African Feminism (AF)

The problem with being first is that it can make movement look like progress. The Gambia has become the first African Union member state to ratify the African Union Convention on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (AU CEVAWG), which was adopted in February, 2025. That fact will travel well. It sounds historic. It will sit neatly in speeches, campaign messages, diplomatic...

I knew what the play was going to be about as soon as the first act opened, and two girls ran into the audience, describing an evil that had occurred. They said, “Evil is a man who touches what is not given him. Evil is a man who desecrates.”

This is the thing about having that feminist awakening. You develop a sixth sense and learn to hear all the things that the sile...

The first time I understood that the development sector does not believe what it says about grassroots knowledge, I was in a room in Harare watching a consultant present a financial sustainability framework to a programme officer who had been running one for seven years. The consultant had been commissioned to design what the programme officer had already built. She tried to ...