Learning Africa

Amadou Dieng
  • 5.0 (2)
  • News Commentary

Curious and expansive Learning Africa is a podcast for anyone who wants to understand the continent beyond the headlines. Each episode explores the stories, people, and forces shaping Africa today, from political upheaval and economic transformation to culture, history, and the ideas driving the next generation. Hosted by Amadou Dieng, it's a space to ask honest questions, sit with complexity, and come away knowing Africa a little better than before. 

Episodes

  1. 1d ago

    The UN Resolution on Slavery

    Send us Fan Mail Support the show Enjoyed this one? Got a take? A correction? A story I should know about? Come find me on Instagram @dieng_amadu or @afrovoices and tell me what you think. What landed, what missed, what you want more of.  This show is built around the idea that Africa is not a simple story, and neither are the people listening to it. Your perspective is part of that. Slide into the DMs, leave a comment, or just tag me when you share it. I read everything. See you in the next one.

    15 min

  2. Jun 24

    Abiy Ahmed: Nobel Prize Winner Who Started a War

    Send us Fan Mail In 2019, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed stood in Oslo and accepted the Nobel Peace Prize. He'd ended a twenty-year war with Eritrea, freed thousands of political prisoners, and made his country believe things could be different. Fourteen months later, he launched a civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of his own people. This episode tells that story: the reforms, the Nobel Prize, the election that barely happened, and the Tigray war that the world mostly didn't watch. It asks a harder question too: what does it mean when the most recognizable peace award on earth goes to someone who, not long after, oversaw one of the deadliest conflicts of the twenty-first century? Topics covered: Abiy Ahmed, the Nobel Peace Prize, the TPLF, the Tigray war, the 2021 Ethiopian election, Eritrea, and the question of whose suffering gets covered and whose doesn't. Support the show Enjoyed this one? Got a take? A correction? A story I should know about? Come find me on Instagram @dieng_amadu or @afrovoices and tell me what you think. What landed, what missed, what you want more of.  This show is built around the idea that Africa is not a simple story, and neither are the people listening to it. Your perspective is part of that. Slide into the DMs, leave a comment, or just tag me when you share it. I read everything. See you in the next one.

    18 min

  3. Jun 17

    Juneteenth: The News That Arrived Late

    Send us Fan Mail African Americans and Africans share the most important origin story in the modern world. They also have a relationship that is complicated, sometimes warm, sometimes cold, and almost never spoken about honestly. This Juneteenth, Learning Africa goes there. From Marcus Garvey's ships to Ghana's Year of Return. From the Door of No Return on Gorée Island to the word obroni (foreigner) that some African Americans hear when they arrive looking for home. The reunion is real, so is the estrangement. This episode holds both. Support the show Enjoyed this one? Got a take? A correction? A story I should know about? Come find me on Instagram @dieng_amadu or @afrovoices and tell me what you think. What landed, what missed, what you want more of.  This show is built around the idea that Africa is not a simple story, and neither are the people listening to it. Your perspective is part of that. Slide into the DMs, leave a comment, or just tag me when you share it. I read everything. See you in the next one.

    16 min

  4. Jun 10

    South Africa: Xenophobia and Anti-migration Crisis

    Send us Fan Mail  When xenophobic violence escalated across South Africa this May, African governments did something that should not have been necessary: they sent planes. Ghana chartered a flight. Mozambique deployed buses. Nigeria negotiated waivers so its citizens could leave without being detained. Malawi bused 150 people home from camps in the Western Cape. This episode follows the crisis six weeks on — the violence that continued after the shutdown, the two presidential addresses that tried and partly failed to meet the moment, and what it means when the country that Ubuntu built starts telling Africans they don't belong.  Support the show Enjoyed this one? Got a take? A correction? A story I should know about? Come find me on Instagram @dieng_amadu or @afrovoices and tell me what you think. What landed, what missed, what you want more of.  This show is built around the idea that Africa is not a simple story, and neither are the people listening to it. Your perspective is part of that. Slide into the DMs, leave a comment, or just tag me when you share it. I read everything. See you in the next one.

    12 min

  5. Jun 3

    Can Africa Win the World Cup?

    Send us Fan Mail Cameroon 1990. Senegal 2002. Ghana 2010. Morocco 2022. Four times Africa was close enough to believe. Four times it wasn't enough. Now ten teams head to North America. This is the story of what has held African football back — and what it would actually mean if that finally changed.  Support the show Enjoyed this one? Got a take? A correction? A story I should know about? Come find me on Instagram @dieng_amadu or @afrovoices and tell me what you think. What landed, what missed, what you want more of.  This show is built around the idea that Africa is not a simple story, and neither are the people listening to it. Your perspective is part of that. Slide into the DMs, leave a comment, or just tag me when you share it. I read everything. See you in the next one.

    18 min

  6. May 27

    The Recolonization of Africa, and the role of Africans?

    Send us Fan Mail In 1884, fourteen European powers met in Berlin and divided Africa among themselves. Not a single African voice was in the room. Today, China controls the mines, Russia is selling security to coup leaders, Turkey is taking over French military bases, and the Gulf states are funding opposite sides of the same war. The new scramble is here. On this episode of Learning Africa, we ask the question the original scramble never had to answer: can Africans win this time?  Support the show Enjoyed this one? Got a take? A correction? A story I should know about? Come find me on Instagram @dieng_amadu or @afrovoices and tell me what you think. What landed, what missed, what you want more of.  This show is built around the idea that Africa is not a simple story, and neither are the people listening to it. Your perspective is part of that. Slide into the DMs, leave a comment, or just tag me when you share it. I read everything. See you in the next one.

    22 min

  7. May 25

    Happy Africa Day!!!

    Send us Fan Mail Sixty years ago, the world said Africa wasn't ready to govern itself. Africans decided not to wait for permission. In this Africa Day special, we mark what has actually been built since: the years of life gained, the democracies defended, the technology that leapfrogged a century of infrastructure in a decade. Honest about what's unfinished, yet, proud of what's real! Support the show Enjoyed this one? Got a take? A correction? A story I should know about? Come find me on Instagram @dieng_amadu or @afrovoices and tell me what you think. What landed, what missed, what you want more of.  This show is built around the idea that Africa is not a simple story, and neither are the people listening to it. Your perspective is part of that. Slide into the DMs, leave a comment, or just tag me when you share it. I read everything. See you in the next one.

    11 min

  8. May 20

    So Macron Is a Pan-Africanist Now!?!

    Send us Fan Mail At a summit in Nairobi last week, Emmanuel Macron called himself a Pan-Africanist. The outrage was immediate — and fair. But the more interesting question is the one underneath it: what is Pan-Africanism actually, what does it demand, and how much of it have we built? This episode goes into the argument at the heart of the idea — Nkrumah, Nyerere, Senghor, three men who all believed in it and disagreed about almost everything else — and asks what it still requires of us today.  Support the show Enjoyed this one? Got a take? A correction? A story I should know about? Come find me on Instagram @dieng_amadu or @afrovoices and tell me what you think. What landed, what missed, what you want more of.  This show is built around the idea that Africa is not a simple story, and neither are the people listening to it. Your perspective is part of that. Slide into the DMs, leave a comment, or just tag me when you share it. I read everything. See you in the next one.

    20 min

  9. May 14

    Can an African Man Lead the UN?

    Send us Fan Mail Africa has not held the UN Secretary-General position in twenty years. Macky Sall wants to change that. But his path to the world's top diplomatic job runs through a fractured African Union that never officially backed him, a home country that publicly distanced itself, and a domestic record that hands his critics easy ammunition. Learning Africa goes inside the 2026 UN Secretary-General race: the politics, the person, and the question that outlasts any single candidacy: whose turn is it to lead the world, and who decides?  Support the show Enjoyed this one? Got a take? A correction? A story I should know about? Come find me on Instagram @dieng_amadu or @afrovoices and tell me what you think. What landed, what missed, what you want more of.  This show is built around the idea that Africa is not a simple story, and neither are the people listening to it. Your perspective is part of that. Slide into the DMs, leave a comment, or just tag me when you share it. I read everything. See you in the next one.

    21 min

  10. May 8

    Is Democracy Failing Africa, Or Is Africa Failing Democracy?

    Send us Fan Mail  What do you do when the government you elected stops being worth defending? That's the question millions of people across West Africa have been living with for the past five years, and in country after country, their answer has been to let the soldiers in. This episode traces nine coups across six countries: the failures that made them feel like relief, the foreign powers that moved into the vacuum, and the harder truth that coups haven't delivered either. Twenty minutes on democracy, disappointment, and what comes next.  Support the show Enjoyed this one? Got a take? A correction? A story I should know about? Come find me on Instagram @dieng_amadu or @afrovoices and tell me what you think. What landed, what missed, what you want more of.  This show is built around the idea that Africa is not a simple story, and neither are the people listening to it. Your perspective is part of that. Slide into the DMs, leave a comment, or just tag me when you share it. I read everything. See you in the next one.

    19 min

  11. May 3

    When Africa Turns on Africa: South African Anti-Migrant Movement

    Send us Fan Mail Support the show Enjoyed this one? Got a take? A correction? A story I should know about? Come find me on Instagram @dieng_amadu or @afrovoices and tell me what you think. What landed, what missed, what you want more of.  This show is built around the idea that Africa is not a simple story, and neither are the people listening to it. Your perspective is part of that. Slide into the DMs, leave a comment, or just tag me when you share it. I read everything. See you in the next one.

    13 min
  • 11 Episodes

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Curious and expansive Learning Africa is a podcast for anyone who wants to understand the continent beyond the headlines. Each episode explores the stories, people, and forces shaping Africa today, from political upheaval and economic transformation to culture, history, and the ideas driving the next generation. Hosted by Amadou Dieng, it's a space to ask honest questions, sit with complexity, and come away knowing Africa a little better than before. 

Information

  • Creator
    Amadou Dieng
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    11
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Learning Africa
  • Show Website
    Learning Africa