Can we stop things falling apart? 2024 begins with wars burning in Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine and peacemaking in crisis. Worldwide, diplomatic efforts to end fighting are failing. More leaders are pursuing their ends militarily. More believe they can get away with it.
Data Cutoff: January 10, 2024, at 10 a.m.
Key Takeaway: IS affiliates across sub-Saharan Africa have claimed attacks as part of the new IS global campaign and could attempt to carry out high-visibility attacks against civilians and religious sites in their areas of operation to maximize the propaganda value of the campaign. IS central media is branding the campaign as supportive of the Palestinian cause in response to the Israel-Hamas war and is also encouraging lone-wolf attacks against civilians in the West.
An estimated 82 percent of the record 149 million Africans facing acute food insecurity are in conflict-affected countries underscoring that conflict continues to be the primary driver of Africa’s food crisis.
Russia has pioneered a model of disinformation to gain political influence in Africa that is now being replicated by other actors across the continent.
Disinformation is the intentional dissemination of false information with the intent of advancing a political objective. Africa has been the increasingly frequent target of such campaigns. In recent years, dozens of carefully designed campaigns have pumped millions of intentionally false and misleading posts into Africa’s online social spaces. The ensuing confusion in deciphering fact from fiction has had a corrosive effect on social trust, critical thinking, and citizens’ ability to engage in politics fairly—the lifeblood of a functioning democracy.
Oversight, accountability, and governance of the security sector are essential ingredients to a capable and effective force, mitigating infractions and contributing to a learning environment that improves future practices.
La nouvelle stratégie de l’Iran consiste à renforcer son influence simultanément dans différentes régions, à l’image de son appui financier, logistique et militaire croissant au Hamas et au Polisario, élargissant ainsi sa capacité à contester les intérêts des États Unis d’Amérique (USA) et des autres pays occidentaux.
Conflict and climate change remain the driving forces behind displacement as the number of internally displaced persons reach 71.1 million across the globe.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, nearly 300 million people will need humanitarian assistance due to conflicts, climate change, and other drivers by next year.
Un spectre plane sur les ports de toute l’Europe. Un spectre qui fait perdre le sommeil aux exportateurs, aux armateurs et aux commerçants : la fermeture du canal de Suez.
Ce qui mettrait en crise l’ensemble du commerce méditerranéen. Un véritable tremblement de terre pour l’économie mondiale.
The eleventh monthly report monitoring the activities of al-Qaeda and Islamic State branches throughout the Sahel will focus on the propaganda output of these groups in October 2023. This October, the propaganda outlets linked to these terror groups published the highest number of claims since the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) began monitoring them in December 2022. During October, 87 incidents in total have been claimed by the Islamic State’s affiliates ISGS and ISWAP and by az-Zallaqa Media, which publishes all claims by al-Qaeda’s branch JNIM. This steep increase of claims came unexpectedly, especially as the number of incidents claimed by these groups had remained stable in the previous months. With this sudden surge, October constitutes the deadliest month in the wider region since CEP started monitoring.
Without being overly paranoid or pessimistic, we are witnessing a major upheaval in the Sahel. This upheaval is political, with six coups d’état in West Africa since 2020, the latest of which overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum in Niger. It is also security-related, as evidenced by the North-South confrontation in Mali, and diplomatic, with the expulsion of diplomats, the reversal of alliances, the deterioration of relations with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the banning of the international organizations. Finally, it is demographic—the region’s population is set to rise from 84 million to 196 million by 2050—and climatic, as evidenced by the expansion of the Sahara, whose surface area has increased by 10 percent in a century to over 9.2 million km2.