Africa

Key points

• As debate grows over U.S. policy towards Africa, consideration should be given to altering the continent’s status under the Department of Defense’s Unified Command Plan (UCP).
• Eliminating Africa Command (AFRICOM) under the UCP would both signify a policy shift away from a counterterrorism focus and ease the process of implementing that change within the policymaking bureaucracy.
• Establishing a three-star subcommand, nested under European Command (EUCOM), would still allow the United States to use force in Africa, when necessary, but would reduce the prominence of military power in U.S. policy toward the continent.
• AFRICOM and EUCOM essentially share much of their force structure; this unique relationship would facilitate the transition to the proposed three-star subcommand.
• Altering the U.S. military footprint in Africa should also be considered in the context of any changes to policy and command arrangements. Making specific recommendations at this time is complicated by the opaqueness of the current footprint.

Nigeria’s ambition to build a value-added supply chain for critical minerals including lithium is getting a significant boost from an unlikely source: an e-marketplace startup.

Sabi, the Lagos-headquartered business-to-business e-commerce company focused on the informal economy, has been quietly building expertise as a middle man for miners seeking to export. In recent weeks, it inked separate deals with two companies — Italy’s Snowball Holdings, and Transition Resources from the US — that plan to set up lithium processing plants in the country over the coming year.

Addis Ababa October 15/2024( ENA) Africa must engage with the world on its own terms, ensuring that its interests are represented and respected on the global stage, said Ethiopia’s Deputy Prime Minister Temasgen Tiruneh.

The first African Defense Ministers Conference organized by Ethiopia on its own initiative kicked of in Addis Ababa at the Adwa Victory Memorial Museum this morning.

Eliminating or Exacerbating Violent Extremism?

For more than a decade, the Sahel has been subject to a protracted insurgency carried out by affiliates of the global terror networks of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. As the first country affected by this insurgency, Mali has responded by drastically modifying its response to violent extremism. The regional spillover of violent extremism has elicited similar counterterrorism responses from Bamako’s neighbors, with Niger most recently adopting a counterinsurgency model shaped by Mali’s and Burkina Faso’s policies. Although not in the Sahel, Mozambique has faced similar struggles in containing violent extremism and, like Mali and Niger, has implemented multiple counterterrorism programs to curtail the expansion and public support of jihadist groups. Conventional responses to violent extremism—such as the deployment of national military forces and the enlistment of international counterterrorism support—have not been successful and instead have resulted in each state adopting more localized approaches to eliminating the jihadist threat. This increasingly localized approach is often conducted through the deployment of civilian counterterrorism militias—also known as community-led self-defense groups, local militias, local forces, or simply civilian militias. Sometimes sponsored by the state, these local militias are intended to operate independently of national defense forces. However, tangential state status has not only afforded these groups funding and equipment, but it has also justified illicit behavior and discriminatory practices that have added additional threats to national counterterrorism agendas.

The Horn of Africa, a region once described by Jeffrey Lefebvre as one of the world’s most “highly penetrated regional subsystems”, is on the brink of a dangerous turn as the several actors intensify their displays of power in Somalia. Turkey, Egypt, Ethiopia, the UAE, and other regional powers are taking sides in what is fast becoming Africa’s Lebanon—a fractured country where multiple national factions and entities pursue conflicting political agendas, inviting foreign actors to further their own influence and advance their political positions. The most prominent player in this new escalation is Egypt, which has begun to channel military experts and weaponry into Somalia to gain much needed leverage with Ethiopia in relation to the Nile water conflict.

The month of May saw a significant increase in social media output from both the Islamic State as well as JNIM–as was expected given the continuous rise of online activities of both groups in recent months. The number of statements published during the month of May reached their highest point since reporting began in December 2022. 151 statements were released by the Islamic State’s branches and JNIM, al-Qaeda’s representative in the Sahel.

As the humanitarian crisis in Sudan intensifies, sexual violence is used to terrorise women & girls, international solidarity is needed, writes Nina Masore.

With the conflict in Sudan now in its second year, the nation is mired in a devastating humanitarian crisis. Compounding the suffering is the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war to punish specific communities and allied militias, and to subjugate, terrorise, and break women and girls. The UN and local human rights groups have recorded numerous incidents of rape, gang rape, and sexual slavery. Many of the victims are children.

ECOWAS should use its special summit on regional integration in 2025 to reconsider its approach to managing coups.

Recurrent coups since 2020 and the decision by Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger to withdraw from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) reveal the region’s deep governance and democracy challenges.

The number of African refugees, internally displaced persons, and asylum seekers grew by 14 percent over the past year—to more than 45 million people.