This is from the China-Africa Project: In purely economic terms, China matters a LOT to Africa but Africa is effectively meaningless to China. Last year, China did more than $4.14 trillion in to...
https://kenopalo.com/2020/01/19/africa-china-fact-of-the-month/
This is from The Economist: Government revenues average about 17% of GDP in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the IMF. Nigeria has more than 300 times as many people as Luxembourg, but collects le...
https://kenopalo.com/2020/01/09/fiscal-capacity-in-african-states/
This is from the South China Morning Post: The number of students globally joining Chinese universities surged sixfold in the 15 years to 2018, rising from 77,715 in 2003 to 492,185 last year, ac...
https://kenopalo.com/2019/09/28/africa-china-fact-of-the-day/
Low-income states struggle to collect taxes. And with low fiscal capacity comes the inability to spend any money on vital public goods and services. Take Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy. The ...
https://kenopalo.com/2019/07/30/the-future-of-tax-administration/
This summary of Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari ‘s cabinet picks says it all: With an extra five members, stuffed with party loyalists and an average age of 60, President Muhammadu Buha...
This is an old piece that is nonetheless fascinating: Large-scale Nigerian migration to China began in the aftermath of the 1980s Deng Xiaoping reforms, which opened China to the international co...
https://kenopalo.com/2019/06/24/nigerians-of-guangzhou-institutional-adaptation-in-a-foreign-land/
Apparently, 20 years. Here’s evidence from Brazil: ….. Salgado was to take over his family’s sprawling cattle ranch in Minas Gerais—a region he remembered as a lush and lively rainforest....
https://kenopalo.com/2019/05/30/how-quickly-can-you-regrow-a-forest/
This is from Quartz: Jumia, the largest e-commerce operator in Africa, has today (April 12th) launched its landmark initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange. The IPO marks a p...
China just finished a 150 million Yuan four-year project to build Burundi a new presidential palace in Bunjumbura. This is but one of many installments of China’s ongoing influences on civic a...
https://kenopalo.com/2019/02/19/china-civic-architecture-in-africa/
This is Pilling in the FT: As a rule, I don’t get worked up over oil refineries. But the one gradually taking form on 2,500 hectares of swampland outside Lagos, Nigeria’s Mad Max commercial c...
https://kenopalo.com/2018/07/11/aliko-dangote-lunches-with-the-ft/