’s parliament. Legislators voted to pass the Finance Bill 2024 in its …
Read More »Kenya’s protests as metaphors
#OccupyParliament, #RejectFinanceBill are an opportunity for a new mode of emancipatory democracy COMMENT | JOEL MUKISA | If you asked a think-tank team leader or a social sciences professor at Kabarak or Nairobi University if they anticipated the scale and popularity of the protests that rocked East Africa’s economic powerhouse Kenya …
Read More »Anite’s fight against corruption and the mirrors NRM refuses to use
COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | Corruption in Uganda has a thriving soft life despite the endless haranguing by President Yoweri Museveni. Museveni and his audience have lost count of the number of times he has promised to do something about corruption. He has talked about corruption (even walked about it), …
Read More »Social justice is the best policy
Orientation around it would be a better approach to development, climate action, and global governance COMMENT | GILBERT F. HOUNGBO & LUIZ INACIO LULA DA SILVA | It is easy to be pessimistic in these fraught, uncertain times. Instability is on the rise, and conflicts are unfolding on our screens every …
Read More »On Kagame’s campaign trail
Why Rwanda’s election campaigns are different and what others can learn from it THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | I am in Rwanda for the presidential election campaigns. The campaigns here are different. There are no billboards everywhere of candidates and posters do not litter city walls and buildings. Rallies are …
Read More »Understanding Kenya’s historic protests
This is what too many are missing as the world scrambles for explanations COMMENT | NANJALA NYABOLA | There is as yet no resolution after an unprecedented week in Kenyan politics. What began as protests against a rushed-through Finance Bill has revealed a crisis of legitimacy within the executive, the legislature …
Read More »Ruto awakened class politics
It now threatens to engulf him as the character of Kenya’s politics shifts in ways even he could not have predicted COMMENT | PETER LOCKWOOD | Many of the grievances of Kenya’s Gen-Z, young people who took to the streets in late June, have been palpable for years. I witnessed these …
Read More »UEFA EURO 2024: Where the revenue comes from and where it goes
UEFA EURO is not just one of the biggest competitions in football but in all of world sport, generating a significant amount of revenue. Where does that money come from, and how does UEFA invest as much as possible back into the game? COMMENT | UEFA.COM | Every four years, the …
Read More »Let the giggers fight inflation
Politicians and activists who tout the importance of work-life balance shouldn’t impose rigidity on them COMMENT | TODD G. BUCHHOLZ | Gig-economy firms and workers – or “giggers” – are like magicians and alchemists, only their tricks are real. Although physicists assure us that new matter cannot be created, the gig …
Read More »From Washington Consensus to the Berlin Declaration
The Washington Consensus has been wobbly for some time, challenged by abundant research COMMENT | DANI RODRIK, LAURA TYSON & THOMAS FRICKE | Paradigm shifts in mainstream economic thinking usually accompany crises demanding new answers, as occurred after stagflation – low growth and high inflation – gripped advanced economies in the …
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