Back

Fighting for Africa: External Power competition in the Red Sea

December 14, 2020
Related topics: 
International Relations
Geopolitics
Security & Defense
Africa

Foreign powers are grappling for influence across the African continent, but competition has been particularly fierce in the Red Sea. With Ethiopia, long viewed as a bulwark against instability in the Horn of Africa, emerging from conflict, there is a new opportunity to cement the peace with Eritrea. Increased access to the sea could provide an immense peace dividend to the region—and especially to the people of Tigray. How will key external actors, especially the UAE and China, react to this moment of transition? And will the United States and Europe attempt to repair relations with the region, or risk being left out in the cold? Chair: Bronwyn Bruton, Director of Programs and Studies, Africa Center, Atlantic Council Speakers: . Maha Skah, International Relations Specialist, Policy Center for the New South . Gabriel Negatu, Former Director General, African Development Bank; Senior Fellow, Africa Center, Atlantic Council . Khalid Chegraoui, Senior Fellow, Policy Center for the New South

Speakers
Maha Skah
Political Affairs Officer, United Nations
Maha Skah is a Political Affairs Officer at the Policy and Mediation Division of the United Nations Department of the Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) in New York, where her role centers around providing technical and political advice on how to assess and analyze climate-related peace and security risks and how to integrate climate considerations into the Department of the Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) conflict prevention, peacebuilding, and peacemaking work. Maha Skah previously worked at the Policy Center for the New South as an International Relations Specialist, where her research activities focused on geopolitics in Africa and climate change policies, and at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation (OECD) on issues relating to development cooperat ...
Khalid Chegraoui
Senior Fellow
Khalid Chegraoui is Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South and Vice Dean of Political Sciences and International Relations at the Faculty of Governance, Economic and Social Sciences of the Mohammed VI University.  He began his teaching and research career in 1992 as a Research Assistant Professor at Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdallah University in Fez after earning his first doctorate in African Studies from the Mohammed V University in Rabat focusing on West Sub-Saharan Africa. He also earned a Doctorate of State in African Studies from the same University in 2002, where he focused on Contemporary West Africa, in 2003 he became Professor of History and Political Anthropology at the Institute of African Studies, Mohammed V University, consultant on African and Middle Ea ...
Bronwyn Bruton
Director of Programs and Studies, Africa Center, Atlantic Council
...
Gabriel Negatu
Former Director General, African Development Bank; Senior Fellow, Africa Center, Atlantic Council
...

RELATED CONTENT

  • Rapport annuel sur la Géopolitique de l’Afrique 2019
    Authors
    Sous la direction de
    Abdelhak Bassou
    September 26, 2019
    Le Rapport sur la géopolitique de l’Afrique, dénommé lors de ses éditions précédentes « Miroir d’Afrique », s’inscrit dans une série de documents annuels publiés par le Policy Center for the New South (PCNS). Les grandes évolutions du continent y sont traitées, avec une large place faite à l’analyse prospective. Ce rapport s’ajoute ainsi au Rapport annuel sur l’économie de l’Afrique et au Rapport Arcadia (Annual Report on Commodity Analytics and Dynamics in Africa), portant les anal ...
  • Download PDF
    Moroccan Armed Forces in the Face of Geopolitical Mutations
    Authors
    Rachid El Houdaigui
    September 9, 2019
    One of the first sovereign decisions of independent Morocco was to create the Royal Armed Forces (FAR) on 14 May 1956. Since then, the mission of the Moroccan army is consistent with the country's historical continuity shaped by strategic constants, it has however been subject to both conceptual and operational pressures since the late 1990s, as the lines between defense and security have blurred. This paper explores the central issue of adjusting the Royal Armed Forces (FAR) to a r ...
  • Get Africa Involved: Morocco’s Lead in the Management of Immigration
    Authors
    Amal El Ouassif
    August 30, 2019
    The global migration problem cannot be wished away; it has to be managed. Morocco provides an example of how responsibility for migration management can be handled by African states. The latest statistics of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (FRONTEX) identify the Western Mediterranean route from Morocco to Spain as the busiest migratory route into Europe last year, with 57,034 illegal attempts to enter the continent recorded. However, a parallel look at the Moroccan gover ...
  • Download PDF
    La République centrafricaine : un conflit endémique et de nouveaux acteurs
    Authors
    Khalid Chegraoui
    July 25, 2019
    Depuis son indépendance, en 1960, la République centrafricaine n’a connu presque pas de répit, à cause des différents soulèvements, rebellions, coups d’Etat et interventions étrangères. Cet Etat, conçu par le bon vouloir du système colonial, avec des frontières multiples et des richesses immenses, va concentrer l’ensemble des contradictions et points négatifs du continent africain, à savoir la mauvaise gouvernance, avec toutes ses formes et manifestations à l’extrême, et les conflit ...
  • Download PDF
    Under Invested The Caribbean-African Relationship
    Authors
    Len Ishmael
    June 27, 2019
    Caribbean and African ties run deep. They are based on a shared history, culture, and sense of a common identity forged by the slave trade which forcibly relocated more than 10 million Africans to the New World, in the process, creating large centres of African Diaspora in the Caribbean and elsewhere. The common historical experiences of slavery and colonialism inspired formation of the Pan-African Movement in the first half of the 1900’s led by the African Diaspora outside of Afric ...
  • Download PDF
    The UK’s policy towards Africa post-Brexit
    Authors
    Juliana Suess
    May 24, 2019
    On the eve of Britain’s exit from the European Union, the country is redefining its international approach. The United Kingdom has already taken action by becoming involved in new economic commitments, new trade agreements in Commonwealth countries but also from a diplomatic point of view in West Africa. While development aid remains a focal point of its intervention in Africa, it risks being undermined by the Brexit and its economic consequences. However, the United Kingdom is now ...
  • Download PDF
    The escalating China-US trade dispute: economic and geopolitical implications for Sub-Saharan Africa
    Authors
    Uri Dadush
    May 22, 2019
    The trade tensions between the United States and China will cause only minor immediate damage to their giant economies. However, tariffs have important and diverse effects on individual sectors and cause heightened uncertainty. The main adverse effects on Sub-Saharan Africa will therefore be through global investor confidence, economic growth and commodity prices, and these effects could be severe if the dispute escalates further and endangers the rules-based trading system. The tra ...
  • Analyse à chaud des élections de mai 2019 en Afrique du Sud
    Authors
    Abdelhak Bassou
    May 13, 2019
    A la question de savoir qui a gagné les élections du 8 mai en Afrique du Sud, une seule réponse s’impose : L’ANC. Cette réponse suppose qu’il y a un perdant et conduit, donc, à une deuxième question : Qui a perdu les élections de Mai 2019 en Afrique du Sud ? Aussi étonnant que cela puisse paraitre, la réponse est, là aussi, l’ANC.  L’ANC a gagné, mais il est toujours mal en point En Effet, le parti cher à Mandela a gagné les élections, mais a perdu en audience et en confiance. Des ...
  • Le Soudan pris dans le sillage de la crise du Golfe
    Authors
    Sara Hasnaa Mokaddem
    May 10, 2019
    Riyad et Abou Dhabi s'inquiètent de la crise politique et institutionnelle à Khartoum. Appelant à la "stabilité" et à une "transition pacifique", ils surveillent de très près la situation. Entre temps, la Turquie et le Qatar, qui soutiennent les Frères musulmans, restent en retrait. Le Soudan joue un rôle clé pour Riyad et ses alliés, tant dans la lutte contre les Houthis, au Yémen, que dans leur politique d'endiguement vis-à-vis de l'Iran, principal ennemi de l'Arabie Saoudite au M ...
  • L’ANC au scrutin du 8 mai : Analyse d’un échec attendu
    Authors
    Abdelhak Bassou
    May 7, 2019
    A quelques heures des élections générales en Afrique du Sud, je ne peux m’empêcher, comme à mon habitude, de me jeter à l’eau en tentant un pronostic. Je ne pourrais me vanter d’inventer la roue en avançant que le Congrès national africain (ANC) gagnerait ces élections et que le président Cyril Ramaphosa continuerait à présider aux destinées du pays au lendemain du 8 mai prochain. L’issue du match n’étant donc pas une inconnue à prophétiser, je pousse le défi à un pronostic sur le ...