THE BEST OF 2015

Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera made the June cover of Time magazine for bravely defending LGBT rights, a crime punishable by life imprisonment without parole in Uganda

“Worse than ever!” John Githongo doesn’t mince words about corruption in Kenya. “President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration is the greediest we’ve seen in 20 years

This 58-year-old lawyer’s tireless work led a court in Brussels, Belgium to indict Chad’s former dictator Hissène Habré for crimes against humanity

“We try to respect the views of others, so they should respect ours!” Philippe Ouédraogo, the archbishop of Ouagadougou, elevated to cardinal by Pope Francis in February 2014

Luaty Beirão has just ended a 36-day hunger strike – one day for every year that Angola’s president, José Eduardo dos Santos, has been in power. The 33-year-old Angolan-Portuguese rapper

In 2006, barely 22 and holding a degree in political philosophy, Hadeel Ibrahim joined the foundation that her father, the Sudanese billionaire Mo Ibrahim, had just set up

Alexis Sinduhije, a 47-year-old former journalist from Burundi, is paying a high price for his political activities. Opposed to President Pierre Nkurunziza’s third term in of

Gilles Yabi, a 39-year-old Benin-born economist and political scientist now living in Dakar, stood out at a very young age due to his sharp, insightful analyses

Colette Kitoga Habanawema, nicknamed “the mother of orphans and widows”, never imagined the turn her career as a physician would take