The Distance Between Harare and Juba
What one African capital teaches you about another, and the danger of the phrase we are all the same.
Christopher Nyamandi
Ideas on Africa, liberty, leadership, business, travel and the future.
I am a Zimbabwean who has spent most of his working life leading humanitarian and development organisations across the continent, and most of his private life reading, arguing and taking notes. This is where I put the notes.
Featured essays
All essays →Zimbabwe Does Not Need Saving At ALL
On rescue narratives, the quiet competence of ordinary Zimbabweans, and why the most useful thing an outsider can do is ask a better question.
The Machine Reads Shona Now
On language, machine translation, and who gets to decide what a proverb means.
Projects
All projects →SIMBA
Infrastructure for African enterprise, built on the assumption that the talent is already here.
Read the project →The next one
The section is built for expansion. Each project gets its own page: problem, idea, vision, model, progress and what happens next.
About
More about Chris →Zimbabwean. Reader.
Occasionally useful.
I grew up in Zimbabwe, was educated in [place], and have spent [X] years leading organisations through some of the harder situations the continent has produced. I have lived and worked in [countries]. I am interested in why some places flourish and others do not, and increasingly convinced the answer has less to do with resources than with rules.
Portrait — [location, year]
Portrait slot
Newsletter
Occasional notes from Chris
New essays when they are finished, plus the odd thing I have read that I cannot stop thinking about. Roughly monthly. Never more.
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