Podcast
Apr 16, 2025
Episode #32 Ken Opalo: Why Growth Must Be at the Center of Africa’s Future
Dr. Ken Opalo is a Fellow at the Energy for Growth Hub and an Associate Professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is also a non-resident fellow at the Center for Global Development, a research fellow in the Department of Economics at Stellenbosch University, and a strategic advisor at the African Future Policies Hub.
His research interests include the political economy of development, climate and energy politics, legislative institutions in Africa, the politics of state building, and the politics of education policy. Ken’s award-winning first book, Legislative Development in Africa: Politics and Postcolonial Legacies (Cambridge University Press, 2019) explains how historical origins continue to shape legislative forms, practices, and outcomes in contemporary African states. He is currently working on two books titled Governing for Growth: Making Politics Work for Development in Africa and Educating Loyal Citizens and Workers: The Political Economy of Education Policy in Tanzania Since 1961. Ken has published papers in the British Journal of Political Science, Democratization, Journal of Democracy, the Journal of Legislative Studies, World Development, the Journal of Eastern African Studies, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, the Journal of Historical Political Economy, among others.
Ken is a regular columnist for Kenya’s Standard Newspaper, and has published in Foreign Affairs, Bloomberg Opinion, Africa Business Magazine, and Foreign Policy. Ken also blogs on Substack (An Africanist Perspective) at https://www.africanistperspective.com/.