Allawi Ssemanda

Allawi Ssemanda

Dr. Allawi Ssemanda is a Senior Research Fellow at the Development Watch Centre and Author of Global Governance and Norm Contestation: How BRICS is Reshaping the World Order. 

60 articles Joined February 2025
Foreign Policy Analysis

China-Africa cooperation is a win-win partnership: Debt Trap talk is Western propaganda

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep on repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it,” Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels once noted. If you have been following current international affairs, you would have noticed that most of Western international commentators are arguably obsessed with China-Africa relations, especially when commenting on the […]

Allawi Ssemanda  •  Dec 29, 2021  •  6 min read
Diplomacy

Critics of China’s Exim Bank – Entebbe Airport Agreement and “debt trap” talk lack facts.

By Allawi Ssemanda This week, Ugandans on social media have been discussing China’s infrastructure loan terms particularly default clauses and escrow accounts with some making wrong conclusions of how Uganda “surrendered” airport to China. Of course, the claims that Uganda negotiated a bad deal lack international lending facts and so are wrong. I will start […]

Allawi Ssemanda  •  Nov 28, 2021  •  7 min read
Global Focus

President Xi and Biden Meeting Tomorrow: What Are the Issues and Should We Expect News?

After meeting his Russian counterpart in Geneva, in June this year, U.S president Joe Biden told journalists that there are no secret codes to foreign policy. President Putin on the other hand told journalists; “such meetings are meant to save the world from nuclear destruction” and find solutions to world challenges. All this sounded comical as two […]

Allawi Ssemanda  •  Nov 14, 2021  •  7 min read
Development Assistance

Why China’s lending terms are the best African countries can get.

China’s lending terms are the best African countries can get.  By Allawi Ssemanda On October 28, 2021, members of the Parliamentary Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities, and State Enterprises (COSASE) literary roasted finance minister, Matia Kasaija who they accused of signing a $200m agreement with Exim Bank of China to upgrade Entebbe international Airport. They […]

Allawi Ssemanda  •  Nov 8, 2021  •  8 min read
Diplomacy

50 Years of China at UN: true multilateralism and building of a community with a shared future for mankind.

Yesterday, 25th of October marked 50 years since United Nations’ (UN) 26th session of the General Assembly passed Resolution number 2758 restoring full rights of the People’s Republic of China in the United Nations. The resolution meant that only representatives sent by Beijing were the only legitimate representatives of the country. To Chinese people, this […]

Allawi Ssemanda  •  Oct 26, 2021  •  6 min read
Global Focus

Politicizing Covid-19 on global stage is very dangerous.

In 1907, then United Kingdom’s ambassador to the United States of America (US), Lord Bryce is quoted to have observed; “The subject of foreign policy in the United States is like the subject of snakes in Ireland. There are no snakes in Ireland.” This statement has been described by several foreign policy scholars to have […]

Allawi Ssemanda  •  Jul 9, 2021  •  6 min read
Uncategorized

Criticising China over “Vaccine Diplomacy” is Trivial and Inhuman.

By Allawi Ssemanda. Over the past months, some international media and political pundits in different capitals have been very active framing and creating negative narrative targeting China’s Covid-19 vaccine donations to poor and developing countries. Many branded this humanitarian gesture as China’s “Vaccine Diplomacy” while other critics see it as “vaccine favouritism” simply because China, […]

Allawi Ssemanda  •  Mar 25, 2021  •  6 min read