Knowledge Hub
Commentary and analysis across governance, public policy, development, economy, politics, regional affairs, climate, and the private sector, written by the analysts doing the fieldwork.
A deep dive into the regulatory hurdles and opportunities presented by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and its implications for East African logistics hubs.
Publishing procurement data in machine-readable form costs a fraction of a new audit agency. In three markets we studied, it caught more than the audit agency did.
Central banks keep copying Singapore's sandbox model wholesale. The markets that got real fintech growth out of it changed three specific design choices first.
Most successful pilots never scale, not because the model failed, but because scaling was never designed into it. A field-tested framework for the handoff from pilot to national programme.
Reform windows in coalition governments run shorter than the policies they're meant to protect. What durable reform design looks like when the governing coalition might not survive the next cycle.
Beyond the communiqué language: a corridor-by-corridor breakdown of which cross-border trade routes get faster, which don't, and why the difference comes down to inspection regimes, not tariffs.
Treating climate adaptation as a development grant line item undercounts its return. Reframing seawalls, drought-resistant seed systems, and early-warning networks as investable infrastructure changes who will fund them.
Too big for microfinance, too small and too regional for private equity. Mid-sized firms are the businesses East Africa most needs to grow, and the ones its financial system is least built to serve.
National digital identity programmes keep stalling on enrolment, not technology. The trust deficit driving that stall, and what three governments did to close it.
The bottleneck in East African infrastructure delivery isn't capital: it's the shortage of bankable feasibility studies capital can actually act on.
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