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Matatu politics in Nairobi
Image via CNN I just wrote a piece for African Arguments about Nairobi’s recent downtown matatu ban. Click on over to read the whole thing! At the start of this month, Nairobi County governor Mike...
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Nanjala Nyabola on the political power of archives
Last week I attended the Nairobi launch of Nanjala Nyabola‘s new book Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics. It was one of the best public events I’ve attended since I moved to Kenya. I could have...
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Highlights from Africa Science Week Kenya
The Mawazo Institute recently co-sponsored Africa Science Week Kenya, along with the Next Einstein Forum, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, and L’Oreal-UNESCO for Women in Science. This was all due...
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What I’m reading for December 2018
Cross-posted from my Africa Update newsletter. We’ve got positive masculinity in Mali, the triple-taxed business owners of Somalia, a bridge on the River Congo, the perils of not participating in the...
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The 25 best longform articles of 2018
My year in Pocket Continuing my tradition from 2016 and 2017, here are the 25 best articles I read last year, in no particular order. I share lots of snippets from the interesting things I read at...
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Learn Nairobi Swahili with Swahii
I’ve recently started polishing up my Swahili with an online course called Swahii. It focuses on practical aspects of communicating in Swahili as it’s spoken in Nairobi, which is different in many...
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Here are some recent papers which I’m looking forward to reading. They include updates on the DRC, the political economy of social protection programs in Kenya, taxation in Zambia, and bureaucracy in...
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Legal aid for prisoners in Kenya and Uganda
Morris Kaberia celebrates after being released from prison (via Face2Face Africa) Face2Face Africa recently published an interesting profile of the African Prisons Project, which provides legal aid to...
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The carbon benefits of living in Nairobi
I recently bought my TerraPass carbon offsets for the year. As I completed my individual carbon footprint estimate, I was struck at both how much lower my total footprint was compared to the US...
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Africa Update for January 2019
Here’s my latest link round-up from Africa Update. We’ve got Angolan goat delivery apps, contraception compromises in Rwanda, a deep dive on the Congolese election, postdocs for African physicists,...
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Holding police accountable for extrajudicial killings in Kenya
Photo via The Daily Nation The Associated Press recently ran a good article on the Social Justice Centres Working Group, an association of neighborhood-based social justice centers across Nairobi....
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Africa Update for February 2019
Here’s my latest link roundup, crossposted as usual from Africa Update. We’ve got Sudanese clones of Nigerian politicians, books on ancient West African empires, the hidden toilet taxes of Tanzania,...
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Kilifi photos
Tom and I recently spent a lovely weekend in Kilifi, just outside Mombasa on the Kenyan coast. Here are some favorite photos. As always, more photos are available on Instagram and Flickr. Boarding...
View ArticleInteresting academic articles for February 2019
Here are some recent papers which I’m looking forward to reading! Daron Acemoglu, Suresh Naidu, Pascual Restrepo, and James A. Robinson. 2019. “Democracy Does Cause Growth.” Journal of Political...
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Maji ni haki: access to water in poor neighborhoods in Nairobi
If you’re based in Nairobi and interested in human rights advocacy, don’t miss the launch next week of a new report on access to water in Mathare and surrounding neighborhoods. The team at Mathare...
View ArticleInteresting academic articles for March 2019
Here are some recent papers which I’m looking forward to reading! Justin Esarey and Leslie Schwindt-Bayer. 2019. “Estimating Causal Relationships Between Women’s Representation in Government and...
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What do we know about air quality in Nairobi?
Packed streets at rush hour in downtown Nairobi (via the New York Times) I went down a bit of a rabbit hole on Nairobi air quality the other weekend, after I went for a long bike ride, and ended up...
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Nairobi photos
Here are a few recent favorites from around Nairobi. As always, more photos are available on Instagram and Flickr. Hiking through the fields in Ukambani Attending an exhibition at Mukuru Art Club...
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Africa Update for April 2019
Here’s my latest edition of Africa Update. We’ve got the extremely loud churches of Accra, the CAR’s only mental health clinic, the 154 perks enjoyed by Kenyan civil servants, Zambia’s first school...
View ArticleInteresting academic articles for May 2019
Here’s what I’m looking forward to reading this month! Jürgen René Blum, Marcos Ferreiro-Rodriguez, and Vivek Srivastava. 2019. Paths between Peace and Public Service: A Comparative Analysis of Public...
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