Category Archives: Africa
Cash Flow – How Diaspora money is fueling economic growth in Somalia..
Decades of internal strife have left Somalia with collapsed central state institutions, faltering social and economic infrastructure and massive internal and external migration. But at the same time the traditional Somali spirit of entrepreneurship remains strong, and the private sector … Continue reading
Failed states & US policy in the Middle East..
In the May-June 2010 issue of influential magazine Foreign Affairs, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates states wrote: “In the decades to come, the most lethal threats to the United States’ safety and security are likely to emanate from states that … Continue reading
Narrative Construction: “The World’s Worst Humanitarian Crisis”
The media profile of Darfur shot up enormously once the label ‘the world’s worst humanitarian crisis’ was applied, although technically the phrase used was the “world’s greatest humanitarian and human rights catastrophe.” This is commonly standardised to ‘world’s worst…’ In … Continue reading
Somalia and its Pirates..a change of narrative?
Yesterday the Somali Prime Minister, Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmare spoke at length at Chatham House on two key issues facing his country – ‘terrorism’ and ‘piracy’. That one has attracted more media attention than the other has not been lost … Continue reading
Selecting Darfur: From Human Rights Reporting to the Media Narrative
To a considerable extent, crises in far-off lands are defined by foreigners and not by those living through them, which then creates a perceived moral imperative to do something about it. Darfur became Darfur when the West got involved, and … Continue reading
One reason why Somalia must be saved… Now!
By: Orlando Bama In an article titled “Is Somalia the new Afghanistan?” published in the Sunday Times online of 9 August 2009, Jon Swain and Michael Gillard have raised two critical questions about the situation in Somalia: Is Somalia now … Continue reading
“Al Shabaab have betrayed Islam” – an interview with Somalia’s President.
By Else de Temmerman President Sharif Ahmed, a former geography teacher, does not seem overwhelmed by the almost insurmountable task of pacifying Somalia. The soft-spoken moderate leader of the Islamic Courts, who was elected by an enlarged parliament … Continue reading
Uganda’s stakes in peace in Somalia..
“What we are going to do in Somalia is to empower our brothers to rebuild their state.” Words of Uganda’s president Yoweri Museveni, whose country deployed troops to Somalia in response to IGAD’s 2005 call to African countries to contribute … Continue reading
Darfur and compassion fatigue..
Writing in the New York Review of Books recently, Pullitzer winner and Darfur advocate Nicholas Kristof noted that “Darfur fatigue” had set in, and that “the [Save Darfur] movement has lost its steam.” A close analysis of the frequency with … Continue reading
The changing theatre of Strategic Communications
The Albany Associates London conference on strategic communications noted some success in its practice in the 1990s, but a catalogue of failures in the 21st century. Why has the wisdom gleaned from the former not informed the latter? The practice … Continue reading
