When Jim Yong Kim took the helm of the World Bank in July, progressives in the development community hailed it as a turning point in the fight against poverty: for once the bank is headed not by a US military boss or a Wall Street executive, but by an actual expert in the field of […]
Jason Hickel
Having spent the first half of his life in Swaziland, Jason earned a doctorate at the University of Virginia and now holds a fellowship at the London School of Economics. His research focuses on development, globalisation and labor, with an emphasis on Southern Africa. He lives in constant fear of being sniffed out for his counter-revolutionary penchant for bourgeois wine and jazz. Follow him on Twitter @jasonhickel.
Posted inBusiness, General, News/Politics
Can South Sudan learn from the Alaska Model?
South Sudan will be celebrating the first anniversary of its independence on July 9. But the day’s revelry will be marred by the fact that the past year has brought none of the peace and prosperity that people hoped it would. With a poverty incidence of 90 percent, literacy rates as low as 24 percent, […]
Posted inBusiness, General, Lifestyle
Occupy Philanthropy: From charity to change
What would an Occupy activist say to a group of 100 millionaires? I was recently asked to speak at the Nexus Global Youth Summit in London, a gathering of the most innovative and influential young millionaires and CEOs in Europe and the Americas. The conference focused on how to make philanthropy and social enterprise work […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
The advent of “democracy” in Egypt
Egypt’s presidential elections this month have been accompanied by the expected media fanfare in Europe and the United States. News outlets are awash with pictures of ink-stained fingers, photographs of people standing in snaking queues to vote through the heat of the day, and headlines hailing the elections as a historic “victory for democracy”. If these representations […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
How to occupy the world
The leading tagline of the Occupy Wall Street movement reads: “Protest for world revolution.” This is an ambitious claim. In most respects it seems to ring quite true: the movement has successfully taken root not only in cities and towns throughout the United States but also in major urban centres around the world. On October […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Sweatshop sugar
When you pour a packet of South African-made sugar into your morning coffee, you can feel good about the fact that the workers who milled, refined, packed, and shipped it are paid relatively decent wages, enjoy basic benefits, and are protected against severe exploitation. In many respects, South African sugar is about as “ethical” as […]
Posted inLifestyle
Rich, white and crazy
The suburban landscape of Pretoria East is dotted with a spattering of rugged, rocky hills that overlook the city bowl, rising up from a plain crisscrossed with strip malls and chain franchises. During a recent trip to the area to visit some friends, I noticed that these little hills have become the sites of affluent […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Why Jeffrey Sachs is wrong about sweatshops
The news that a Romanian sweatshop manufactured one of Kate Middleton’s most famous dresses has inspired renewed popular interest in the ethics and economics of outsourcing jobs to utilise super-cheap labour. This is only the most recent in a string of cases that exemplify the shocking proliferation of sweatshops — even across Europe — over the […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Saving Uganda from its oil
In 2006, Uganda confirmed the presence of enormous commercial petroleum reserves around Lake Albert along the country’s western border. Since then, geologists have proven at least 2 billion barrels. With only about 25% of the region explored, some reports indicate that there could be as much as three times that amount — enough to make Uganda […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The fallacy of ‘freedom’: USAid and neoliberal policy in Egypt
The uprising that began in Egypt on January 25 and concluded more than 18 days later with the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak — a dictator who clung tenaciously to power for 30 years — has been rightfully celebrated as an historic turning point in international politics. But the meaning of the “revolution” remains far […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Trading with the enemy
The last decade has seen a remarkable surge in US economic interest in the continent of Africa. Policymakers who once considered Africa the languid backwater of global economics are now rushing in to stake a claim in the continent’s enormous resource endowment. Most of this effort operates with a rhetoric focused on “partnership” and “development”, […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
The US, African Union and new scramble for Africa
The past few years have seen a dramatic uptick in American diplomatic efforts in Africa, which has coincided with a decisive shift in political rhetoric about the continent. At first glance this might seem like a positive development, reflecting a more progressive attitude toward what has long been considered an unimportant global backwater. But a […]