Untangling the roots of Empire
The coterie of billionaires and foreign aid agencies intent on transforming African agriculture have mostly upturned people’s lives.
11 Articles by:
Alex Park
Alex Park is a writer and researcher with an interest in global trade and agriculture in Africa.
Pat Robertson’s Africa
The ultra-conservative American televangelist Pat Robertson has died. As poisonous as his influence on American politics was, Robertson’s legacy in Africa is even more cynical.
What’s the matter with private equity in Africa?
The nature of the business makes it hard to hold investors accountable when they do wrong.
A crop that changed the world
The story about peanuts, and the people who grew it at the margins of an empire in 19th century West Africa, then the most abundant source of the world’s most important oilseed.
What’s good for investors isn’t good for Africans
How Africa’s pension funds risk becoming instruments of Africa’s neoliberal takeover.
Probing the depths of the CIA’s misdeeds in Africa
The CIA committed many crimes in the early days of post-independence Africa. But is it fair to call their interference “recolonization”?
Structural adjustment comes home
Americans could learn a thing or two from Africans’ history of resisting structural adjustment policies.
The blankest spot on Trump’s world map
In his new book of his time in the Trump White House, former US National Security Adviser John Bolton shares Trump’s very few thoughts on Africa.
John Bolton’s power play in Africa
Africa, for Donald Trump and his National Security Advisor John Bolton, is a place to risk a little and chase some glory. US media just parrots it.
Why western donors love authoritarian leaders
In recent years, Rwanda and Ethiopia have been some of the largest recipients of aid money from the UK and US governments, as well as some of the West’s leading philanthropies, including the Gates Foundation.
When Melania Trump went to Africa
Pith helmets and jodhpurs aside, Melania Trump went to four African countries to promote her “Be Best” education initiative. What’s that about?