30 Years of AfricaFocus

From 1995 to 2025

AfricaFocus Notes on Substack offers short comments and links to news, analysis, and progressive advocacy on African and global issues, building on the legacy of over 25 years of publication as an email and web publication archived at http://www.africafocus.org. It is edited by William Minter. Posts are sent out by email once or twice a month. If you are not already a subscriber, you can subscribe for free by clicking on the button below. More frequent short notes are available at https://africafocus.substack.com/notes, and are also available in an RSS feed.

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In April 1994, after South Africa´s first non-racial election and the beginning of the genocide in Rwanda that same month, it was clear that those of us who had campaigned for the end of colonialism and white minority rule in Africa needed to adjust our focus. My book Apartheid´s Contras was published that year by Zed Books in London and Witwatersrand University Press in Johannesburg that same year.

Read online or download a PDF.

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On January 16, 1995, working with the Washington Office on Africa (WOA) and the Africa Policy Information Center (APIC), I began publication of an email newsletter with this:

AFRICA POLICY OUTLOOK 1995

http://africafocus.org/docs95/afpo95.php

The inauguration of South African President Nelson Mandela last year symbolized the hope that Africa may stand on the brink of a new era of peace. With peaceful elections in Mozambique in October 1994 and a fragile but real cease-fire in Angola in November, that vision now seems somewhat closer to reality.

There is no guarantee that the promise will not be shattered by renewed turmoil. And the tasks of reconstruction and of addressing past injustices are enormous. But as 1995 begins, this third of the continent with 128 million people has emerged from more than thirty years of war. Now elected governments and grassroots groups finally can begin confronting only the normal problems of development and inequality.

Elsewhere on the continent, the number of countries engaged in all-out strife is less than in previous years. Still, civil conflicts continue in Sudan, Liberia, Somalia, and as many as ten other countries. Rwanda is still suffering the aftermath of genocide that killed half a million people, and new explosions of violence are feared there or in Burundi or Zaire.

[more]

Little did I know that this would be the first in what added up to be 30 years of online publication of what is now AfricaFocus Notes. The name changed several times, from Africa Policy E-Journal and then to AfricaFocus Bulletin. At the beginning of 2023, I shifted from my homemade email and web publication platform to Substack, making my work easier and allowing more experimentation with publication formats.

The archives for the period 1995 through 2022 can be read here: http://africafocus.org/chr.php

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Summarizing the content in words would be tedious for me and boring for you. So I tried to sum it up in three graphs. You can judge for yourself how this compares with other media sources then available.

AfricaFocus Issues by Country

AfricaFocus Issues by Topic

AfricaFocus Issues by Subtopic

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AfricaFocus Notes

I started publishing on Substack two years ago, and I plan to continue as long as I enjoy doing it and you continue to read it. I am pleased that the number of email subscribers (now 3,115) and total followers, which also includes those who read it on the app as well as by email (now over 3,500) continues to grow.

All the content goes out to both paid and free subscribers and is available both on the home page and in the archive. Please feel free to share with others who you think might find it of interest.

This post is already long enough, so I will save my plans for the coming year for another post later this month. But I can say now that you can expect a bit more of experimentation both in content and in formats. Your feedback is always welcome.

Thanks for subscribing to AfricaFocus Notes.

A Luta Continua!

Bill (William) Minter

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