Atlantic Africa

The Atlantic area and its Afro-Atlantic seaboard are suffering the consequences of the global situation. We are witnessing a complex geopolitical game involving different strategies that have various processes, tactics, and objectives. The current situation reveals a paradoxical dynamic, which involves the Euro-Atlantic powers, extra- regional powers (China and Russia), and all the Afro-Atlantic countries. How is the power game organized in the Atlantic area? How does Africa9s Atlan ...

Le propos semblera tautologique à beaucoup, mais les géographies ne sont pas - seulement - des œuvres de la Création, ou le produit du hasard et des accidents de la vie de la Terre. Elles sont, presque plus fondamentalement, pourrait-on dire, le produit du regard actif de l’Homme, qui, porté sur elles, les façonne, par le travail, et par la projection de représentations mentales dans la matière. Cette capacité de l’Homme à (se) projeter (par) son regard dans l’espace visibilise les ...

In the delightful garden restaurant of the Marrakech hotel Mamounia, the tables had been set for hundreds of guests, 16 seated at each. Flowers had been arranged and there were crystal wine glasses. Yet, on this Wednesday, December 14 , at 7 p.m., only one table was occupied. Among the guests around it were a Turkish NATO-assigned general, Aydin Killiç, camouflaged in a dark tailored suit; a former Italian ambassador, Alessandro Minuto-Rizzo, President of the NATO Defense College Fo ...

The Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders Alumni (ADEL) Portraits are a series of journalistic insights that delve into the stories and backgrounds of impactful young leaders of the ADEL community, now 350 alumni strong. These portraits are more than a biography as they capture the motives, success stories, career shifts, and vision behind each emerging leader’s pursuit of positive impact. From Morocco to South Africa, Germany to Canada, Brazil and the United States, these young leade ...

For the second time, Côte d'Ivoire is known for being a "miracle economy" –high aggregate GDP growth of 8% per year since 2012. Despite this achievement, its food systems are unable to deliver food security to most Ivoirians. These systems are being undermined by several structural factors, which include broad-based low productivity and limited diversification of its agri-food sector; the high numbers of extremely poor, some 30% of the population; and the vulnerable who are millions ...

The current pandemic has hit all countries hard, with severe repercussions at all levels. In economic terms, and given the scale of the damage, countries have reacted quickly by drawing on their available toolboxes. However, unlike in 2008, room for maneuver this time is much more limited and many countries have no choice but to go into massive debt to cope with the effects of the pandemic. For a country like Morocco, such a situation should lead the authorities concerned to study a ...

Our Senior Fellow and professor at the University Abdelmalek Essaadi (Tangier) Rachid El Houdaigui, contributed with a chapter on « The South Atlantic, a Space under Construction » in Idn Cadernos (nstituto daDefesaNacional) n°38, the Academic journal of the Atlantic Centre for Defence Capacity Building. This paper was presented – along other experts from countries bordering the Atlantic basin and beyond- in the context of Rachid El Houdaigui’s participation in the first seminar org ...

La Mondialisation et nous prolonge les deux derniers ouvrages de l’auteur : La Crise économique et nous, 2009, (en arabe), et La Chine et nous, 2017. Il revient aux origines de cette mondialisation, dont le point de départ a été la Méditerranée occidentale et la conquête de la ville de Sebta par les Portugais en 1415, ouvrant la voie aux grandes découvertes et à l’émergence du capitalisme. L’évolution historique et analytique de la mondialisation l’a amené à s’interroger sur ses per ...

On se pose plusieurs questions sur le futur de notre environnement, notre écologie et notre biodiversité. On doit tirer la sonnette d’alarme pour protéger le Maroc et la planète pour les générations futures. L’objectif de ce Papier est de mettre en avant l’importance des initiatives qui ont été déjà lancées par le gouvernement, le secteur privé et la société civile, en vue d’assurer l’adaptation et la mitigation aux changements climatiques. Le Maroc est précurseur dans cette lancée, ...

The future of our environment, ecology and biodiversity raises a number of questions. Vigilance is critical to preseving both Morocco and the planet for future generations. This Paper highlights the importance of ongoing government, private sector and civil society initiatives to ensure adaptation to, and mitigation of, climate change. Morocco is at the forefront of this momentum, as illustrated by the organization of the COP22 in Marrakech in 2016, the implementation of a National ...

This Policy Brief focuses on the Senegalese elections from a Twitter Mining perspective. The authors gathered data from November 2018 to February 2019 about two presidential candidates. The goal was to provide some insights about Sunday’s presidential election. The first part presents a Sentiment analysis as well as a word cloud, while the second part emphasis on most frequent words that came up during the analysis. The authors also looked at the influential users who tweet about th ...

Ce papier évalue les effets asymétriques des cycles économiques sur le chômage et la pauvreté au Maroc, à travers un modèle VAR estimé sur des données trimestrielles allant de 2003 à 2012. Ce modèle inclut les composantes cycliques de quatre variables à savoir : l’output-gap, le salaire minimum réel, le taux de chômage et le taux de pauvreté. Afin de tester la robustesse des résultats, deux versions du modèle VAR ont été estimées, en utilisant les composantes cycliques calculées se ...

- The trade agreements that the European Union has with North African countries – with Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia – are often seen as having delivered disappointing results since they came into force during the 2000s. The four North African countries have seen insufficient growth in their exports to the EU, and have undergone only limited diversification. In the meantime, the EU’s exports to North Africa have grown quite rapidly. - Economic growth in North Africa has been ...

Young researchers face several challenges in getting recognition for their work at the level of institutions and senior intellectual communities. Obstacles include trust issues, funding restrictions, and linguistic and cultural barriers. To these aforementioned limitations, researchers and university students from the Southern Mediterranean shore face an additional struggle, which is access to mobility. The latter is a key driver of quality in the research field. Depending on the su ...

Suite à l'élection en août 2017 de João Lourenço en tant que président à la place de José Eduardo Dos Santos, qui a dirigé l’Angola pendant trente-huit ans, le pays connaît une dynamique de rupture ainsi qu’un mouvement massif de mises à l’écart des proches du clan de l’ancien président. La période écoulée reflète une transition et non une véritable alternance, tant il est vrai que les structures étatiques et la société civile restent, dans l’ensemble, dominées par l’influence du Mo ...

In a more chaotic and critical Mediterranean security environment that is facing a huge geopolitical change, the NATO alliance has found itself challenged by rival states across the spectrum of conflict. Russia, which represents an instance of this change, has acquired for the first time in its modern history a proper permanent base in the Mediterranean. Also, other geopolitical changes such as proliferation of ballistic missiles among both state and non-state actors around the Medi ...

The Chinese presence in the Mediterranean is raising new questions among the diplomatic services of the Maghreb countries, as well as those of southern Europe. Indeed, over the past five years, China has been translating its national priorities with increasing activism in the Mediterranean. This activism can be summarised into three main areas: creating China-Southern Europe sectoral cooperation forums, investments in transport, energy and telecommunications infrastructure, and cond ...

Despite fraught politics, the global outlook is strengthening. The next twelve months are likely to be characterized by moderate but steady growth across the world. However, the outlook becomes murkier as we move into the second half of 2018 and 2019. Significant upside in world economic growth is possible on account of building momentum against a background of low capacity utilization, but even greater downside is possible on account of inconsistent economic policy in the Unites St ...

Africa’s population is projected to reach almost 2.5 billion by 2050. Migration from Africa to the EU is relatively stable, at around 500,000 migrants per year, or 0.1 percent of the EU population, yet irregular immigration into the EU has increased recently. Development is often seen as the way to reduce migration but the development-migration nexus is complex. At low levels of development, migration might increase with rising GDP per capita. This applies to most of sub-Saharan Af ...

An analysis of trade relations between Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa indicates a growing volume of trade, reflecting a continuation of stimulated trade relations. A similar trend is observed in foreign direct investment (FDI), which has continued to grow in recent years, reflecting Morocco's determination to become a major player in the development of the African continent. This Policy Brief first presents trends in inter-regional trade between Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa, focus ...

En un tiers de siècle, la Chine, pays en développement, est devenue une économie émergente, puis une puissance économique mondiale. Il s’agit là du principal évènement économique du début du XXIe siècle. Cet évènement interpelle le Maroc, le Maghreb, l’Afrique et l’espace sudméditerranéen, parce qu’il est porteur d’un second dépassement historique, provenant, cette fois, non pas de l’Occident, mais de la Chine lointaine pourtant tellement présente dans notre quotidien. Répondre à c ...

La réunion des chefs d’État et de gouvernement des pays de l’OTAN à Varsovie constitue une étape importante de la transformation structurelle et fonctionnelle de l’Alliance atlantique et de l’OTAN. Le Communiqué final et les trois déclarations confirment le retour progressif à l’endiguement, à travers le renforcement de la dissuasion et la défense de l’Alliance, et la mise à distance de la menace asymétrique et hybride. Cette dynamique contribue à la centralité de la défense collect ...

La façade atlantique de l’Afrique réunit dans un espace géopolitique en construction les principaux atouts et défis du continent africain. La conjugaison de ces enjeux au comportement des Etats de la région semble fournir les premières composantes d’une identité stratégique « afro-atlantique », toujours en construction : vision commune des enjeux et institutionnalisation de l’espace, à travers des structures informelles comme la Conférence des États africains riverains de l’Atlantiq ...

Brazil is in a good position to serve as a bridge to Africa and to reignite more cooperation between both sides of the South Atlantic. Brazil has increased its presence in Africa in recent years in terms of trade, investment, development cooperation, and political alliances with the goal to secure a greater say for the global South in the new world order that has been under construction since the of the Cold War. This has been pursued through financial support and proactive economic ...

The geopolitical situation currently prevailing in the Mediterranean region is difficult and complex, notably due to the emergence of a new strategic equation raising fears about a new outbreak of violence. In this troubled context, Morocco, under the leadership of HM King Mohammed VI, has been engaged in a democratic process, based on an inclusive approach that he leads with faith and determination. The Mediterranean indeed retains a triple vocation of being an intercultural refer ...

The contribution that the diaspora makes to development in the country of origin is examined. Drawing on a recent World Bank survey of migrants from the MENA countries, the needs of the diaspora and the development role it can play through its organizations are reviewed. A constructive interaction with the diaspora can be greatly enhanced by supportive policies in the country of origin. The main focus of the paper is on the Middle East and North African region, and more specifically ...