Programs

The Atlantic Council’s Africa Center promotes dynamic geopolitical partnerships with African states and helps redirect US and European policy priorities toward strengthening security and bolstering economic growth and prosperity on the continent.

Content

Event Recap

Mar 5, 2012

Ansari Africa Center Co-Sponsors International Dialogue on the Economic Dimension of Peacebuilding

By Adrienne Chuck

The Atlantic Council’s Michael S. Ansari Africa Center joined the Brenthurst Foundation, the British Peace Support Training Team, and the RAND Corporation to sponsor an international dialogue on The Economic Dimension of Peacebuilding, which took place March 2-4 at the Tswalu Kalahari Reserve in South Africa.

South Africa

New Atlanticist

Feb 22, 2012

The Wrong Somalia Conference

By Peter Pham

British Prime Minister David Cameron is hosting a major international conference tomorrow involving senior representatives of some forty countries and multilateral organizations. The agenda that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has laid out for the conferees is ambitious, to say the least: the mandarins of Whitehall are giving themselves all of five hours to get […]

Somalia

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

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 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
Briefing and Discussion with Sheikh Hersi Mohamed Hilowle

Event Recap

Dec 16, 2011

Briefing and Discussion with Sheikh Hersi Mohamed Hilowle

By Adrienne Chuck

The Michael S. Ansari Africa Center hosted an off-the-record briefing and discussion for US government officials and academic experts working on Somalia with Sheikh Hersi Mohamud Hilowle “Laba-Garre,” chairman of Ahlu Sunna wal Jama’a (ASWJ), a Somali military and political group with a strong following among the country’s Sufis.

Somalia

Experts