AfricaSource

Harnessing Africa’s Demographic Dividend

By Julian Wyss and Erina Iwami

As the global downturn in commodity prices and the decreasing demand and investment from China begin to stymie Africa’s historical drivers of economic growth, one of the continent’s largest potential assets—its workforce—is taking off. Africa’s high fertility rates are leading to a demographic shift that will have profound consequences for the region’s long-term economic outlook.

Senegal Consolidates Its Constitutional Democracy

By J. Peter Pham

While a number of African rulers—most notably Joseph Kabila of the rather ironically named Democratic Republic of the Congo whose ham-fisted attempts to prolong his presidency threaten to reignite the continent’s most bloody conflict—have been trying to extend their tenures by all possible means, fair or foul, voters in Senegal were asked in a March […]

Morocco Forges a Singular Path in a Troubled Region

By Youssef Amrani

Since the tumult of the Arab Spring in 2011, the broader Middle East and North Africa region has grappled with instability, internal strife, and an existential struggle against extremist terrorism. The region has descended from the great hope for change into a spiral of fragmentation, insecurity, and fragility, and it continues to face complex emergency […]

3,000 Miles from Paris Climate Talks, Drought Threatens to Overshadow Progress in Ethiopia

World leaders met this week for the Paris Climate Conference (COP21) with an ambitious agenda to tackle warming global temperatures and reduce carbon emissions. At the same time, Ethiopian officials revised their predictions of the number of people affected by the ongoing drought upward by nearly two million. They now estimate that more than 10 […]

Rwanda: Term Limit Controversy Masks Real Issues

By Sam Learner

The decision by Rwanda’s Supreme Court to allow a popular referendum on the lifting of presidential term limits has all but cleared President Paul Kagame’s path to a third term in office. Rwanda’s constitution currently restricts the president to two seven-year terms, the second of which President Kagame began in 2010, but the ruling Rwandan Patriotic […]

Can Guinea’s Election Be Credible?

By J. Peter Pham

For months, I have been warning that Guinea’s young democracy was extraordinarily fragile and might well prove stillborn. Last month, I highlighted the broader significance of next week’s presidential election, noting that its conduct will either consolidate the major advance for democracy in Africa achieved earlier this year when the continent’s most populous country and […]

South Africa’s Bizarro-World Foreign Policy

By J. Peter Pham

Last year, when it was first reported that South Africa’s ruling liberation movement, the African National Congress (ANC), would receive funding from the Chinese Communist Party for its new Policy School and Political Institute in Venterskroon, I and several other scholars—including Patrick Heller of Brown University and retired Ambassador David Shinn of George Washington University—drew […]

President Obama in Africa: Making Liberal Americans and African Dictators Smile

By Bronwyn Bruton

In the many years that I spent working as a civil and human rights activist across East, West, Central and Southern Africa, I quickly learned that there is a surefire way to get a visa into Africa’s most repressive countries. When filling out the little box that asks for your purpose of visit, just say […]

Is Nigeria’s Other Insurgency Making a Comeback?

By Dafe Oputu

Even as Nigeria struggles to fight against Boko Haram insurgents in its northeast, a dangerous but forgotten conflict on the other side of the country is resurfacing. Before the rise of Boko Haram, the conflict in the southern Niger Delta region had long been considered the most potent threat to Nigeria’s security. Over the years, […]