Africa Program

The Africa Program conducts research and analysis on major elements of U.S. policy toward Africa that is centrist, activist, and forward looking.

The core mission of the CSIS Africa Program is to conduct sustained and timely research and analysis on the major elements of U.S. policy toward Africa, with the aim of substantially shaping discourse in Congress, the executive branch, and among private interest groups. The program fills a critical need in Washington for Africa policy analysis that is centrist, activist, and forward looking, defining what is at stake and offering policy recommendations that are timely, nonpartisan, and pragmatic.

The program's substantive focus is forward looking, emphasizing new and emergent dimensions of U.S.-Africa policy, including U.S. policy to combat HIV/AIDS and infectious disease; priority conflict zones; critical bilateral relations; and rising U.S. energy and security interests. The program assembles a diversity of important U.S. interests from the human rights community, the corporate sector, relief organizations, congressional staff, administration officials, academics, and activists. The program also provides a platform to visiting African opinion leaders and seeks to integrate African perspectives into the Washington policy dialogue. The program is led by Jennifer Cooke, director.

Africa and Global Health
The Africa Program considers how U.S. policymakers can address Africa’s immense health challenges and strengthen the long-term capacity of African governments to provide effective treatment to citizens.
Africa Policy after President Bush
A new CSIS publication, U.S. Africa Policy beyond the Bush Years, assesses the Bush administration’s Africa policies and provides recommendations to the Obama administration.
China in Africa
The Africa Program examines the implications of China’s engagement in Africa for the United States and the African region.
Conflict Resolution
The Africa Program monitors conflict across the continent, recognizing that unresolved conflict can lead to grave humanitarian challenges and regional destabilization.
East Africa Forum
The East Africa Forum examines how the United States can more effectively address governance challenges in the Horn of Africa while simultaneously confronting broader security threats in the region.
Online Africa Policy Forum
Each week, the Africa Policy Forum publishes an essay on a significant Africa policy topic and then opens that essay for comment and discussion in order to facilitate the Africa policy debate.
Rising U.S. Energy Interests
The Africa Program addresses how the United States can engage African energy producers to ensure support for stability, transparency, and good governance as they manage and develop their resources.
U.S. Security in Africa
The Africa Program assesses how the United States can utilize the newly created U.S. Africa Command in combination with its other civilian agencies to address the complex security challenges in Africa.

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AMISOM’s Five Challenges
May 12, 2009
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. In January 2009 the withdrawal of Ethiopian forces, the election of Somalia’s new transitional government led by Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, and the arrival of Barrack Obama’s administration in the United States renewed the debate over how AMISOM should relate to the new Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and how the mission might be brought to an end.
No Simple Narrative in Somalia Drama
Mar 9, 2009
By Michael Weinstein

As the coalition of Western donor powers, the United Nations, the African Union, and regional African states, such as Kenya, Djibouti, Uganda and Burundi, see it, the narrative of Somalia’s contemporary political history pits the country’s new and expanded Transitional Federal Government (TFG) against an armed “insurgency” composed of “spoilers,” “extremists,” or “terrorists” operating under the banner of “radical Islamism.”

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