Africa Center Commentary & Analysis

Through high-level relationships and a track record of well-respected analysis, the Africa Center speaks directly to the stakeholders who matter, shaping policy on the foremost issues of this dynamic continent.

New Atlanticist

Feb 22, 2012

Al Qaeda’s Divisive Alliance

By Bronwyn Bruton

In a videotaped announcement released earlier this month by the Al Qaeda chief, Ayman al-Zawahri, the group officially endorsed the struggling rebel group Shabab, which has been fighting the Western-backed transitional government and African Union peacekeepers in Somalia since 2007.

Somalia

Event Recap

Feb 15, 2012

Pre-London Conference Briefing on Somalia

By Adrienne Chuck

The Atlantic Council’s Michael S. Ansari Africa Center hosted diplomats from the embassies of several of the European countries taking part in the upcoming London Conference on Somalia for an in-depth briefing on the troubled East African country.

Somalia
Counter-Piracy Task Force: Strategic Approaches to the Piracy Challenge

Event Recap

Feb 8, 2012

Counter-Piracy Task Force: Strategic Approaches to the Piracy Challenge

By Adrienne Chuck

On February 8, 2012, the International Security Program and the Michael S. Ansari Africa Center hosted a meeting of the Atlantic Council Maritime Piracy Task Force, chaired by Atlantic Council Board Director Franklin D. Miller. This is the third in a series of meetings looking into the challenge of piracy and possible strategic approaches.

Maritime Security Security & Defense

New Atlanticist

Feb 2, 2012

The Splintering of Al Shabaab

By Bronwyn Bruton & Peter Pham

For the better part of five years, much of Somalia’s long-suffering population has been caught in a deadly stalemate between al Shabaab, an al Qaeda-linked militant group, and African Union peacekeepers, known as AMISOM. The peacekeepers are tasked with defending the country’s weak Transitional Federal Government (TFG), which, despite years of backing from regional powers […]

Event Recap

Jan 31, 2012

Nigeria on the Edge

By Adrienne Chuck

On January 31, the Atlantic Council’s Michael S. Ansari Africa Center hosted a panel discussion, “Nigeria On The Edge,” featuring Ambassador John Campbell, Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and former US Ambassador to Nigeria; Peter Lewis, Director of African Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School […]

North & West Africa
The Congo after the Presidential ‘Election’

Event Recap

Jan 27, 2012

The Congo after the Presidential ‘Election’

By Adrienne Chuck

On January 27, 2012 the Michael S. Ansari Africa Center hosted a luncheon briefing by Angèle Makombo-Eboum, chair and former presidential candidate of the Ligue des Démocrates Congolais (LIDEC) party and spokesperson for the Forces de l’Opposition Réunies au Congo (FORECO) coalition, on the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) November 2011 presidential election and […]

South Africa

Event Recap

Jan 12, 2012

Actualizing the Upside of Water: Development, Diplomacy, and Defense

By Adrienne Chuck

The Atlantic Council’s Michael S. Ansari Africa Center, in partnership with the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and the WASH Advocacy Initiative, sponsored a workshop on “Actualizing the Upside of Water: Development, Diplomacy, and Defense,” for a select group of government and civil society leaders.

Climate Change & Climate Action Energy & Environment

Event Recap

Jan 11, 2012

Repercussions of developments in Nigeria for US interests and regional stability

By Africa Center

On January 11, 2012, the Atlantic Council organized a conference call briefing with J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa Center, to discuss the extremist militant sect Boko Haram and rising security challenge it poses to Nigeria. Atlantic Council Executive Vice President Damon Wilson moderated discussion. As the most populous country in Africa, the fourth […]

Extremism Nigeria

New Atlanticist

Jan 3, 2012

The Islamist threat to Africa’s rise in 2012

By J. Peter Pham

The biggest story out of Africa last year did not occupy the headlines the way dramatic revolutions in the Maghreb, civil strife in West Africa, the independence of South Sudan, famine in the Horn of Africa, piracy off the Somali coast, fraud-ridden elections in the ironically-named Democratic Republic of the Congo, and various other developments […]

Extremism Sahel

New Atlanticist

Dec 22, 2011

A (Slightly) Merrier Christmas in Mogadishu

By Peter Pham

While billions of people around the world join in Christmas celebrations this weekend, there will be few outward signs of holiday cheer, religious or otherwise, in the onetime Somali capital of Mogadishu.  

Somalia
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