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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.
“To be an effective leader, you must want to empower those following you,” says General Martin Luther Agwai in an interview with the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.
ECOWAS leadership in the Gambia crisis offers lessons for future regional security cooperation in Africa.
As ISIS’s influence and territorial control in the Arab world have waned, so too have its reputation and ideological appeal in Africa, writes the Africa Center’s Joseph Siegle.
Gambia narrowly averted a regional crisis when Yahya Jammeh stepped down. The coordinated action of neighboring countries and regional organizations could provide a model for future governance crises.
Islamist terrorist groups in the Sahel and Sahara are attempting to exploit pastoralist grievances to mobilize greater support for their agenda, write Kaley Fulton and Benjamin Nickels.
The geographic spread and frequency of violent events linked to militant Islamist groups in Africa has expanded steadily since 2010, with a peak in 2015. Eight African countries now regularly face attacks by an assortment of militant Islamist groups.
While discussions of security cooperation often focus assistance from wealthy countries, intra-African assistance has become a major focus of multilateral efforts in crisis management and stabilization.
After years of decline, conflict in Africa has recently been increasing. Paul Williams, Phillip Carter, and Ibrahim Wani provided insight on why conflict persists in Africa at a roundtable hosted by the Africa Center.
Although the vast majority of conflicts in Africa today involve non-state actors, there has been a significant increase in state-based violence since 2010. While there is now a better understanding of the need to engage at multiple levels of society, leveraging the political will and resources to facilitate these deeper connections has remained a challenge.
A snapshot of Africa’s displaced populations reveals that 71 percent of Africa’s 18.5 million displaced persons are from 5 countries (Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo), and while much of global attention has focused on refugee migration into Europe, two-thirds of Africa’s dislocated population are internally displaced.
Resources are always limited, even for advanced countries, but the problem in Africa is not resources per se. The problem is their misuse, says the Africa Center’s Assis Malaquias.