- Africa in a changing global political, economic, social and cultural order
- Political economy of Africa’s development
- Leadership for the 21st century and the future
- Governance, accountability and transparency
- Elections, electoral systems and reforms
- Democratisation and development
- Conflict, peace and security
- Mobility/migration in and out of Africa
- ‘Africa in the Diaspora’ and Africa
- Continental & regional integration and trade
- Contestations in the development discourse (Decolonisation, Africanisation, Alternative development paradigms)
- Contemporary development agendas and issues (Developmental frameworks, the 4th Industrial Revolution, agrarian reform, agricultural revolution, the ‘land question’, the demographic dividend, youth and women in development, social development, rural development)
- Identity politics
- Poverty, inequality and exclusion
- Gender, generation, ethnicity, race (as cross-cutting issues)
- Indigenous knowledge systems
- Partnerships for development
- Science, Technology and Innovation in Africa