The Regional Security Imperative to Protect the Congo BasinThe Regional Security Imperative to Protect the Congo Basin

Coastal West African countries can strengthen resiliency to the threat of violent extremism by enhancing a multilayered response addressing local, national, and regional priorities.

ECOWAS at 50: Achievements, Challenges, and Opportunities

Akosombo Dam in Ghana is part of ECOWAS’s West Africa Power Pool to integrate the region’s power systems into a unified market to provide regular and reliable energy to citizens.H.E. Damtien Tchintchibidja, Vice-President of the ECOWAS Commission, highlights the enhanced economic, capacity building, and security benefits that have resulted from closer sub-regional integration.

Topic in Focus
1024px-Armed_Islamist_fighters_race_near_the_Mauritania-Mali_border_on_May_21st

Sahel In Focus

The Sahel has seen the most rapid growth in violent extremist activity of any region in Africa over the past two years. This In Focus page provides a series of Africa Center analyses of Sahel trends and security dynamics.

Opposition party supporters gather during an opposition meeting two days before Ousmane Sonko's trail in Dakar on March 14, 2023. Thousands of supporters of Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko rallied in Dakar on March 14, 2023, the first of several days of protests as the country prepares for elections in less than a year. Sonko is expected in court TMarch 16, 2023 after being sued by Tourism Minister Mame Mbaye Niang for "defamation, insult and forgery". (Photo by GUY PETERSON / AFP)

Africa’s 2024 Elections: Challenges and Opportunities to Regain Democratic Momentum

Africa’s multifaceted 2024 electoral docket provides opportunities to strengthen multipartyism, transition back to constitutionalism following coups, and rebuff perfunctory exercises.

Map_surge_disinformation_africa_3x2

Mapping a Surge of Disinformation in Africa

Disinformation campaigns seeking to manipulate African information systems have surged nearly fourfold since 2022, triggering destabilizing and antidemocratic consequences.

Topic in Focus: Security and Development
The Growing Complexity of Farmer-Herder Conflict in West and Central Africa

Farmer-herder violence in West and Central Africa has increased over the past 10 years with geographic concentrations in Nigeria, central Mali, and northern Burkina Faso. Population pressure, changes in land use and resource access, growing social inequalities, and declining trust between communities have rendered traditional dispute resolution processes less effective in some areas, contributing to the escalation of conflict. Militant Islamist groups in central Mali, northern Burkina Faso, and parts of Nigeria have exploited intercommunal tensions to foster recruitment. This has had the effect of conflating farmer-herder conflict with violent extremism, significantly complicating the security landscape.

Liberian police

As presidential elections approach, Liberia’s increasing vulnerability to instability and economic crisis is evident. Indeed, Liberia’s position across a range of governance indicators has declined since 2015. While accountability mechanisms exist on paper, they are applied only to the letter of the law, rather than to its full intent. Moreover, the executive has worked to scuttle the capacity of oversight institutions. As a result, strengthened institutions have become tools that benefit the elite, and compound corruption and impunity.