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Africa in 2019 will continue to cope with a number of difficult and debilitating challenges: Terror, civil conflict, climate warming and drought, corruption, poor governance, weak rules of law and inconsistent and lacklustre leadership . For all of those reasons, sub- Saharan African migrants will still at- tempt, in great numbers, to enter Europe by … Continue reading
Africans are containing terror and terrorists, but declaring victory against the forces of revolution and insurrection in 2018 is premature . It is still a massive work in progress . In addition to the swirl of repetitive civil conflict in such disparate African countries as Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, … Continue reading
Terrorism, civil conflict, global warming, population growth, urb- anization, education, economic sustainability, managing China, strengthening leadership and improving governance are Africa’s 10 most pressing problems as 2018 unfolds None of these acute challenges is new, but 2018 will see each of them become more central to Africa’s ability to improve the standards of living and … Continue reading
Corrupt dealings undercut development, distort national priorities, accentuate inequality, and enrich conniving elites. Where governance is weak, corruption enables whole populations to be deprived of educational opportunities or access to health benefits. Corruption gives rise to civil conflict and its profits fuel long internal wars such as those in Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of … Continue reading
Terrorists are in it as much for the loot as for the ideology. The Islamic State, or ISIS, could hardly exist, whatever its Islamist fervor, without hard cash from sales of pilfered petroleum, taxes on its subject population and kidnappings for ransom. Likewise ISIS- and al-Qaida-linked groups in Africa prosper by trafficking drugs across the … Continue reading
Drug smuggling and its profits help significantly to fuel Africa’s wars as criminal enterprises. Terrorists frequently build drug-driven hybrid organizations to finance their operations and to reap illicit rents. In Mali, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Somalia, conflict is strongly tied to drug trafficking by syndicates allied to al-Qaeda–associated insurgents. The … Continue reading
In many African countries, petty corruption provides daily payoffs to policemen, nurses, border guards, and bureaucrats. Then there is venal corruption: the big-ticket items. In South Africa, President Jacob Zuma and his cronies received cash for favoring the state purchase of frigates and fighter aircraft from France and Sweden. Nigeria is the home of almost … Continue reading
Outsiders have long exploited African resources. Now China, a prime purchaser of oil, gas, and valuable African underground minerals, is depleting what is left of Africa’s Atlantic Ocean fishery resources and thus depriving Africans of livelihoods and scarce protein. How to persuade or compel China to respect African rights is a central question for African … Continue reading
Let the Houthis slug it out with al-Qaeda. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Why does the United States want to be fighting both the Houthis and al-Qaeda when the Houthis, now a major force in Yemen, are strongly opposed to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula? With help from us (or at … Continue reading
The wars of Africa are fueled by narcotics. That is an exaggerated over-simplification, but what is less well known than it should be is that many of the internal conflicts of today’s Africa are driven in part, sometimes a substantial part, by profits being made from the trafficking of hard drugs and precursor chemicals. The … Continue reading
Africa and Asia: The Key Issues 