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. 
economic
The political economy of ethnic identities in Kenya
Part 1: Tribalism as shorthand for political problems
Onyango Oloo
2008-09-10, Issue 395
The question of ethnic identities in Kenya is intricately tied up with the country's politics and influences to a greater or lesser degree the class cleavages in ways which often defy orthodox analyses from the right or the left. ...
Steve Biko's paradise lost
Andile Mngxitama, Amanda Alexander and Nigel C Gibson
2008-09-10, Issue 395
The following is taken from the introduction to Biko Lives! Contesting the Legacies of Steve Biko is edited by Andile Mngxitama, Amanda Alexander and Nigel C Gibson and published by Palgrave Macmillan....
Censorship in Nigeria
Interview with Hausa novelist Sa’adatu Baba
Amina Koki Gizo
2008-09-10, Issue 395
While formal publishing companies in Nigeria languished through the economic crises that accompanied the structural adjustment programmes of the late 1980s and early 1990s, young Hausa writers began writing about their lives and contemporary problems they faced. Bypassing formal publishers, they self-published their novels, often with the help of a writers' cooperative....
Aid effectiveness: the question of mutual accountability
Charles Mutasa
2008-09-03, Issue 394
The issue of development cooperation especially aid can be traced back to the United Nations resolution 2626 of 1970 on the international development strategy for the second United Nations development decade where rich countries pledged to give 0.7% ...
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....
World’s workshop becomes world’s strike capital
Stephen Marks
2008-07-30, Issue 391
Apparently, January 1 2008 saw a breakthrough in Chinese workers’ rights, and a flight of employers to other lands where labour is cheaper and less protected. At least that is what must have happened if the rosiest [or most alarmist] interpretations of China’s new labour law, which came into force on that date, are to be believed....
Africa’s Unnatural Disaster
Sameer Dossani
2008-07-23, Issue 390
While the mainstream media doesn’t always ignore the pressing issue of hunger in Africa, it rarely explores the root causes of this problem. Behind most news on the issue, there’s an assumption that casts hunger as a natural result of unfortunate weather conditions, coupled with bureaucratic inefficiency and bad economic planning.
Lost in the Horn
Stephen Marks
2008-07-09, Issue 390
Human security should come first in seeking conflict resolution in the Horn of Africa. Favour should be shown to partners that protect their people - whether they are state or non-state actors - and not just to those who claim to protect western interests. And all states in the region should be required to conform to “the normal conventions of international conduct.” These are the main conclusions of a new Chatham House report by Sally Healey in ‘Lost Opportunities in the Horn of Africa: How Conflicts Connect and Peace Agreements Unravel.’ The conclusions, despite their diplomatic wording, amount to a clear criticism of outside and especially Western policy in the region. But the underlying analysis provides a valuable conceptual tool-kit for challenging the concepts used more widely for understanding conflict.
A luta continua!
Ruth Castel-Branco
2008-07-16, Issue 389
February 11th 1990—for me, an unforgettable day. I was 7 years old; he had been in prison for 27 years. Sunday morning was just getting started when the phone rang and after a brief conversation, my mother turned around to inform us that Nelson Mandela had been freed. I can remember wondering if I’d heard right. Nelson Mandela? The Nelson Mandela whose face, adorned with the ANC colors, was glued onto one of our empty kitchen cupboards? The ANC leader who had been in jail for more years that my imagination could grasp?...
Zimbabwe: Memo to African Leaders
African civil societies
2008-06-23, Issue 383
Although SADC must be commended for its attempts so far to resolve the crisis in Zimbabwe, its effort has not been repaid. The ruling party is effectively refusing to subject itself to a democratic contest, and waging a violent conflict against its citizens, aggravating a humanitarian crisis. As such it has lost legitimacy, triggering a necessary shift in Africa’s stance. Under the Constitutive Act of the African Union, member states are enjoined to “promote and protect human and peoples’ rights in accordance with the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights” and the African Union has an obligation “to intervene in a Member State pursuant to a decision of the Assembly in respect of grave circumstances, namely war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.” There is extensive documentation in Zimbabwe today of torture and killing of named individuals by agents of the ruling party and government who have been described and/or identified. African Union engagement, particularly by the Peace and Security Council, is fully mandated by conditions on the ground and is urgently needed.
Zimbabwe: Stop the run-off
Feminist Political Education Project
2008-06-18, Issue 382
The Feminist Political Education Project (FePEP) calls upon all political leaders to stop the 27th of June 2008 Presidential election run-off.
Egypt’s never-ending state of emergency
2008-06-17, Issue 381
“When the Egyptian people speak out against poverty and an inert government, human rights abuses follow.” Mustafa Adam-Noble looks at the various ways that suppression in Egypt is growing.
The politics of fear and the fear of politics
Michael Neocosmos
2008-06-12, Issue 380
Reflecting on the causes of the recent xenophobic pogroms in the country, it is striking how most commentators have stressed poverty and deprivation as the underlying causes of the events, writes Michael Neocosmos. Yet it requires little effort to see that economic factors, however real, cannot possibly account for why it was those deemed to be non-South Africans who bore the brunt of the vicious attacks. Poverty can be and has historically been the foundation for the whole range of political ideologies, from communism to fascism and anything in between. In actual fact, poverty can only account for the powerlessness, frustration and desperation of the perpetrators, but not for their target. After all why were not Whites or the rich or for that matter White foreigners in South Africa targeted instead? Of course it is a common occurrence that the powerless regularly take out their frustrations on the weakest: women, children, the elderly... and outsiders. Yet this will not suffice as an explanation.
Barack Obama and the New Afrikan “National Question”
Kali Akuno
2008-06-12, Issue 380
Kali Akuno looks at the limits and contradictions of Obama and argues that the progressives have to use a "combined “outside-inside” strategy that seeks to advance a coherent set of principle demands and push him and the forces he has mobilized sharply to the left.
Burundi: Access to water is a human right
Concilie Gahungere
2008-06-10, Issue 379
If women had control over water as resource "they would be better placed to manage its use, especially in agriculture, which is the principal economic activity in Burundi, and is controlled by women." Concilie Gahungere looks at access to water in relation to gender using Burundi as a case study.
Time Mbeki should step down
William Gumede
2008-06-05, Issue 378
The South African state is imploding in front of our eyes. Although there is not a moment to spare, we can still avoid the coming crash, if we act quickly enough, writes William Gumede. This is a nothing but national emergency, which calls for extraordinary steps. Parliament must be dissolved. Next year’s general election must be brought forward to give government a new mandate. Mbeki must step down as president immediately. The ANC must call a special national conference to make the leadership decision, rather than wait for the provincial conferences to be completed by spring or for a list conference thereafter.
Libya and nuclear energy
Mustafa Adam-Noble
2008-05-27, Issue 375
Libya is getting the backing of Ukraine to build nuclear reactors. Mustafa Adam-Noble looks at the implications of an oil-rich country going nuclear and the possible impact on Libyan people.
Central African Republic and France’s long hand
Vincent Munié
2008-05-27, Issue 375
Vincent Munié looks at France's strategies and machinations in the Central African Republic.
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.
South Africa is all of us
Mukoma Wa Ngugi and Firoze Manji
2008-05-22, Issue 373
The mythologies we have constructed around us are imploding, write Mukoma Wa Ngugi and Firoze Manji looking at the background to the explosion of xenophobia in South Africa. The situation is the culmination of policies that have made the rich richer, and the poor poorer. But "the ruling elite is not South Africa. There are many within South Africa who are in solidarity with those under attack, and are opposed to the conditions that feed xenophobia."
Stop the xenophobia and hate!
Dale T. McKinley
2008-05-22, Issue 373
The Social Movements Indaba (SMI) – a co-ordinating national body of social movements, civil society and activist organizations – is organizing with its affiliated organizations and immigrant communities to roll back the groundswell of xenophobia.
Condemn the violence!
Abdon Yezi
2008-05-22, Issue 373
Southern African film makers implore Southern Africa "governments, politicians and citizens to rise and send an unequivocal message to South Africa condemning these acts of violence."
Zimbabwe in context
Grace Kwinjeh
2008-05-19, Issue 372
Arguing that Mugabe has been "talking left" while "walking right" Grace Kwinjeh analyses Zimbabwe through regional, African and global capitalism. The post election crisis in Zimbabwe and the SADC region is a manifestation of much deeper, complex issues to do with global capitalism and its vampire-like tendencies
More financial and technical cooperation for development!
AFRODAD
2008-05-04, Issue 372
Civil society organisations call upon the membership of the United Nations to encourage the building of development partnerships that increase the volume and maximize the poverty reduction impact of the Overseas Development Assistance (ODA).
Human rights crisis in Nigeria
Jegede Ademola Oluborode
2008-04-03, Issue 369
Jegede Ademola Oluborode looks at various marginalized groups in relation to human rights in Nigeria>
Mbeki’s AIDS denial – Grace or folly? Part V
William Gumede
2008-04-22, Issue 369
Pambazuka News brings you the last part of William Gumede's chapter on Mbeki and the controversies surrounding his AIDS policies. This is from his book 'Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC'.
Zimbabwe: I refuse to be silent
Maxwell V Madzikanga
2008-05-04, Issue 368
In this plea, Maxwell V Madzikanga argues that Zimbabwe belongs to the many 'courageous daughters and sons of Zimbabwe who in their prime paid the ultimate price in the inaugural Chinhoyi battle, in Tanzania, Nyadzonya, Chimoio and Tembwe, and across the breadth of Zimbabwe during the war for liberation.'
AIDS and Spain's contradictions in Equatorial Guinea
Agustín Velloso
2008-05-05, Issue 368
As the people of Equatorial Guinea continue to die from AIDS and other diseases, Agustin Velloso highlights the fact that the elite in power receive their medical care abroad. Spain, one of the country's more important trading partners, turns a blind eye to Equatorial Guinea's corrupt health-care industry.
The complexities of Zimbabwe
Chido Makunike
2008-05-01, Issue 367
Chido Makunike looks at the various competing interests in Zimbabwe, the MDC, ZANU PF, Mugabe and the West in relation to what the Zimbabwean are hoping to get out of democracy. A month after Zimbabwe’s March 29 elections, the winner of the presidential poll remains unknown.
Church leaders condemn state violence in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe Church Leaders
2008-04-24, Issue 365
As the shepherds of the people, we, Church leaders of the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe (EFZ), the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference (ZCBC) and the Zimbabwe Council of Churches (ZCC), express our deep concern over the deteriorating political, security, economic and human rights situation in Zimbabwe following the March 29, 2008 national elections