Social spending floors sit in IMF programmes as indicative targets, so they carry no consequence when they break. Across Africa the adjustment lands on unpaid care work.
Last week in Bulawayo, alongside Mine Entra 2026, we sat down with communities living on top of Zimbabwe’s critical minerals. The sessions were coordinated by the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association with support from the Southern Africa Trust. The purpose was to ask the people closest
Last week I wrote about the nurse in Manchester who wires her sister’s school fees to Harare every month. Look closer at what her money buys. School fees. A grandmother’s blood pressure tablets. Crèche fees so a cousin can keep her market stall. The wire
Every month, a nurse in Manchester wires her sister’s school fees to Harare. A driver in Houston sends rent money to his mother in Lagos. A teacher in Johannesburg pays a cousin’s hospital bill in Bulawayo. None of them call this development finance. They call
It has been some months since I last wrote here. One question pulled me back: as the world scrambles for Africa’s critical minerals, who carries the cost, and who captures the value? Africa is setting new terms Something is shifting across the continent. In February
During the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence this year, I found myself returning again and again to conversations with colleagues, friends, and family. Not only in formal spaces, but in WhatsApp voice notes, calls, and quiet moments of shared exhaustion. What stood out
When I entered the High-Level Dialogue on Rethinking Debt Sustainability and Exploring Africa’s Alternative Financing Models on 17 November 2025 in Johannesburg, I felt the pulse of a continent refusing to be defined by its liabilities. Convened by the African Union Commission, AFRODAD, UNDP, UNECA,
Every September, the Zimbabwe Alternative Mining Indaba (ZAMI) brings together a powerful mix of voices: communities from mining areas, civil society organisations, academics, activists, government officials, and, increasingly, private sector players. This year, from the 17th to the 19th, I joined comrades and colleagues who,
This month marks one year since I began my journey at the Southern Africa Trust. When I joined, I was both excited and anxious. I wondered how my “radical” ideas, my curiosity about new ways of working with social movements, and my appetite for risk
I read with interest the article “The End of the Age of NGOs?How Civil Society Lost Its Post–Cold War Power by Professors Sarah Bush and Jennifer Hadden and the critique by Florian Irminger’s provocation “End NGOs: Only Authoritarians Win”. The two write ups, incisive in