Shifting the narrative: Rhodes University leads IMF Workshop grounded in lived African realities

By Ndalo Mbombo and Nosipho Simelane

Visitors often arrive in Makhanda expecting quiet streets, heritage buildings and the measured rhythm of a small town. What they discover instead is something far more instructive: a place that lays bare the daily consequences of policy decisions, governance gaps and economic strain.

It was this setting that Mr Ryan Hancocks, Director of the South African Reserve Bank Centre for Economics Journalism (SARB CEJ) at Rhodes University, believed would transform a routine training workshop into something deeper. “There is something unique that resonates throughout this town,” he explains. “The people and the landscape offer a learning experience you simply cannot replicate in a corporate boardroom in a major city.”

In November 2025, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) hosted its specialist workshop for financial and economic journalists from across Sub-Saharan Africa at Rhodes University, in partnership with the School of Journalism and Media Studies (JMS). It was a decision shaped by context, long-standing credibility and a growing recognition that global conversations about Africa should be rooted in the places where Africa’s challenges are most acutely felt.

Why the IMF came to Makhanda

The workshop hosting did not arise from a formal call for proposals. It began with people: the enduring alumni networks that Rhodes University is known for cultivating. A former JMS student Andrew Kanyegirire, now Deputy Division Chief at the IMF, understood the University's reputation for excellence in journalism training across the continent. That reputation had been strengthened by the SARB CEJ’s decade-long partnership with the Bloomberg Media Initiative Africa, where it has honed world-class expertise in financial journalism training.

“Our proposal to the IMF was simple,” says Hancocks. “If you want economic and financial journalists to grapple honestly with African debt, affordability and inflation, bring them to a place where those themes are lived realities rather than abstract terms.”

Convincing the IMF required demonstrating that Makhanda, like many towns across the continent, could host an international programme with reliable infrastructure, secure facilities and technical support. Rhodes University’s preparation was thorough. “Once we showed we could guarantee a seamless experience, the IMF recognised the value of using Makhanda as a trial location,” Hancocks notes.

Understanding the numbers, and the lives behind them

The two-day workshop explored the macroeconomic pressures shaping Sub-Saharan Africa, where countries face rising debt burdens, stubborn inflation and a deepening revenue crisis. These challenges intersect with global disruptions, limited fiscal space and mounting questions of affordability - conditions that require journalists to produce nuanced, data-driven reporting.

But throughout the workshop, one question proved central: how do journalists communicate number-heavy stories to audiences who may not understand how such figures affect their daily lives?

A panel discussion tackled this challenge head-on. Journalists shared how stories anchored solely in statistics often fail to resonate with the public, while narrative-driven approaches build clarity, trust and relevance. This conversation tied directly to the workshop’s location. In Makhanda, participants could witness how inflated prices strain households, how mismanagement shapes infrastructure, and how debt can undermine service delivery.

“Small towns show you the economic story unfiltered,” Hancocks explains. “You witness how fiscal mismanagement becomes a failing water system, or how weak accountability affects families who have no economic buffer.”

By confronting these lived realities, journalists were able to “see beyond the numbers” and frame economic reporting in ways that reflect the everyday experiences of African communities.

A signal to the continent – and the world

Ultimately, the workshop underscored a broader truth about Africa’s economic story which, as Hancocks points out, isn’t written only in capital cities. “It is written in communities like ours, where affordability pressures and governance failures are felt most directly. If global institutions want meaningful insight, they must start anchoring their engagements in places like these.”

Hosting the IMF workshop in a small town like Makhanda signals a shift in how international bodies might engage with African contexts: not from conference rooms in major cities, but from communities that reveal the real consequences of macroeconomic decisions.

And for Hancocks and his team, the workshop achieved precisely what they had hoped: delegates left with sharper technical skills and deeper contextual understanding. “Economic journalism must connect policy to people, and theory to place. Makhanda helped make that possible,” he affirms.

By placing journalists in a community where economic pressures are lived rather than theorised, it reinforced a renewed responsibility: to link numbers to lived realities and to tell Africa’s economic story with clarity and accountability. And in doing so, the workshop pointed towards a future where the continent’s narratives are shaped by insight drawn directly from its communities.