Supported by the Heinrich Boell Foundation and coordinated by Nani Croze of Kitengela Glass, the Kenya Arts Diary has become a popular annual art exhibition in Nairobi, Kenya and identified with the Heinrich Boell Foundation. The diary has built a new physical but portable space whose multi-functionality allows local artists to display their craft, advertise their skills, join a regional network, and find belonging. First published in 2011, the Kenya Arts Diary is a catalogue - complete with descriptors - of photography, installations, oils, acrylics, patch-work quilts, wood, cement and scrap metal sculptures, some from “stitched found objects”. The Diary also carries artists’ bios and a directory that provides artists’ contacts and announces the range of collectives and studios where contemporary artists pursue their passions.    

The Hollywood action movie Black Panther captured the imagination of audiences around the globe. In several African countries, it quickly became the highest grossing film of all time. The tale is set in Wakanda, a technologically advanced African kingdom that avoided the shackles of colonialism and slavery by isolating itself behind a guise of poverty and deprivation. Although what it presents as “African”, in terms of narrative and images, is far from uncontested, the film catapulted Afrofuturism – a discipline or aesthetic that enlists science fiction and technology to imagine black identities and futures unconstrained by past and present circumstances – from the avant-garde circles of artists and intellectuals into the mainstream.

The current public debate on African migration to Europe is largely fuelled by visions of boats crossing the Mediterranean Sea, filled with desperate people in search of a better life. The narrative positions Africa as a “continent on the move” whose people are surging into Europe on a seemingly endless tide. Although media images of desperate African refugees fleeing to Europe do portray the daily reality and the often-tragic consequences of the treacherous crossing, the framing conceals more than it reveals. 

Since the third wave of democratisation swept through the continent in the 1990s, the majority of African states have replaced military dictatorships and one-party-dominant systems with more democratic forms of governance. Today, 61 percent of sub-Saharan countries are “free” or “partly free” according to Freedom House’s 2018 survey – although this is down from a high of 71 percent in 2008.

This edition of Perspectives contributes to the ongoing debate on infrastructure development in Africa by sharing snapshots of experience from around the continent, exploring questions about democratic participation, the role of human and environmental rights, and economic transformation.

Informed by the discussions at an international conference jointly organised by the German Development Institute, the Heinrich Böll Foundation and Stanford University on “Emerging Power or Fading Star? South Africa’s Role on the Continent and Beyond”, held 12–14 July 2016 in Cape Town, the articles gathered in this edition of Perspectives shed light on some of the nuances and challenges that define South Africa’s place in the world today.

Activists, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and social movements across the world are facing verbal hostility from politicians, new laws and regulations that curtail their ability to operate, and outright violence. Africa is no exception.

When you write about Africa, make sure to always include sad and starving characters, advises Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainana in his famously ironic essay “How to write about Africa”, which takes aim at Western prejudices. In the same way that everyday laughter has been excluded from all-too-familiar depictions of the continent, African humour and satire as a form of social and political engagement remains underexplored.

For this edition of Perspectives the Heinrich Böll Foundation asked a number of African intellectuals, writers and analysts to provide their take on Africa’s relationship with Europe. The result is a small collection of interviews, short essays and comments that throw light on the complexities and complexes of this relationship, using analysis, imagery, experience, provocation and humour.

With this edition of Perspectives, we give Africa-based commentators and experts from across the continent the opportunity to critically reflect on the “Africa rising” story and the sub-narratives it carries.

Although there continues to be widespread popular support across the African continent for the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its mandate to prosecute high-level individuals accused of perpetrating international crimes, strong anti-ICC sentiments are brewing among parts of Africa’s political elite and state actors.

In this essay, the President of the Heinrich Boell Foundation, Barbara Unmuessig, critically reflects on the opportunities for and the shortcomings of the concept of a "Green Economy" to influence economic policy making globally, its relationship to the paradigm of sustainable development and the need to rethink our understanding and focus on growth.

As the six-year transitional period defined in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement draws to a close, Sudan is sliding into another crisis. The Heinrich Böll Foundation, which has been working both with civil society partners in Sudan and on Sudan-related issues in the German context for several years, has put together this publication in order to reflect on such scenarios.

The large-scale violence that erupted in Kenya after the controversial 27th December 2007 general elections was no single major explosion. Different parts of the country were affected in very different ways. While many parts of Kenya were burning, the Coast Province remained relatively calm, despite the longstanding history of socio-political tension and even violent conflict in this part of the country.

A culture of violence has emerged in the Horn of Africa, based on traditions of origin, a fixation with territory, a feudal vision of the exercise of power and an "absolutist" concept of conflict. "In Quest for a Culture of Peace" proposes a holistic approach in addressing the region's conflicts.

Civil society has become a critical player in African politics. In Kenya, civil society underwent many changes after the transition from KANU to NARC in 2002, and it was severely affected by crisis after the December 2007 elections.

In the Shadow of Death: My Trauma, My Experience is a public testimony of what numerous women went through during the post-election violence that engulfed Kenya immediately after the Electoral Commission of Kenya announced the results of the hotly-contested presidential polls of the December 2007 General Election.

Kenya has embraced a variety of sub-sovereign financing schemes; the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) is only the most well-known among them. Beyond CDF explores innovative ideas about how to employ the CDF and other sub-sovereign financing instruments to provide solutions to the various manifestations of social exclusion, poverty and inequality.

The peaceful transfer of power in Kenya in 2002 still provides a remarkable example of democratic transition in Africa – especially compared to the outbreak of large-scale violence Kenya experienced after the disputed December 2007 general elections.

Today, environmental degradation, social conflict and social strife, poverty, HIV/AIDS, etc. – all of them resulting from or linked to bad governance – have become more of a security concern than the traditional military antagonisms that pitted nations against each other. The main threats to international peace and security are rooted in situations within states rather than between states, and this is especially prevalent in the African context.