Online Africa Policy Forum's blog

By Stephen Ellis

Two years have gone by since the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) sounded an alarm about West Africa's role in the international drug trade. In 2007, the UNODC published a report identifying the Portuguese-speaking state of Guinea-Bissau in particular as an emerging narco-state that provided a convenient halfway stop for Latin American drug traders exporting to Europe.

 By Jennifer Cooke and J. Stephen Morrison

By Paul D. Williams

In January 2007, the African Union launched its fourth peacekeeping operation, the AU mission in Somalia (AMISOM). Now approximately two and a half years old, AMISOM’s short life has not been a happy one. It was deployed to Mogadishu essentially in support of the Ethiopian government’s preferred faction in Somalia’s ongoing civil war. Not surprisingly, and like the three UN-authorized peace operations deployed to Somalia during the early 1990s, AMISOM faced serious challenges which severely restricted its ability to operate.

By Jennifer Cooke and J. Stephen Morrison

**The following is the opening, pre-publication draft, chapter in the forthcoming CSIS Africa Program publication, "Beyond the Bush Administration’s Africa Policy: Critical Choices for the Obama Administration." Pre-publication drafts of the other chapters are available on the CSIS Africa Program website or by clicking here. Final print publication will occur in mid–March.

The Bush Era: a Powerful Legacy

During President George W. Bush’s eight-year tenure, U.S. policy towards Africa underwent a dramatic enlargement, marked by an expansion of U.S. interests, a high-level diplomatic push on Sudan, unprecedented resource flows, and the establishment of several historic initiatives. This unfolded in an era in which security, energy, and health emerged as new, near-strategic U.S. interests in Africa, and in which U.S. Africa policy ascended to a position far closer to mainstream foreign policy than ever before. The U.S. constituency for an activist Africa policy broadened considerably to include public health institutions, powerful new foundations, vocal religious groups, and a more active corporate sector. U.S. Africa policy attracted consistently strong bipartisan support. But it was also criticized for approaches that were imbalanced, unsustained, underpowered, and inconsistent.

By Eddie Thomas

Sudan’s center is in the Nile Valley around the capital Khartoum—a middle-income enclave surrounded by some of the poorest societies on earth. The powerful, rich central government has a weak grip on its vast territory, but it may be losing its grip. It is fighting a war in Darfur; the neighboring region of Kordofan is being drawn in; and there is a huge military build-up on the oil-rich internal border between Northern Sudan and the newly autonomous South, which has recently emerged from decades of war. A rebellion in Eastern Sudan has come to an uneasy end; and in the far north, people are being thrown off riverain lands to make way for dams.

By Christian Hennemeyer

The world of 35 years ago was a dramatically different place, and nowhere more so than in sub-Saharan Africa.  In the early 1970s, Portugal still clung to its colonies in Angola and Mozambique, South Africa was under the heavy hand of apartheid, and Rhodesia, as Zimbabwe was then called, was run by the white minority regime of Ian Smith.  The domination of Africa by Europe and people of European descent was intact, albeit showing signs of stress.

By Norma Kriger

Zimbabwe’s presidential election has captivated and horrified an international audience, which has watched President Mugabe use violent coercion to maintain his grip on a beleaguered nation. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who won more votes than Mugabe in the March 29 presidential election, withdrew from the presidential run-off on June 22 after a campaign of violence and intimidation by ZANU-PF and associated militias, effectively handing ‘victory’ to the incumbent. International shock and outrage over this subversion of the electoral process are more than justified, but, in fact, the phenomenon is not new or unusual in Zimbabwe. In the run-off, Mugabe and ZANU-PF were able to draw on an extensive repertoire of electoral techniques, improvising to take advantage of circumstances.

By Loro Horta

While quite a lot of ink has been spilled over China’s scramble for African oil and mineral resources, little notice has been taken of its growing demand for food stuffs from Africa and for new agricultural land. As China grows wealthier, the eating habits of millions of its citizens have become far more demanding. In 1985, the Chinese consumed an average of 25 kilos of meat per person per year – today consumption has doubled to 50 kilos. The consumption of other food stuffs such as seafood, rice, soybeans, sugar, cereals and other crops has risen by 30 to 40 percent in the past decade. China’s growing demand for food and the rapid shrinking of available arable land in China itself due to environmental degradation and urbanization have made finding new agricultural lands an urgent priority for the Chinese government.

By Marielle Debos

Recent events in Chad and Sudan show once again that a regional approach is required if there is to be any hope of a lasting solution to the persistent conflict in this part of Africa. In February 2008, a Chadian rebel alliance backed by Khartoum launched an unsuccessful attack on N'Djamena, Chad's capital. Three months later, fighters from the Darfurian Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), which has been a close ally of the Chadian regime for the last two years, carried the conflict into Omdurman, just across the Nile from Khartoum, Sudan's capital. While there is no definitive indication that Chad's President Idriss Déby's was involved in JEM's assault, it is clear that the conflicts in Chad and Darfur have become increasingly intertwined.

By Dave Eaton

During 2005-2006, I spent 12 months in northern Kenya, a region of endemic violence based on cattle raids among rival communities. Here I was able to observe the peace-building efforts undertaken by various non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with the support of international aid donors. A popular approach among NGOs today is to create affiliated peace groups, usually a handful of local operatives led by an individual within the organization. They are tasked with organizing meetings between opposed communities and encouraging combatants to turn over their weapons to the government. These projects are seen as an essential not only because of their expected contributions to peace, but also because NGOs cannot carry out their other relief and development missions in an environment of conflict and risk. It is believed that these programs, once properly implemented, will also contribute to reducing violence.