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LSE Africa Dissertation Prize

Every year, the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa awards its Master’s Dissertation on Africa Prize to the best thesis of the year by an LSE student. Aimed at encouraging and celebrating LSE's outstanding fieldwork and research on Africa, the Prize recognises the year's most innovative and significant dissertation that furthers our understanding of the continent.

The winners of the 2024/25 LSE Africa Dissertation Prize are Patrick McVeigh, from the LSE International Development Department, and Oluwatobiloba Agbede, from the Department of Geography and Environment.

LSE Africa Master Dissertation Prize Winners Announcement

The Institute is pleased to announce the winners of the Master's Dissertation on Africa Prize for 2024/25. The winner will receive a monetary prize and will be invited to adapt their dissertation for the Africa at LSE blog.

  • Patrick McVeigh, from the LSE International Development Department, on his research on “Interplay of Historical Legacies, Land Tenure and ‘Carbon Colonialism’: A Comparative Study of REDD+ Carbon Credit Projects in Kenya and Tanzania”.
  • Oluwatobiloba Agbede, from the Department of Geography and Environment, on her research on "Global Institutional Narratives and Lived Experience in Nigeria's 2023 Fuel Subsidy Reform".

The Institute is pleased to announce the winner of the Master's Dissertation on Africa Prize for 2023/24. The panel of LSE academics selected a student for producing outstanding work on Africa. The winner will receive a monetary prize and will be invited to adapt their dissertation for the Africa at LSE blog.

  • Olivia Dopheide, Department of Anthropology and Development, on her research on "Circulating More than Money: Remittances within the Somali Diaspora".

The Institute is pleased to announce the winners of the Master's Dissertation on Africa Prize for 2022/23. The panel of LSE academics selected a student for producing outstanding work on Africa. Based in the Department of International History, the winner will receive a monetary prize and is invited to adapt their dissertation for the Africa at LSE blog.

  • Alysha Robinson, Department of International History, for her research: "From the Ogu to U.P.E.: The Economic Underpinnings of Igbo Women’s Protest, c. 1929-1958."

The Institute is pleased to announce the winners of the Master's Dissertation on Africa Prize for 2021/22. A panel of LSE academics selected two winners for producing outstanding work on Africa.

  • Fraser Curry, from the department of Geography and Environment for his outstanding thesis, On the land of others: Gardiens and entanglement in a changing Dakar.
  • Nora Geiszl from the International Development department for an exceptional dissertation entitled, An Empirical Study of the Impact of Kenya’s Free Secondary Education Policy on Women’s Education.

  • Aaron Atimpe: The Long-term Impacts of State Institutions on Norms of Tax Compliance: Evidence from the Asante Kingdom in Ghana
  • Anna Williams: Symbolic Satisfaction of International Norms: Aid-based Incentive Structures and Reducing Gender Equality Change in Post-Conflict Societies
  • Ramzi Darouich: Sovereign Default and Military Power: The Case of Egypt
  • Imogen Fairbairn: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Museum and Media Texts on the: Issue of Restitution in the UK
  • Runner-up award: Vivekah Deerpaul: Squatters, SmartCities and Resorts: Neoliberal Spatial Reconfigurations in Mauritius

We are delighted to announce the following students as winners of our annual dissertation competition for 2019/20.

FLIA Special Prize - awarded for contributions to decolonising the curriculum:

  • Kristophina Shilongo - Design and Decoloniality: Clout or Cloud? - A Critical Discourse Analysis of Indigenous Knowledge Technology projects

Innovative Research Techniques award

  • Simon Marcus - The intersectionality of COVID-19: A Quantitative analysis of COVID-19 in a South African urban settlement

Outstanding Dissertation award

  • Naoki Fujioka - Manufacturing or Services – Which Sector’s Employment Growth Benefits the Poor More? Evidence from Rwanda.
  • Isabel Paolini - Rights for the Rightless: Synthesizing an Interdisciplinary Framework Explaining Accession to the Statelessness Conventions.

We are delighted to announce the following students as winners of our annual dissertation competition for 2018/19:

  • Allison Corkery - Confronting inequality in South Africa through rights-based activism
  • Keeyaa Chaurey - Pirates and property: the moralities of branded and generic medicines
  • Stephanie Cantor - Designing meaningful employment for Kenyan youth
  • Adil Sait - Local economic development and livelihoods in urbanisation
  • Tim Hall - The lives of migrant women factory workers in industrialising Ethiopia
  • Chitra Sangtani - ‘Sustainable’ futures and state-instigated ruin in Cairo