Thandika Mkandawire: A ‘young’ African economist’s appreciation

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Note on contributor

Dr Grieve Chelwa is a senior lecturer in economics at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Cape Town where he co-directs the MBA Programme. Chelwa has wide-ranging research interests in the broad area of African economic development, including work on education and health.

Notes

1 Thandika’s long and diverse list of publications can be viewed here: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=ecPI09EAAAAJ&hl=en

2 The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) has dedicated a special issue of its Bulletin to Thandika. The tribute essays contained in the Bulletin can be read here: https://mcusercontent.com/cb1b4baf30d12f021ac20ecde/files/171a5524-e505-4bfc-8a2f-145ce119092a/Tribute_to_Thandika_Final.pdf

3 A sequel (Mkandawire & Soludo 2003) contains all the research papers that had been synthesised into Our Continent, Our Future.

4 Funny enough, the Africanist journal African Affairs cajoled Thandika into submitting the lecture for possible publication only for it to be rejected on the incredible basis that he did ‘not understand World Bank literature’ (Murunga 2020, 7).

5 Thandika told me how this essay ran the entire gauntlet of journals collecting rejection letters all the way and finally, and fortunately for posterity, finding a home in World Politics.

6 Titles of papers presented at that symposium can be viewed here: http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/events/events/african-perspectives-global-corruption. Thandika was also in attendance and gave a memorable response to the papers presented.

7 I have taken up aspects of this theme in some of my own work (see Chelwa 2015; 2017; 2020a; 2020b).