Writing

Essays

Thinking in public about African markets, investment climate, and what actually moves reform from paper to practice.

  1. Trade & Markets

    The Preference That Was Already There

    Of the 9,670 tariff lines carrying AGOA's symbol, 8,978 also carry the symbol for the Generalized System of Preferences. Outside apparel, what AGOA added was security of access rather than access. Then GSP expired on the last day of 2020 and never came back, and AGOA's legal reach grew close to fourfold overnight, with not a word of AGOA amended and no trade strategy anywhere revised, ours included.

  2. Trade & Markets

    The Requirement

    South Africa's component industry was built behind a local-content requirement that ran from 1961 to 1995. The democratic government abolished it in its second year and replaced it with export credits. For the past decade the share of the vehicle made here has sat at about two fifths. AGOA arrived five years after the rule ended and supplied one market among several, which is why losing 65% of American sales in 2025 did not close the plants.

  3. Trade & Markets

    Right About the Wrong Sector

    The standard account of why AGOA underdelivered says the preference was there and African firms could not reach it. Against the duty American customs actually collected, it holds for most of the schedule and fails for apparel, in the six economies of thirty-two that have an apparel industry. Those six carried about two thirds of the value, and the assistance was aimed at the lines where the value wasn't.

  4. Trade & Markets

    What AGOA Is Actually Worth

    The argument is all about how long AGOA lasts. I wanted to know what it is actually worth, so I worked it out line by line. The median margin comes to 4.4%, and on 37.3% of lines it is worth nothing at all.

  5. Trade & Markets

    SADC at a Crossroads: What Seed Trade Harmonisation Teaches Us About Regional Integration

    Getting a seed variety across a Southern African border still takes longer than it should. The reasons why are a quiet lesson in what regional integration actually requires.

  6. Agriculture & CSA

    Zambia's Agricultural Paradox and the Case for Climate-Smart Agriculture

    Agriculture employs more than half of Zambia's workforce but contributes about 4% of GDP. Why that gap matters, and why it makes the case for climate-smart agriculture a national economic one.

  7. Investment Climate

    The Invisible Barriers: Why Investment Climate Reform Is Still the Hardest Work in Development

    Why investment climate reform is still the hardest work in development. The visible barriers are easy to name; the invisible ones, the informal rules and institutional habits that persist after the law changes, are the real reason reform underdelivers.

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