Tag: Elections

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Ep82. A conversation with Kako Nubukpo on the franc CFA, development, elections, and more

Welcome back, Ufahamu Africa listeners! Kim and Rachel begin this week’s episode discussing the news, opening up with developments with the franc CFA, some excellent reporting on Ebola in DRC, security in the Sahel, and more. 

This week’s guest is Kako Nubukpo (@kakonubukpo), a Senior Research Fellow at the Agricultural Research Centre of International Development (CIRAD) in Paris and currently a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Nantes. He was formerly a minister in Togo for long-term planning. For this week’s interview, he and Rachel spoke about the franc CFA and what proposed changes (some of which have since their interview come to fore) could mean for West African countries. They also use the occasion of Togo’s upcoming elections to talk about elections, development, and agriculture more broadly. Their conversation was originally recorded in French and this version includes the English translation. Their segment begins at 11:44.

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Ep. 77: A conversation on agriculture and innovation in Africa with YALI Mandela Fellows

This week’s episode opens up with discussion about the recent elections in Botswana and Mozambique, the anti-sanctions protests in Zimbabwe, post-peace prize Ethiopia, and more. 

Co-host Rachel Beatty Riedl moderates this week’s conversation on agriculture and innovation in Africa. Our guests are Kudzai Kutukwa, Kitso Dube, and Andrew Dillon. Kudzai and Kitso were YALI Mandela Fellows at Northwestern University earlier this year, when this conversation was recorded.

Kudzai is the co-founder and CEO of Mobbisurance, which is a startup that develops multi-based crop insurance products and other financial services for small-holder farmers. Kitso currently serves as a loan officer for FBC Holdings, helping communities that are marginalized access financial services in Zimbabwe. Andrew is a development economist, appointed as a Clinical Associate Professor within the Kellogg School of Management’s Public-Private Interface Initiative and a Research Associate Professor in the Global Poverty Research Lab at the Buffett Institute. The panel discussion begins at 12:36.

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Ep. 76: A conversation with Grieve Chelwa on how economics has an Africa problem

We start this week’s newswrap celebrating Kenyan marathoners, highlighting recent arts and culture pieces in OkayAfrica, talking about elections in Mozambique, protests in Guinea, and this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics winners. This week’s guest is economist Grieve Chelwa, a senior lecturer at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business. Prior to his appointment at UCT, Dr. Chelwa was a post-doctoral fellow with Harvard University’s Center for African Studies, the Southern African Institute for Policy and Research, and the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of the Witwatersrand. In addition to his scholarly work, he is a contributing editor to Africa Is A Country. We talk about economics (including what it means to be a development economist), research and collaboration, the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, and more. Our conversation begins at 14:27.

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Bonus: A review of Bleck and van de Walle’s book on electoral politics in Africa

In this bonus recording, hear Ufahamu Africa host Kim Dionne read her review of Electoral Politics in Africa Since 1990, a book by Jaimie Bleck and Nicolas van de Walle. The review was published in this past Friday’s installment of the African Politics Summer Reading Spectacular, and this recording is being shared as part of a collaboration with The Monkey Cage, a blog on politics and political science at The Washington Post.

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Bonus: Laura Seay’s TMC review of Ayisha Osori’s book, “Love Does Not Win Elections”

In this bonus recording, hear Ufahamu Africa host Kim Dionne read Laura Seay’s review of Love Does Not Win Elections, a memoir by Ayisha Osori. The review was published in this past Friday’s installment of the African Politics Summer Reading Spectacular, and this recording is being shared as part of a collaboration with The Monkey Cage, a blog on politics and political science at The Washington Post. 

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Ep. 57: A conversation with Nicholas Kerr about Nigerian elections, citizens’ opinions about election quality, and more

Nigeria’s elections have been postponed, but that didn’t keep us from sharing our insightful conversation with Nicholas Kerr this week. Nicholas is an assistant professor of comparative politics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Florida. We talk about his research on electoral management bodies in Africa and in particular about his research on election management and popular perceptions of election quality in Nigeria. Our conversation begins at 10:06.

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Ep. 56: A conversation with Dr. Anta Sané and Dr. Ndongo Symba Sylla about the Senegalese elections

This week’s episode opens with a conversation about increasing authoritarianism in Tanzania, the shutdown of an independent newspaper’s website in Uganda, fake news ahead of the Nigerian elections, and more. For this week’s conversation, Rachel spoke with Dr. Anta Sané and Dr. Ndongo Samba Sylla about the upcoming elections in Senegal.

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Ep. 54: A conversation with Jaimie Bleck on elections in Africa, music in Mali, and more

This week’s episode begins with conversation about the Congolese elections, Laurent Gbagbo’s acquittal in the International Criminal Court, and political jostling between the president and deputy president in Kenya. Our guest this week is Jaimie Bleck, an Associate Professor of Political Science and Faculty Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. In this week’s episode, we talk about her latest book, written with Nicolas van de Walle, Electoral Politics in Africa Since 1990: Continuity in Change. From her new book, we learn about common trends among African candidates, African voters’ priorities, and the issues candidates campaign on in African elections. She also tells us about an exciting project she worked on with Malian musicians live-scoring a silent film, “The Passion of Joan of Arc” at Notre Dame. Tune in to her segment at 9:09.

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Ep. 52: A conversation with Matthew Page on the upcoming Nigerian elections

This week’s episode begins with discussion over the contested elections and recent result announcement in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and a coup attempt by junior military officers in Gabon.

Our episode features a conversation with Matthew Page (@MatthewTPage), an associate fellow at Chatham House and formerly the U.S. intelligence community’s top Nigeria expert. Along with Ambassador John Campbell (@JohnCampbellcfr), Matthew wrote the new Oxford University Press book, Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know. We chatted with Matthew about their book and about Nigeria’s elections next month. His segment begins at 11:16. 

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Ep. 51: A conversation with Lisa Mueller on protests in Africa

We begin this week’s episode with a conversation about elections slated for 2019, and important developments in the elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We also talk about current protests in Senegal and Sudan, which suits our conversation with this week’s guest, Lisa Mueller, an assistant professor of political science at Macalester College in Saint Paul Minnesota. Lisa is the author of a new book published by Cambridge University Press: Political Protest in Contemporary Africa. Kim spoke with her at the annual meeting of the African Studies Association in Atlanta, Georgia in November 2018. Her segment begins at 8:32.

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Ep. 49: A conversation with Laura Seay on the upcoming DRC elections and “2 minute African Politics”

In this week’s episode we talk about elections in Madagascar, Togo, and especially the Democratic Republic of Congo. Our guest is Laura Seay (@texasinafrica), a political scientist at Colby College and an expert on Congolese politics. She offers some background for our listeners on the delayed elections in Congo that are now scheduled to be held on December 30. Laura also talks about her latest creation, “2 Minute African Politics,” an Instagram feed that covers the main issues and debates she teaches in her African Politics course. Rachel’s conversation with Laura, recorded at the African Studies Association, begins at 8:55.