African Arguments

What does the much-publicised rise and sudden death of a firm that boasted friends in Silicon Valley and Washington DC tell us about the climate crisis, structural underdevelopment in Africa and the frugal innovations designed to mitigate it? The closure of Koko Networks at the beginning of February elicited an interesting range of reactions in the country. Some cast suspicion on the Kenyan government, claiming that the company was denied the letter of authorisation (LoA) because it refused to pay rent to the political class. Others took on a more sympathetic view of the government, remarking that Koko’s closure should […]

There is one place where national rivals do work together — consistently and pragmatically. It is not a parliament or a palace, but the coldest place on Earth.

Author: Andrew Zerzan

first-arrival-in-antarctica-with-icy-rain-clearing-to-sunshine

ngugi-interviewed-by-the-bbc

I. Magdala The mountainside fortress is called Magdala. It is perched above the Ethiopian highlands, a stone fist raised against the sky. In its austere regality an eleven-year-old boy named Sahle Maryam witnessed the brutal birth of modern statecraft in 1855. His captor, Emperor Tewodros II, was a brilliant but volatile unifier who dreamed of forging a centralised Ethiopian state from the feudal wreckage of the Zemene Mesafint, the chaotic “Era of Princes”. Tewodros treated the boy as a son, arranged his marriage to his own daughter, and granted him an education in theology, statecraft, and the harsh arithmetic of […]

Africa's AI strategies focus on adoption, not governance. The freight forwarders' strike against Ghana's Publican AI at Tema Port reveals the execution gap.

Sharmout, a traditional Sudanese dried meat, is already popular among Sudanese communities abroad where it is transported and sold through the ‘suitcase trade.’ The challenge now is turning an informal trade into a formal industry. Across Sudan, generations have grown up with sharmout, a traditional Sudanese dried beef prepared by sun-drying strips of meat. Long before refrigeration, drying meat was a practical way of preserving food. Over time, however, sharmout became more than a preservation method. It became part of Sudanese culinary culture. To this day, many Sudanese households prepare large quantities of sharmout before Ramadan. It remains a familiar […]

Author: IAI Editor

Priscilla Asantewaa Boateng