Pambazuka News is produced by a pan-African community of some 2,600 citizens and organisations - academics, policy makers, social activists, women's organisations, civil society organisations, writers, artists, poets, bloggers, and commentators who together produce insightful, sharp and thoughtful analyses and make it one of the largest and most innovative and influential web forums for social justice in Africa. 
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Africa: Financing public health
2010-09-16, Issue 496
Campaigners for increased health financing have welcomed the commitment by African Union member states to direct more resources to health. But the needs of the continent seem to dwarf available budgets. Africa, is home to 12 per cent of the world’s p...
More than a Continent? Remapping Africa
Chambi Chachage
2010-09-16, Issue 496
cc OxfamDrawing on the works of intellectuals Issa Shivji, Kwesi Kwaa Prah, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Paul Zeleza, Chambi Chachage discusses competing concepts of Africa. ‘Those who claim to be of Africa ought to truly seek its intellectual and material prosperity,’ he argues, ‘It is such an Africa-centred progress that will surely undo the yoke which has continually left us fragmented.’
Haiti ‘Year Zero’: The Afro-Americas and Africa
Time for a new kind of trans-Atlantic relationship
Marian Douglas-Ungaro
2010-01-28, Issue 467
cc United NationsHaiti’s earthquake has provided the first opportunity since slavery for slavery descendants in the Afro-Americas to alter and recreate the country’s socio-economic structures and physical infrastructure, writes Marian Douglas-Ungaro. But will former slave-owners and colonial masters hinder or assist with the process, Douglas-Ungaro asks, and will continental Africa notice or care?
Climate change and Africa's natural resources
African governments and outside powers must be accountable
William Minter and Anita Wheeler
2009-10-29, Issue 455
cc TFTFOn the eve of the UN Climate Change Conference this December, ‘momentum for action falls far short of that needed to avert catastrophe’, William Minter and Anita Wheeler write in this week’s Pambazuka News. When it comes to Africa's natural resources, say Minter and Wheeler, the ‘prospects for change depend squarely on African governments, on foreign companies and their home-country governments, and on the pressures that can be mobilised by national and international civil society’. With Africa predicted to ‘suffer consequences out of all proportion to its contribution to global warming, which is primarily caused by greenhouse gas emissions from wealthy countries’, African governments ‘can and should take action now’.
IMF on Africa: The good news and the bad
Stephen Marks
2009-10-27, Issue 455
cc TransaidFollowing the release of the latest IMF 'regional economic outlook' report for sub-Saharan Africa, Stephen Marks argues that predictions around Africa's ability to bounce back from the global economic crisis rest on a number of 'good-news' assumptions.
Land-grabbing in Africa: The why and the how
Nikolaj Nielsen
2009-10-07, Issue 451
cc C A MinicSpecific home and host-country policies, cheap land, the lack of a legal infrastructure, investment opportunities and the promise of quick profit returns are the driving factors behind land acquisitions throughout Africa, argues Nikolaj Nielsen in this week's Pambazuka News.
Vote for Pambazuka News
Pambazuka News Editors
2008-08-17, Issue 393
For three years running, with your help, Pambazuka News was voted one of the top 10 who are changing the world of Internet and politics. Pambazuka News has once again been shortlisted amongst the top 25 – and once again the only Africa-related websit...
Obama and US foreign policy
Carina Ray
2008-08-11, Issue 393
Let me begin by making a few disclaimers. First, I am a registered Democrat (for lack of a better alternative). Second, I support Barack Obama's candidacy for the presidency. Third, I believe that he will pursue a more enlightened foreign policy towards Africa than George Bush has and more importantly than John McCain would....
Obama and the continent of Africa
Achille Mbembe
2008-08-11, Issue 393
Barack Obama might become the next United States president. Because of his African roots, this possibility has been met with euphoria and enthusiasm in the continent. In some instances, African expectations are the expression of racial pride. In others, they are simply irrational, unrealistic and misguided....
Third world prospects in an Obama presidency
Steve Sharra
2008-08-11, Issue 393
The exclamatory commentary that has accompanied Barack Obama’s ascendancy to the presumed nomination of the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate has excited, beneath it, the question of what the nomination itself, and a possible Obama presidency, might mean for the Pan-Africanist world as well as the Third World. While much of the commentary has been laudatory, there have also been cautionary tones, not to mention ambivalent ones. Beyond the excitement, caution and ambivalence of what a possible Obama presidency might entail for Pan-Africa and the Third World, what Obama himself has said in his writing, and has not said, might prove to be revelatory in attempting to explore the discussion that has exercised many minds around the world. We take this exploration by examining some of the issues that have been raised by editorialists and columnists, bloggers and other commentators in Africa and beyond. We also delve into what Obama himself has said in his two best-belling books, as we ponder how the significance of a possible Obama presidency may be realized more in the symbolic transformation of perceptions of race, racism and racial identity in the US and in the world, than in what the office of the US presidency itself is capable or incapable of achieving.
The bear and the dragon
Stephen Marks
2008-06-17, Issue 381
In Africa the "Russian state seems far more ‘upfront’ about pursuing its grand geopolitical projects than the more cautious and patient Chinese. Russia’s private sector too is prepared on occasion to operate with an unashamed directness where others might be more diplomatic." While all eyes are on China's growing influence in Africa, Stephen Marks argues that Russia's bear is quitely intensifying its hug.
African Liberation Day: the people must prevail
Horace Campbell
2008-05-22, Issue 374
In this essay, Horace Campbell looks at the importance of Africa Liberation Day, its changing relevances as Africans are betrayed by the architects of first independence and how, through struggle, we can reclaim and fulfill its promise.
Challenges of democratic transition in Africa
Femi Falana
2008-05-15, Issue 371
The challenges confronting Africa's democratic experiments are many and complex and include entrenching constitutionalism and the reconstruction of the postcolonial state, writes Femi Falana. To move Africa forward, emerging democratic governments would have to confront a legacy of poverty, illiteracy, militarization, and underdevelopment produced by incompetent or corrupt governments.
India takes on China in Africa
Paranjoy Guha Thakurta
2008-04-08, Issue 360
In the March 27th, 2008 Pambazuka issue, Firoze Manji argued that in comparison to Europe and the US, China in Africa is still a small player and that while keeping an eye out on China, Africans should not be distracted from paying attention to the West's continued
China still a small player in Africa
Firoze Manji
2008-03-27, Issue 357
Firoze Manji argues that in comparison to Europe and the US, China in Africa is still a small player. While keeping an eye out on China, Africans should not be distracted from paying attention to the West's continued exploitation of the continent including the use of military might to protect its economic interests.
What does China think?
Stephen Marks
2008-03-26, Issue 357
Stephen Marks argues in this extended review of recent publications about China that there are few other important global players whose affairs are so exclusively analysed on the basis of ignorance and stereotype. There is little understanding outside China about the differences of perspectives of Chinese intellectuals - they are far from being a homogeneous group.
Pitfalls of export processing zones
Herbert Jauch
2008-03-26, Issue 357
Under AGOA, Ramatex Textile & Garment Factory, a Malaysian company moved to Namibia. Herbert Jauch looks at the cost of allowing companies to operate without government regulation, tax exemption and government sanctioned suspension of worker rights in Export Processing Zones.
Fu Manchu versus Dr Livingstone in the Dark Continent?
How British broadsheet newspapers represent China, Africa and the West
Emma Mawdsley
2008-01-22, Issue 338
Emma Mawdsley examines the coverage of China's growing influence in Africa by the British print media
The routes and possibilities of a South - South subversive globalization: Africa and Brazil
Jacques Depelchin
2007-12-11, Issue 332
Jacques Depelchin reflects on the growing economic, political and cultural relationship between Brazil and the Africa and urges for a solidarity from below that is cognizant of black revolutionary history.
Afro-Venezuelans: An open letter to the Venezuelan National Assembly
Jesús "Chucho" García
2007-12-11, Issue 332
Jesús "Chucho" García calls for a greater recognition of Afro-Venezuelans in the country's constitution.
Making the protocol effective at family level
Morissanda Kouyaté
2007-11-21, Issue 329
It is two years since the Protocol came into force. Time has come for it to become a reality at the level of the family argues Morissanda Kouyate.
Making the AU protocol a continental agenda: SOAWR's experience
Caroline Muthoni Muriithi
2007-11-21, Issue 329
As we approach the 2nd anniversary of the coming into force of the Protocol,Caroline Muthoni Muriithi takes us on a retrospective of the continental successes that SOAWR has achieved so far.
The challenges of ratification: Highs and lows of gender activism
Marren Akatsa-Bukachi
2007-11-21, Issue 329
On the second anniversary of the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women in Africa, Marren Akatsa-Bukachi reflects on the challenges faced in the past year.
The 'lost protocol' in Uganda: tears, struggles and hope
Solome Nakaweesi-Kimbugwe
2007-11-21, Issue 329
Today, as many across the continent celebrate the 2nd Anniversary of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, the women’s movement in Uganda is struggling to ‘find the protocol’, says Solome Nakaweesi-Kimbugwe
Refugees and displaced people in Africa
An interview with the special rapporteur on refugees and displaced persons in Africa
2007-11-13, Issue 328
Bahame Tom Mukirya Nyanduga, commissioner responsible for upholding the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ rights talks to Hakima Abbas about Africa’s commitment to protecting refugees and his belief that democratic states that tolerate diversity do not experience the conflict that generates the displacement of their citizens.
Regional protection of child rights in Africa
Mireille Affa’a Mindzie
2007-11-13, Issue 328
The African Union has established institutions and laws for safeguarding the rights of children in Africa, but African governments have yet to prove their commitment to doing more than multiplying these legal mechanisms, writes Mireille Affa’a Mindzie.
The Mo Ibrahim Prize: Robbing Peter to pay Paul
Issa G Shivji
2007-11-01, Issue 326
“Mo Ibrahim’s prize for a retired African president which was awarded to Joachim Chissano of Mozambique was in my view an insult to the African people.” Issa Shivji raises a number of questions around the award such as how and what is “good governance” and why is it only applied to Africa? And most importantly “for which and whose democracy they are getting a prize”.