International Dialogue & African Perspectives

After more than two decades of authoritarian rule under President Yahya Jammeh, the people and opposition parties, with the help of the diaspora and the regional body ECOWAS, leapt into a new era in January 2017 when opposition candidate Adama Barrow was inaugurated as their new president. This interview unpacks how it all became possible and reflects on the democratic gains achieved one year later as well as the challenges ahead.

The 2015 #RhodesMustFall protests – which started at the University of Cape Town – led to nationwide calls for the “decolonisation” of universities and free higher education. Zethu Matebeni gives her perspective.

A deeply divided society, where anger is growing about high income and wealth gaps that continue to run along racial lines, calls Nelson Mandela’s legacy into question. 

Mukoma wa Ngugı sees hope in new, horizontal social movements that may bring to the fore a new iconography that transcends the individual and depoliticised “saviour”. 

Community protocols are not just documents, they’re a process and innovative processes can create new opportunities.

The rural Amadiba community of Xolobeni on South Africa’s picturesque Wild Coast won a rare victory in July when an Australian company gave up its 13-year battle to mine titanium from the dunes that have sustained them for generations.

If some of the most powerful twenty countries in the world are committed to building cooperation with Africa then the best way to do this is allowing Africans to set the agenda and to be at the table as an equal partner.