Originally written back in March 2008 in the wake of Kenya’s post-election crisis, Bhekinkosi Moyo offers some points of reflection on the apparent ease with which citizens’ rights can be manipulated and abused for political ends. Weighing up the emotional difficulty of being a non-resident parent, Moyo reconsiders some of the negative ideas around the supposed callousness of men willing to leave their families for business trips, and decides that there is perhaps ultimately little difference between absent fathers and those chained to their desks at the office.

In a review of the current state of philanthropy on the African continent, Bhekinkosi Moyo argues that African organisations are becoming progressively more autonomous from northern donors and able to pursue their own agendas. With organisations such as TrustAfrica and the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) taking the lead on independent, local solutions, the challenge remains to take a conscious political step to build the sustainability, independence and autonomy of civil society across the continent.