Interview with Awad Ibrahim "Africa Think Tank Summit 2018"

It was a grey day with a drizzle here and a drizzle there when mourners gathered at St George’s Cathedral in a usually sunny Capetown to pay their last respect to the Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu, the moral force against Apartheid struggle in South Africa was subdued and thoughtful as human beings when death and a rendezvous with eternity have been called. South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa led his nation and the world in remembering Tutu. He described him as “our moral compass a ...

The contrast between Argentina’s rich natural resource endowment and its poor economic performance has been the focus of much socio-political and economic analysis. When it created MERCOSUR with its immediate neighbors, Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay in 1991, it had access to a trading bloc with a combined GDP of US$ 419 trillion (2019), making it the 5th largest economy in the world. Joining the MERCOSUR was a break from its protectionist past. But it did not last. Argentina greatl ...

Due to historical as well as geographical reasons, India and East Africa have long been close partners. In the recent period however, and even more so since the early 2000s, these ties have tightened as a result of combined efforts by the government of India and its business community. The presence of communities of Indian origin in several East African countries has also acted as a catalyst. East Africa is perceived as a valuable partner both by Indian authorities and by Indian pr ...

More than two years ago I wrote in a report: “The current downward security trends in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso should serve as a wake-up call for the states in the Gulf of Guinea, mainly Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, and Benin.” Recent attacks in the northern Ivory Coast and Benin show that signs of earlier years now have taken on unique characteristics. Signs of the expansion of violent extremist organizations (VEOs) to coastal states have been there since at least since 2015. The ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on the global economy and has challenged the best minds to rethink how to design and implement an effective recovery. Countries in the wider Atlantic region have exhibited differential trajectories in traversing the pandemic. A number of countries in Europe succeeded in vaccinating most of their eligible populations, enabling life to return somewhat to normal. A smaller group of countries in Europe could manage infection rates even more ti ...

The White House  classified the speech as “remarks by President Obama to the People of Africa”, their representatives gathered at Mandela Hall, Addis Ababa,  Ethiopia, July 28, 2015. It was the first address by a US-President to the African Union. He was standing before the audience as “a proud American” and “the son of an African”. His father, Barack Hussein Obama, who grew up near a small village in Nyanza Province, Kenya, won a scholarship to study economics and made history- th ...

La situation sécuritaire dans le Sahel central est à ce point dégradée que la menace djihadiste déborde désormais sur la partie nord des pays côtiers d’Afrique de l’Ouest. Les régions de l’Est et des Cascades au Burkina Faso ou celles de Sikasso et de Kayes au Mali constituent des bases arrière permettant aux groupes djihadistes – et principalement à la Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) pour l’instant – de s’étendre au Bénin, en Côte d’Ivoire, et dans une moindre mesure au T ...

Known for being a climate change hotspot, Morocco is at the forefront of a climate disaster. Consequences are already being felt, whether in the form of increasing temperature or a downward trend in precipitations, which directly threaten the water security and, by extension, the social-ecological systems of the country. The systems by which food, energy, and water are produced, distributed, and consumed heavily depend on one another. Their implicit feedbacks and links are not linea ...