Category Africa

Africa, Civil Society, Security & Conflict

Assessing Twenty-Five Years of Democracy in Nigeria

September 3, 2024

Twenty-five years ago, the Federal Republic of Nigeria transitioned from military rule to a democratic system. During a colorful event in Abuja attended by leaders worldwide on May 29, 1999, the military transferred power to Olusegun Obasanjo, the democratically elected…

Africa, Governance & Law, Policy & Politics, Security & Conflict

Don’t Call It Farmer-Herder Conflict

February 9, 2024

As violent conflict rises across West Africa, the phrase “farmer-herder conflict” has taken hold from the local to international levels. Farmer-herder conflict is an umbrella term for a range of interactions, typically describing resource competition between pastoralist herders and sedentary…

Africa, Civil Society, Security & Conflict

Limits to Inclusion: Explaining the Inclusion-Effectiveness Dilemma with the 2020 Libyan Political Dialogue Forum

January 26, 2024

In most conflict-afflicted countries, the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic aggravated civil war, political divisions, economic collapse, and humanitarian suffering. Most people predicted that Libya would suffer the same fate as conflict escalated in and around Tripoli in early 2020 and the…

Africa, Energy & Environment

Water Security & The Maghreb

October 18, 2023

North African states and communities are no strangers to careful water management and its relevance to effective governance in challenging times. Old underground water channels, ingenious methods of water storage and collection, to today’s dams and hydropower projects, are time-spanning…

Africa, Policy & Politics, Security & Conflict

Sudan: A Tinderbox to All-Out War

June 19, 2023

Violent clashes between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the infamous paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have plunged Sudan into crisis and renewed instability. In mid-April of 2023, brief gun battles in the streets of Khartoum and other strategic areas…

Africa, Civil Society, Economics, Policy & Politics, Regional, Security & Conflict, Topical

The Gendered Impact of Displacement in East African Refugee Camps

March 8, 2023

Kyilah Terry is a Princeton in Africa Fellow in Nairobi, Kenya. She previously worked as a Policy Fellow with the Office of the Vice President. Kyilah holds a B.A. from UCLA, a M.A. from Georgetown University, and is matriculating into…

Africa, Economics, Europe, International Development, Policy & Politics, Regional, Security & Conflict, Topical

Why the Global Skills Partnership between Morocco and Belgium is a Positive-Sum Game

November 28, 2022

Limon B. Rodriguez is a doctoral candidate in international affairs with a specialization in development economics at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Tensions emerge between, on the one hand, labor shortages in higher-income countries in a…

Africa, Asia Pacific, Middle East, North America, Policy & Politics, Regional, Security & Conflict, Topical

Countering Terror in Transition: A Typology of Terrorist Organization Successors and their Vulnerabilities

November 15, 2022

Dr. Tricia Bacon is an Associate Professor at the School of Public Affairs at American University. Dr. Elizabeth Grimm is an Associate Professor of Teaching in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. One of the singular challenges for a…

Africa, Civil Society, Policy & Politics, Regional, Security & Conflict, Topical

Reunification monument in Yaounde, Cameroon

Global Responses to Cameroon’s Anglophone Crisis: The Inadequate International Efforts to End the World’s Most Neglected Conflict

November 8, 2022

Jude Mutah is a program officer for Africa at the National Endowment for Democracy. Background The conflict in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon is a civil war that started in 2017 between Cameroonian security forces and non-state armed separatist groups…

Africa, Civil Society, Governance & Law, Policy & Politics, Regional, Security & Conflict, Topical

Civil Society, Coups, and the Future of Burkina Faso

August 25, 2022

Burkina Faso’s rich history has been marked by violent fluctuations between military juntas and pushback from civil society, resulting in a state that lies somewhere in between. Modern Burkina Faso’s leadership nominally supports civil liberties and political freedoms but has…

Africa, International Development

Moroccan Decentralization: Towards Community Development and National Solidarity

September 16, 2021

Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir first introduced us to development and decentralization in Morocco in 2018. In this new piece, he re-examines and updates Morocco’s progress towards sustainable development. Background on Moroccan Decentralization Decentralization in the Kingdom of Morocco—aiming to make unprecedented…

Africa, Governance & Law, Policy & Politics

Power, Strategy, and Outcomes in Negotiations in The Gambia

May 19, 2021

Introduction According to Bill Zartman, power is defined as the “ability by one party to move another in an intended direction.”[1]Power relates to physical force, but many aspects of power move beyond force. Weaker parties often form coalitions, appeal to…