An Overview of Africa’s 2019 Elections
The struggle to institutionalize legitimate and resilient democracies in Africa will be further shaped by the 2019 elections – with direct consequences for security.
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The struggle to institutionalize legitimate and resilient democracies in Africa will be further shaped by the 2019 elections – with direct consequences for security.
English | Français | العربية When South Sudan achieved independence in 2011, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/ Movement (SPLA/M) and its leader, Salva Kiir Mayardit, took control of a system of governance that transcended the lines between the formal and informal sectors, military and civilian elites, government and nongovernment actors, as well as licit and... Continue Reading
Persistent economic and social disparities between urban centers and outlying communities present an ongoing source of instability for countries in the Maghreb.
Program materials for the 2017 Managing Security Resources in Africa 2.0 program. Click here for syllabus, readings, and presentation slides.
Conflicts of interest within Africa's fisheries sector enable unsustainable exploitation by foreign fishing firms and undercut the political will needed to build more robust surveillance and prosecutorial capacity.
Libya has been carved into multiple tribal fiefdoms whose economies depend on internal and external flows of income, licit and illicit. The political rise of the previously marginalized Toubou by leveraging their control of the smuggling economy, for example, reveals the many ways local conflict dynamics influence and are influenced by external forces including organized crime. It also exposes the resulting disincentive the various parties have to rebuild a unified nation. Identifying and addressing the many layers of internal and external involvement in Libya’s fractionalization will help transition the “patchwork state” to a central state.
The distinction between legitimate and illicit business in Africa is fluid due to the significant size of informal trade on the continent. At the same time, globalization has allowed organized criminal groups to link up with international networks, including violent extremists.
This report from UNODC’s Afghan Opiate Trade Project, provides a baseline assessment of the Afghan opiates trade in Africa. It describes the key routes out of Afghanistan, through Eastern and Southern Africa and then West Africa and finally to markets in North America and Europe. Large ungoverned spaces make it difficult to fully assess the scope of the Afghan opiate trade and its impact on economies, governments, and people. African governments need to improve their capacity to track this trade, examining potential links between opiate traffickers and other forms of organized crime or insurgent and violent extremist groups. They also require assistance in determining the public health impact of this trade on their populations.
(See more recent readings on this topic here.) Ansaroul Islam: The Rise and Decline of a Militant Islamist Group in the Sahel By Pauline Le Roux, July 29, 2019 Burkina Faso’s first militant Islamist group, Ansaroul Islam, has faced setbacks, pointing to the weaknesses of violent extremist organizations lacking deep local support and facing sustained... Continue Reading
The phenomenon of migrants traversing the hostile terrain of northern Africa to Europe is not new—not the routes or the dangers. A decade ago, experts estimated that about 2,000 migrants drowned each year attempting to cross the Mediterranean and untold numbers perished in the desert. But after the collapse of the Gaddafi regime in 2011,... Continue Reading
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Senior African security-sector leaders met with their U.S. counterparts for the annual African Executive Dialogue (AED), organized by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS) in collaboration with the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), the U.S. Africa Command (USAFRICOM), and the U.S. Department of State. The three days of talks... Continue Reading
Nearly half of all uniformed peacekeepers are African and countries like Ghana, Rwanda, Senegal, and South Africa have provided troops to UN and AU missions almost continuously over the past decade. Despite such vast experience, African peacekeepers are often reliant on international partners for training before they can deploy on these missions. Institutionalizing a capacity-building model within African defense forces is a more sustainable approach that maintains a higher level of readiness to respond to emerging crises and contingencies on the continent.