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Estimates are that more than half of all Africans will live in cities by 2025. This rapid pace of urbanization is creating a new locus of fragility in many African states—as evidenced by the burgeoning slums around many of the continent’s urban areas—and the accompanying rise in violence, organized crime, and the potential for instability. These evolving threats, in turn, have profound implications for Africa’s security sector.
(See more recent readings on this topic here.) Beyond Internal Conflict: The Emergent Practice of Climate Security By Joshua W Busby, Journal of Peace Research, December 28, 2020 Challenges to climate-related security include but are not limited to resource competition, shocks to food security, climate-induced migration, transboundary water management, and unintended consequences from climate policies.... Continue Reading
A significant development in Africa over the past decade has been the generalized lessening of violent conflict. Revitalized, expanded international peacekeeping, bolstered by a newly launched African Union determination to tackle security challenges, has reinforced this trend. But, much more cohesive interagency coordination under strong White House direction is required if the United States is to contribute to Africa’s sustained stability given the region’s persistent conditions of poverty, inequality, and weak governance.
African, Latin American, and Caribbean countries can enhance the benefits of their engagements with China by expanding coordination and lessons sharing to ensure that citizens’ interests are prioritized.
Africa’s special relationship with India provides a foundation for a mutually beneficial and sustainable partnership built on African agency and capacity building.
Continuing a decade long trend, the number of Africans who are forcibly displaced has risen over the past year and now totals over 40 million people.
The threat of militant Islamist groups is spreading to all parts of Mali as the military junta stakes its claim to stay in power indefinitely.
Despite shortcomings, Kenyans have set a new and higher electoral bar for themselves, their neighbors, and the rest of Africa—demonstrating how closely contested elections can be credibly resolved through sufficiently independent institutions.
Adapting Sahelian force structures to lighter, more mobile, and integrated units will better support the population-centric COIN practices needed to reverse the escalating trajectory of violent extremist attacks.
African countries can negotiate a more equitable role in FOCAC, but this requires a more strategically focused approach, better coordination, and greater accountability to their citizens.
The rise of farmer-herder violence in Africa is more pernicious than fatality figures alone since it is often amplified by the emotionally potent issues of ethnicity, religion, culture, and land.
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.