The Trump policy towards Africa will not be clear for several months at least, if we are to judge by the time it has taken past administrations to put their teams in place and articulate their objectives. While it is apparent that the president-elect has had very little contact with…
Continue Reading Africa, Trump, Infrastructure

Nana Akufo-Addo, the 72-year-old leader of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), was elected Ghana’s president on December 9 by a margin of 1 million votes, affirming the country’s status as a leading democracy on the continent. The peaceful election supports the remarks of former assistant secretary of state for African…
Continue Reading Ghana’s New President: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

For Africa, at stake in this election of Donald Trump is the strong bipartisan consensus in Congress that has been the cornerstone of U.S. policy toward the continent for the last three administrations.

This consensus, supported by Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama, was predicated on the notion that Africa has…
Continue Reading Donald Trump and Africa

Earlier this month, South Africa reached agreements with Russia and Kenya to cooperate on enforcing competition law. At the Annual Competition Law, Economics and Policy Conference in Cape Town, South Africa’s Competition Commission signed Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with its Kenyan and Russian equivalents, the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK)…
Continue Reading South Africa to Cooperate on Competition Law with Russia and Kenya

According to the 2016 Global Slavery Index, an estimated 45.8 million men, women and children around the world are ensnared in some form of modern slavery, which includes slavery, servitude, forced labor and human trafficking. Sub-Saharan Africa is particularly vulnerable to this scourge: Estimates of modern slavery in Sub-Saharan…
Continue Reading UK Rules Prompt Businesses to Report on Slavery in their Supply Chains

Next week, the Second U.S.-Africa Business Forum will be taking place on the occasion of the 71st Session of the UN General Assembly. The Forum will focus in particular on several sectors that are important to African economies and offer trade and investment opportunities on the continent, including infrastructure and …
Continue Reading The US-Africa Business Forum: Investing in Solar Energy

The explosion of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket yesterday was bad news for SpaceX, certainly, but the loss of the rocket’s payload is particularly troubling in light of the need to further expand internet access within Sub-Saharan Africa. That payload was the Amos-6 communications satellite, which Facebook, as part of…
Continue Reading SpaceX Rocket Explosion Deals a Blow to Expanding Internet Connectivity in SSA

On September 20, barring any breakthroughs in the political dialogue between President Kabila and opposition groups, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will enter a state of constitutional crisis. This could threaten some of the democratic gains that have been made in the country in recent years.

The political trouble…
Continue Reading DRC: Slowly Lurching Toward a Constitutional Crisis?

Is Africa becoming a strategic priority for Japan?

The Sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD VI), held in Nairobi, Kenya on August 27 and 28, suggests that Japan is looking at Africa differently than in the past. For one, the five previous TICADs have been held in Japan;…
Continue Reading Japan and Africa: Turning a New Page

This past June, the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health Policy held a hearing to discuss U.S. sanctions in Sub-Saharan Africa. The United States, the European Union, and the United Nations impose far more sanctions on Sub-Saharan African targets than on any other region, and these sanction…
Continue Reading A Summary of Congressional Hearings on U.S. Sanctions in Sub-Saharan Africa