East Africa Archive

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the impact of corruption and various countries’ efforts to combat it. Last month, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta called corruption a national security threat and announced a series of measures to help in the fight against corruption. In an email interview, Samuel Kimeu, the executive director of Transparency International-Kenya, discussed corruption in Kenya. WPR: How big of an issue is corruption politically in Kenya, and what are the obstacles to reform? Samuel Kimeu: Corruption is a big issue in Kenya for the general public, government and the private sector. […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the impact of corruption and various countries’ efforts to combat it. Earlier this month, Tanzanian President John Magufuli fired the head of the ports authority along with several high-ranking officials in the Transport Ministry for their alleged corruption. In an email interview, Semkae Kilonzo, the coordinator at Policy Forum, a network of nongovernmental policy organizations in Tanzania, discussed the country’s fight against corruption. WPR: How big of a problem is corruption in Tanzania, and in what areas—including which levels of government—is its impact most felt? Semkae Kilonzo: Corruption, […]

Last month, clashes between the Congolese army, backed by U.N. peacekeepers, and the Islamist Ugandan rebel group the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) left at least 30 dead in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In an email interview, Daniel Fahey, a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, discussed the ADF and its role in the DRC. WPR: What is the current size and geographic reach of the ADF, and what are the group’s objectives and grievances? Daniel Fahey: The estimates of the ADF’s size in late 2015 range from 100 to 250 combatants. The ADF’s footprint […]

Across Africa, there is renewed interest in strengthening infrastructure. In November, the African Development Bank held its “first-ever Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa Week” in Abidjan, the economic capital of Cote d’Ivoire. The conference emphasized infrastructure, especially transportation and communications, on the continent. Infrastructure development is important not just to economies, but also to politics. In Africa’s two most populous countries, Nigeria and Ethiopia, the politics of infrastructure look very different, but the stakes are equally high for ruling parties. In Nigeria, questions of infrastructure relate to core dilemmas in Nigerian politics and policy. Since returning to civilian rule […]

Current ambitions to stabilize and reshape fragile states are of very recent origin. Most of the techniques and tactics that are now fashionable were unheard of a decade ago, and virtually none of them predate the end of the Cold War. As author and researcher Graeme Smith has noted, that makes international development and security assistance akin to pre-modern medicine, “when the human body was poorly understood and doctors prescribed bloodletting, or drilled into skulls to treat madness.” Of late, the patients of international intervention have not been doing well. In late 2012, a military coup in Mali made a […]