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Russia’s influence in Africa typically relies on irregular (and frequently extralegal) means to expand its influence. This low-cost, high influence strategy seeks to advance a very different world order than the rules-based, democratic political systems to which most Africans aspire.
Escalating attacks on communities in North West Nigeria by criminal gangs, including mass kidnappings of school children, exploit the limited security sector presence in the region.
Community-based security groups are emerging in African cities in response to rising crime and overstretched police forces. Experience from Abidjan shows that collaboration with the police, avoiding coercive tactics, and retaining citizen oversight councils are key to the effectiveness of these groups.
Rising temperatures are contributing to more and extended heat waves, a tripling of droughts, a quadrupling of storms, and a tenfold increase in flooding in Africa since the 1970s—exacerbating security threats on the continent.
The prospective deployment of Russia’s Wagner mercenaries should not be confused with addressing Mali’s security situation but is a means of expanding Russian influence while propping up the military junta.
A virtual academic program on the main challenges interdependent information technology poses to national and citizen security in African countries.
Africa continues to experience expanding and record levels of forced displacement—a result of predatory governments, political fragmentation, and violent extremist groups.
While Russia’s engagements in Africa are often viewed as opportunistic, in the space of a few years Moscow has been able to gain a foothold in the southern Mediterranean, become a powerbroker in geographically strategic countries, and undermine democratic norms on the continent.
President Patrice Talon’s manipulation of electoral rules and cooption of democratic processes have caused Benin to slide quickly from a multi-party democracy to a semi-authoritarian regime, portending heightened instability.
Rising temperatures are straining livelihoods across broad swaths of Africa, intensifying instability in multifaceted ways. The continent’s ability to adapt to and mitigate these effects will have global repercussions.
Test Three: Imagemap.org
Sahelian militant Islamist groups continue to profit from smuggling routes and complicity from unethical multinational corporations and compromised government officials. Following the mechanics of cigarette smuggling through the Sahel reveals how corruption becomes institutionalized and ends up benefiting the very actors the government is fighting. Depriving violent extremists in the Sahel of their profits from smuggling will require depriving corrupt government officials of theirs and holding them, as well as multinational corporations accountable.