The Popularity Contest of War

Through bonds, salary contributions and grassroots fundraising, Ethiopians helped finance Africa’s largest hydroelectric power plant. Can their extraordinary experiment in domestic financing offer a blueprint for the rest of the continent?

In South Africa, the influence and popularity of ‘big men’ like Vusumuzi Cat Matlala reveal not only the broken promise of democracy, but a culture that rewards venality and self-advancement. Our heroes may reflect the best of us, but our villains may be a truer mirror.

As Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo prepares to hand power to his son, Teodorín, a gas boom and fears of Chinese expansion are turning Equatorial Guinea’s notorious heir from international pariah into a partner welcomed in Washington and Texas. 

For more than 60 years, African governments have treated colonial borders as untouchable. But as conflict, economic fragmentation and shifting global power expose the limits of that decision, is it time to imagine a different map of Africa?

In N’Djamena, the lives of Chinese residents expose the cracks in Chad’s electricity system, revealing how unreliable power reshapes everyday life and survival.