Leaves of language

I’m now, for a short time, the editor of Research Africa.

Research Africa covers the research environment — policy, funding, infrastructure, training — across the continent. Much of it, I fear, is at present crashingly dull: notices of conferences, scholarships and funding opportunities, lightened (if that is the word) by a heady mixture of endless announcements by aid organisations, governments and other earnest twiddlers of the knobs of continental development. These announcements are rarely if ever accompanied by statements of past achievements or measurable targets, and so far my efforts to discover just how much is achieved, and when, and where, are proving frustrating.

I have gained new insight into just how much aid and development is designed without consulting Africans, how much those running these organisations like to patronise Africans, and how self-interested much of this purported benevolence really is.

But the attempt to uncover these things, at least, is enjoyable.

My contract with Research Africa ends on 20 July.