How is money being spent in Kenyan elections? BBC Africa

Kenyan politi­cians are using mil­lions of dol­lars to fight for polit­i­cal seats in the 2022 gen­er­al elec­tion. Attempts by the elec­toral body to cap cam­paign financ­ing and con­tri­bu­tions were thwart­ed by the nation­al assem­bly in 2021. How are politi­cians spend­ing the mon­ey? What are impli­ca­tions for the coun­try’s democ­ra­cy? BBC Africa’s Ash­ley Ogon­da explains. Pro­duced by…

Kenya election: TikTok and disinformation — BBC Africa

Tik­Tok is one of the most pop­u­lar social media plat­forms among young vot­ers but its role in Kenya’s heat­ed pres­i­den­tial race is going rel­a­tive­ly unscru­ti­nised. BBC Monitoring’s Bev­er­ly Ochieng takes a look at how it works in the polit­i­cal back-and-forth between the lead­ing pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates. Cam­era: Antho­ny Irun­gu Edit­ing: Suni­ti Singh Video pro­duced by BBC Monitoring…

New tools for easing cross-border trade in Africa

Mike Ogbalu, CEO of the Pan-African Pay­ment Set­tle­ment Sys­tem (PAPSS) at the African Export-Import Bank, dis­cuss­es PAPSS, a cross bor­der, finan­cial mar­ket infra­struc­ture enabling pay­ment trans­ac­tions across Africa. Relat­ed Con­tent Fore­sight Africa pod­cast is part of the Brook­ings Pod­cast Net­work. Sub­scribe and lis­ten on Apple, Spo­ti­fy, and wher­ev­er you lis­ten to pod­casts. Send feed­back email to podcasts@brookings.edu, and…

Kenya’s Supreme Court Rejects President’s Plan to Amend Constitution

Civ­il soci­ety groups had crit­i­cized the pro­pos­al as an attempt to expand pres­i­den­tial pow­er and strength­en the elite’s grip on nation­al pol­i­tics. NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenya’s top court on Thurs­day quashed an ini­tia­tive by the pres­i­dent to amend the Con­sti­tu­tion, deal­ing a major blow to a plan that could have cement­ed his abil­i­ty to shape the…

Headlines Tag Late Tanzanian Hero John Magufuli with Covid-19 Stigma

The news head­lines fol­low­ing the pass­ing of Tan­zan­ian leader John Magu­fuli paint him in a neg­a­tive light. This is not fair.  Magu­fuli became pres­i­dent in 2015 and won reelec­tion to a sec­ond term fol­low­ing the Octo­ber 2020 gen­er­al elec­tions. Tan­za­nia is often hailed as one of the African continent’s most demo­c­ra­t­ic, polit­i­cal­ly sta­ble, and pros­per­ous African nations.…