2024 has been a tumultuous year, to say the least. But 2025 is here, which means that we can take time and look back on the year that was.
If 2023 unravelled like a blockbuster film, then 2024 was the sequel that upped the ante.
It was hoped that 2024 would be a better year for humanity. Whether that was truly the case depends on who you ask and how the year turned out for them.
Table of Contents
Looking back on 2024.
2024 was a year of fewer surprises. While compared to the immediate precedent years, at least.
The world is still gradually recovering from a global pandemic that struck in early 2020. Each year following that has been nothing short of eventful.
2021 saw much world slowly reintegrate itself into the post-COVID age.
2022 and 2023 were marked by the emergence of several global impacting conflicts, widespread humanitarian and healthcare crises, continued strain on the climate and the earth’s biosphere, increased global geo-political tensions and an increasingly unstable global economic situation.
For the most part, the events of 2024 did not catch the world blindsided. Nonetheless, there were still a number of watershed events that happened throughout 2024.
Record Election Cycle.
More than 60 countries globally (plus the European Union) headed to the polls in 2024. Many of these countries participated in a vast array of elections including presidential, parliamentary and general elections.
2024 was therefore a crucial moment in gauging the wellbeing of democracy globally. Despite the huge strides made towards democratization in recent decades, many adults are unconvinced about the well-being of democracy in their countries. According to a study done by Pew Research Center, 54% of adults in 31 countries express dissatisfaction with the way democracy is working in their country.
Economic performance, divisions over cultural issues and backlash against the incumbent political status quo all were core issues that informed voting decisions globally.
This election cycle was unfavourable to incumbent regimes. The majority of incumbent parties saw a reduction in their share of votes. In fact, 32% of the elections globally resulted in a party change.
Only a select number of countries saw increased support for the incumbent regime, such as Mexico. Mexico also elected their first female head of state in Claudia Sheinbaum, joining countries such as Namibia, Iceland and North Macedonia who also elected female heads of state.
Elsewhere, right-wing political movements enjoyed increased support, especially in developed countries. In the USA, Donald Trump made his political comeback to the State House, by banking on the reduced influence of the Democrats and a populist agenda of “Making America Great Again”. Right-wing political movements also scored major wins in Portugal, Austria and Germany.
Emmanuel Macron (France) and Narendra Modi (India) also retained reduced majorities in their respective parliaments and were forced to rely on formulating a series of coalitions. In the United Kingdom, the Labour Party enjoyed massive success, even as the Conservative Party lost huge ground given its growing unpopularity over the years.
In Russia, Vladimir Putin retained his Presidential seat, as expected, in a highly controlled electoral process. In Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian was elected president and second in command to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei following the tragedy of the former president Ebrahim Raisi. Pezeshkian’s election marked a move away from conservative politics in the country as he is viewed as being less confrontational and more likely to engage with the West.
Backlash and dissatisfaction with the elections were also witnessed globally, particularly in Africa, Europe and parts of Asia. Opposition parties boycotted elections in several countries. In Bangladesh and Mozambique, the rejection of the election results led to violence the loss of civilian life and a regime change, in Bangladesh so far.
Closer to home, the African continent also saw a record number of elections. Kais Saed (Tunisia), Paul Kagame (Rwanda) and Azali Assoumani (Comoros) all held on to power, in election cycles that raised questions over fairness and integrity.
The presidential elections in Ghana and Botswana were, arguably, the most competitive continental. In Ghana, John Mahama made his much-anticipated comeback to office. In Botswana, Duma Boko was elected president unseating Mokweegtsi Masisi and ending the Botswana Democratic Party’s (BDP) 58-year uninterrupted stay in power.
The trend in Botswana highlighted the continued unpopularity of incumbent parties, particularly in Southern Africa. In Namibia, SWAPO registered a vastly reduced majority in parliament despite winning the presidential seat. The situation wasn’t any better for ANC in South Africa, even as it continues to experience reduced support within the country.
In Senegal, Diomande Faye became Africa’s youngest-ever head of state at 44 years of age. His election to power is a bright spot and a beacon of hope for the future, especially in a continent that is dominated by ageing dictatorial tyrants.
Several African countries are yet to hold elections due to postponement by the regimes in power, particularly those in the West African region. These countries include Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Burkina Faso and South Sudan. Chad only held parliamentary elections in December 2024 following years of postponement.
More elections are set to be held in 2025, in what is yet another important year for elections globally. If the current trend is anything to go by, the election cycle will also be full of surprises and unprecedented upsets, particularly for the incumbent regimes. 2024 which was the ‘Super Year of Elections’ saw the spirited conquest of incumbent regimes by various challengers. It is perhaps a statement that much of the world is unpleased by the power held by the status quo in political echelons.
Some of the elections to watch out for in 2025 include Australian parliamentary elections, German parliamentary elections, Ecuadorian presidential elections, Philippine general elections and Canadian federal elections. Given the state of the political turmoil in France, it is possible that the country may head back to the polls in 2025.
In Africa, some of the elections to pay attention to include the Gabonese general elections, the Tanzanian general elections and the Cameroonian presidential elections.
Conflicts and Global Geo-Politics
The war in Ukraine entered its third year of fighting, building up from the bloody stalemate it had culminated to in the course of 2023.
Russia’s focus on subduing Ukraine is undivided. Ukraine is convinced that the only way to survive is to fight the enemy within its borders.
Russia’s economy has weathered, despite massive setbacks from the sanctions imposed by it by the United States and much of the international community. On the other hand, Ukraine has been receiving less attention and military aid from the West.
Trump had continually pledged throughout his presidential campaign to find a quick resolution to the war upon ascending to power. Nonetheless, Russia has since rejected Trump’s so-called Ukraine peace plan which involved putting Ukraine’s NATO membership on hold as part of a ceasefire deal.
Russia has renewed its fervour in the war and has indicated that it intends to retain the Ukrainian territories captured in its invasion. However, the war has not been cheap for Russia and it may be forced to seek a quicker route for achieving its objective in Ukraine. Ukraine remains hard-pressed for continued military assistance from the United States and its allies to keep Russia at bay.
The pressures of a continued war effort could push both countries to initiate a negotiation process in 2025.
That may as well play into Trump’s foreign policy of reduced intervention in global issues. According to Trump, the United States needs to cut its losses from indulging in global issues that are of little if any direct benefit to it. If his regime is to make good of his campaign sentiments, we will perhaps witness a ‘less aggressive United States’, that focuses on defending its domestic positioning.
Elsewhere, the conflict between Israel and Palestine raged on. In fact, the conflict has evolved from a war to a full-blown military crisis. Escalations have expanded beyond the Gaza strip, where much of the war has been fought over the past year to the West Bank territory and neighbouring countries such as Lebanon and Syria.
All in all, 46,484 Palestinians have been killed, 17,492 of whom are children. A further 107,940 have been injured. Another 11,160 are missing or unaccounted for. As of December 2024, 1,139 Israeli citizens have been killed and 8,730 have been injured.
Much of the Palestinian refugee population remains exposed to harsh environmental conditions and indiscriminate bombings from the Israeli forces.
Militia groups affiliated to Hamas (the main Palestinian force directly fighting against Israel) have also been involved in the conflict, especially as Hamas’ position continues to weaken.
Over in Lebanon, Hezbollah has been engaging in confrontations over the Lebanese border against Israel. Israel has launched a series of airstrikes into Lebanon, killing several Hezbollah commanders. In Yemen, the Houthi rebels have continued to launch strikes against Israel, only to be met with a similar assortment of airstrikes from Israel. Both Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels enjoy direct support from Iran, which is viewed as the main force pulling the strings against Israel from behind the scenes.
An International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling in February 2024 found that Israel’s actions in Gaza amounted to potential war crimes such as genocide and that its occupation of Palestinian territory is not compliant with International Law and should therefore cease.
However, Israel has been acting none the wiser and has been ignorant of obeying the directive given by the ICJ. Israel still enjoys the support of the United States from where it receives a majority of its arms and military support.
The reelection of Trump to office in 2024 creates an interesting situation. On one hand, he may stick to his non-interventionist foreign policy and reduce military aid and support to Israel, hence pushing them to pursue peace and negotiation with Palestine. On the other hand, Trump enjoys deep ties within Israel and in the Jewish community and he may choose to continue supporting its war effort.
The world continues to unite against supporting the continued actions of Israel against Palestine and the backlash against Israel is continuing to mount. We can only hope that there will be reduced fighting in 2025 and more actions taken towards a peaceful resolution.
The Global Economy
Global economic growth is still far from its pre-pandemic levels. Inflation continues to stifle economic growth in much of the world even as interest rates continue to increase globally. Consumer spending has been low, an issue stemming from 2023, given the volatility of food and fuel prices.
The global economy has built up a robust resilience to the various challenges that it has been facing. Despite fears of subsequent recessions, many countries have managed to keep their economies stable enough.
2025 may be a year of continued economic stability, but economic growth will remain on a chokehold and nowhere near the level of growth witnessed in the 2010s.
Technological Advancements: Artificial Intelligence
The power of AI was once again on show.
The technology improved drastically over the years with the entrance of numerous players into the field.
Open AI is still ‘the big daddy’ of AI technology. But it is by no means the only player. It is in fact, being outdone in several ways by other AI firms.
Open AI’s Chat GPT may still be the face of text-based AI models. In image generation, however, Open AI’s DALL-E can be outdone by Midjourney from Midjourney studios. Google’s Veo 2 (part of Deepmind AI) is arguably better than Open AI’s Sora when it comes to video generation.
Google, who started on the back foot in this ‘AI race to the top’ have had a much better year compared to Open AI. Google’s Deepmind AI is now seemingly better at Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) than much of Open AI’s technology.
Not to be outdone, however, Open AI launched their latest AI model, o3, in December 2024. o3 is a model that focuses heavily on reasoning and is able to execute complex tasks in mathematics, coding and general intelligence. The o3 model performed extremely well on several mathematical benchmark tests, in which it relied on its own reasoning to solve complex mathematical problems that it had never been presented with before.
Nonetheless, the model is still far from perfect, seeing as it still struggles to solve challenges that require simple reasoning.
AI technology is evolving faster than we humans can catch up. That has raised a couple of concerns, especially in regulation and guaranteeing internet safety.
AI is incredibly effective in handling repetitive tasks and while being far from perfect, the consistency in its results has made it a must-have for people working in diverse fields.
AI technology has been integrated as an ‘assistant tool’ for many functions in organizational and corporate settings, hence endangering many human jobs in those fields.
Call centre attendants, programmers, photographers and content writers can all be replaced with AI technology specializing in audio text-to-speech, coding, image and text generation respectively.
Despite the rapid advancement, these are still early days for the development of AI technology, as many of these jobs still rely on human input to be done effectively. AI still makes errors in conclusion, omission and representation in its final product.
AI makes work easier and less redundant, easening the workload for the humans working in this field and opening them up to more career frontiers.
That said, it definitely feels as if AI is everywhere now. It can be wisely concluded that we are heading away from the days of the AI boom and into the days of AI fatigue.
Content creators and corporations alike have been finding opportunities to place AI technology at the forefront of their production efforts. AI has proven that it can do a lot more than we would have anticipated from it. But it also now feels overhyped and overutilized, even in situations when it shouldn’t be.
We now have a crop of content creators who generate content entirely through AI. Or corporations that have replaced entire departments with AI material.
The demand for AI is sky-high to a point where Nvidia, the company that builds the GPUs responsible for running these AI models briefly became the world’s largest company by market cap in June 2024.
Might we be living in yet another ‘dot com bubble’ where a technological advancement becomes over-depended upon, akin to becoming a buzzword that is proof of progressiveness and modernization?
2025 will be a monumental year for the AI.
AI is definitely here to stay. Now it may just be a flashy new toy that everyone just wants to play with. In future, it may become the lifeline upon which our existence is dependent. (think of how we moved from the dot com bubble to where the internet is today).
However, the greatest concern with AI is its handling of security and copyright issues. These AI companies infringe upon copyright laws by training AI models with data and information from sources, without the acquisition of relevant permission. Many of these models have been taught using data and media from creators without their permission or indulgence.
As advanced as the technology is now, creators do not gain from their work building such an advanced and in-demand technology.
Will the regulators finally catch up in 2025? Will AI become regulated? How will that affect the technology’s efficacy? How much better will the technology get?
Kenya’s Social-Political Outlook
2024 has been an eventful year for Kenya. The highlight of the year was the continued youth-led anti-government protests and unrest in the country.
The government wanted to impose a finance bill that many Kenyan youth found punitive and reprehensive. The youth came out in protest, storming into the Kenyan parliament on June 25th. Long story short, the aftermath has been a harsh reprisal by President Ruto, resulting in innocent casualties from extrajudicial killings and forced abductions and disappearances.
Read more: How a generation of Kenyan youth is standing up against an incompetent Kenyan government.
In an ironic twist of fate, Kenya’s main opposition movement led by Raila Odinga jumped on the bandwagon of these protests and unrest to gain favour with President Ruto’s government. Many of Raila’s allies were accorded important seats in President Ruto’s cabinet, and Raila received Ruto’s endorsement for his African Union (AU) chairmanship candidacy.
Nonetheless, that still has not done any favours for President Ruto’s regime as it still remains unpopular, especially in the younger demographic. Many of these youths have taken to Twitter/X to express their dissatisfaction and discontent with Ruto and his government.
These acts of online activism entail criticizing and publishing opinions and sentiments that are unfavourable to Ruto and his regime. The freedom of expression is provided for in Kenya’s constitution. However, the President has labelled these as acts of defiance and moral degradation and he has cracked down hard on active and popular voices publishing these opinions against him.
And by cracking down, I mean overseeing the abduction and forced disappearance of some of these activists from X. All for publishing AI-generated images of President Ruto that may or may not be demeaning to his character.
On the other hand, Kenya’s economy has not been performing well either. The IMF revised the country’s expected GDP growth down to 5% from 5.4% in the wake of the anti-tax riots and unrest.
Larger economic problems continue to linger, arising from reduced investment and increased capital and labour flight due to the unstable social-political climate.
Kenya’s economy wasn’t doing any better even before the anti-government riots began. The country struggled with a debt burden of public funds that could not be accounted for given the unprecedented level of corruption and impunity within the country. The country was also running low on its foreign reserves and was forced to renegotiate some of its international trade deals and external debts.
An underperforming economy and increased taxation continue to place many Kenyans in precarious economic situations. As of 2024, only 18.3% of Kenyans are termed to be financially healthy.
Nonetheless, various indications still point to a resilient macro economic position for the country for 2025, perhaps in alignment with the rest of the global economy. However, sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing are at risk of deterioration if not aptly supported with fiscal spending.
In 2025, the Kenyan economy is in dire need of stimulation measures that incentivize spending and investing to reinvigorate confidence in the economy. The social-political climate in the country is also in dire need of fixing, so as to avoid the bad press that paints the country in a negative light.
The first step is for the regime to fully address the concerns raised by the citizens over the gross mismanagement of the country. President Ruto should lead his government in pledging to be more accountable and responsible in the management of the country’s affairs.
That is the only way to make 2025 a better year.
Leave a Reply