Burkina Faso Guinea and Mali are under the military boot awaiting return to civilian rule. But whether the juntas in place will deliver credible elections at the end of the respective transition periods remains to be seen.
The story about peanuts, and the people who grew it at the margins of an empire in 19th century West Africa, then the most abundant source of the world’s most important oilseed.
West Africa is in the grip of a wave of coups, popular protests and fierce geopolitical struggles. Amy Niang argues that declining western hegemony in the region goes hand to hand with intensified competition for access and control of Africa’s natural resources. Furthermore, Niang states, the Russian occupation of Ukraine compels us to look at the importance of the country’s growing presence in Africa.
Aymar N. Bisoka, David Mwambari and Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni write about the recent Africa-France summit. The scholar Achille Mbembe was recruited to prepare a report for the summit by speaking to African youth. This blogpost asks what was the real meaning of the summit behind the official pronouncements.
As the recorded number of infections in Africa edges towards the six million mark, it has become clear that COVID-19 is not only a public health challenge.
How early post-independence clarity on the link between food self-sufficiency and national sovereignty offers lessons for contemporary efforts.
Billions of cigarettes, most made by BAT, are smuggled north through Mali every year on their way to the gray markets of the Sahel and Northern Africa.
With Muammar Gaddafi gone, battle-hardened desert tribal groupings and latent ethnic rivalries have erupted in the Sahel, producing hundreds of small conflicts that had been simmering for decades.
The legitimate grievances of the people of Mali must come before the interests of regional and international actors and a balance must be found between recognising the demands of the population and the need to maintain stability.