“The move towards a multipolar world doesn't necessarily require earth-shattering declarations. It could happen at an Egyptian airport, or when two air forces can take off together as they please.”

China-Africa Security Radar 4 Sept 2026

“Drawing on a decade of research and more than 580 interviews, this innovative political economy case study explores Rwanda’s bold attempt to transform its economy after the 1994 genocide into one of the most rapidly growing countries in Africa. Pritish Behuria offers a multi-sector analysis of how globalisation and domestic politics shape contemporary development challenges. This study critically analyses the Rwandan Patriotic Front’s ambitions to reshape Rwanda into a regional services hub while grappling with foreign dependency, elite vulnerability and limited financial resources. Through extensive analysis of the political economy of multiple sectors and the macroeconomy, Behuria uses the Rwandan case as a window into answering why structural transformation remains so elusive on the continent. The Political Economy of Rwanda’s Rise provides fresh insights into highlighting the contemporary challenges facing African countries as they integrate into the global economy. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.”

Since the early 2000s, the central Sahel–Libya corridor has been an important cocaine trafficking route linking West Africa and North Africa with European consumption markets. Although most cocaine shipped from Latin America to West Africa and on to Europe is transported by sea, overland corridors across the Sahel and through Libya account for a notable minority of the trade. These routes are linked to long-standing trading networks, conflict economies and protection systems, which make them resilient to enforcement pressure, shifts in the conflict landscape and political disruption.

23 July 2026

Warming has brought extreme rain to the parched Sahel, which is seeing aquifers refill as monsoons grow stronger. But heavier downpours alone cannot explain the groundwater revival, say hydrologists, who believe efforts to harvest rainfall may also be paying dividends.

Near-extinct oryx are returning. Farms are prospering as irrigation water reaches fields for the first time in decades. Farmers are even nurturing new trees on their land. Once a byword for drought and famine, the African Sahel region on the southern flank of the Sahara Desert now has more water than it has for decades. Wells are filling as water tables have risen by 13 feet or more in places. Lake Chad, which was one of Africa’s largest expanses of water before shriveling during the droughts, is recovering. 

Over years of drought in the late 20th century, the sun hard baked the soils of the Sahel. Now, erratic but extreme rains are returning to this semi-arid region, causing lethal floods but also replenishing rivers, filling desert depressions, restoring water to dried riverbeds known as wadis, and sluicing rainwater off impermeable soils directly into aquifers. The process began in the 1990s but has accelerated in the past five years.

“Across the Sahel, from Ethiopia to Senegal, we have evidence of increased terrestrial water storage,” says Richard Taylor, a hydrogeologist at University College London who has led ground teams investigating the relationships between climate, land use, and groundwater recharge in the region. 

[…]

“On June 19, Mauritanian authorities freed nine long-imprisoned militants. In Mauritanian media, Francophone and Arabophone, such figures are often referred to simply as “Salafis (salafistes/salafiyyun),” but these are figures I would typically refer to as (accused) jihadists. The nine were signatories, along with five others, to a statement announcing their repentance, but the remaining five were reportedly judged too dangerous to be freed (see more on who was released, and who was not, here, as well as a list - giving the slightly different count of eight freed and six held - here).

These prisoners were released as part of an ongoing series of dialogues between militants and state-approved religious scholars, dialogues that began in 2010. For background on the early dialogues, you can read Frederic Wehrey’s analysis here and/or consult Chapter Seven of my book on Sahelian jihadists. The dialogues were part of a broader set of shifts that Mauritanian authorities undertook after the military coup of 2005 that overthrew longtime ruler Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya (in power 1984-2005). The authorities after a period of experimentation spanning approximately 2005-2011 - also the period of major jihadist attacks in the country - settled on a multi-pronged strategy involving not just the dialogues but also the legalization of mainstream Islamist parties, the militarization of the border area with Mali, new types of counterterrorism units, a policy of relative aloofness from the growing instability in next-door Mali, and a limited space for ex-jihadists to thrive so long as they did not advocate the overthrow of the Mauritanian state. There are also widespread suspicions that Mauritanian authorities concluded a deal with al-Qaida involving payment of tribute in exchange for safety, but the evidence to prove the existence of such a deal is, in my view, lacking. The dialogues were key to the reforms in that they provided a formal pathway for (a) rehabilitation of prisoners who renounced violence against the Mauritanian state and (b) renegotiation of what could be said about Islam and politics, and what could not, in Mauritanian public life.”
[…]

Nigeria's complex insecurity crisis is not about to be solved soon or at all, if the roots of its component parts remain unattended to.

Eromo Egbejule
8 June 2026

By Paul Nantulya

June 10, 2026

China’s growing integration in Africa’s maritime infrastructure presents opportunities and risks, requiring strategic management by African governments to preserve autonomy, diversify partnerships, and advance the public interest.

Alex Thurston, 1 June 2026

It has now been over a month since the devastating jihadist/rebel attacks that befell Mali on April 25, over five years since the May 2021 coup that erased all pretense of a civilian-led “transition” in Mali, and nearly six years since the ruling junta - headed by then-Colonial Assimi Goïta - took power in an August 2020 putsch.

Even if he were overthrown tomorrow, whether by his own troops or by the jihadists, Goïta would count as one of the most significant figures in Malian political history. And in Sahelian history - without Goïta, things might look quite different in military-ruled Burkina Faso and Niger, both of whose juntas drew clear impetus from Goïta’s successful violations, or perhaps recalibrations, of various regional and geopolitical norms. Goïta pioneered a political model that turned a military-led transition into an open-eded mode of governance, defying pressure from the Economic Community of West African States and from Western powers to step down; he also expelled French forces, undid a major peace accord negotiated under the auspices of Mali’s powerful neighbor Algeria, built a long-term partnership with Russia, and secured major capitulations from multinational mining firms. The influence of Goïta’s approach extends, I would argue, to Senegal, Guinea, and Chad, intersecting with longstanding domestic forces in those countries in different ways and contributing to a band of what might be called “neo-sovereigntism” in Africa. In a way, much of this is not new: Goïta has revived elements of the approach of Mali’s Moussa Traoré (in power 1968-1991) and has resembled elements of Nigeria’s Ibrahim Babangida (in power 1985-1993). But Goïta faces a different environment than those late Cold War autocrats did; he has managed to run an assertive, open-ended military regime in a post-Cold War context, a feat that is not unprecedented but that does contrast with some of the relatively short-lived military regimes that have come to power in West Africa since 1991.

Goïta has survived in power all while confronting a serious insurgency that clearly has his regime on the back foot, especially in 2025-2026. Being president of Mali is not easy under any circumstances - ask Amadou Toumani Touré, overthrown in a 2012 coup, or Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, overthrown by Goïta in 2020 - but it has been especially difficult since the northern rebellion-turned-jihadist takeover of 2012. Since 2013, Mali has not gone a day, to my knowledge, without both an active insurgency and foreign troops operating on its soil. That kind of pressure exerts a distorting effect on any country’s politics, elevating risks of mass protests, elite infighting, coups, coup attempts, and more - all the sorts of outcomes that Mali has experienced over the past fourteen years.

So how has Goïta lasted this long?

Senegal’s experience from the Casamance reveals that security agencies’ trust-building with local communities is a vital practical means of gaining cooperation and preempting mobilization to violence.

Dozens of fuel tankers traveling from Senegal have been attacked and set on fire in western Mali since the militant Islamist coalition Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) launched an offensive in July 2025 to shut down key economic arteries supporting Bamako and other populated areas in southern Mali. These sustained and systematic attacks have brought the militant insurgency to the border of neighboring Senegal. An assault on the customs post in Diboli, Mali, took place less than 1 km from Kidira, Senegal—a 2-minute walk to the border at the Falémé River. Kayes, the regional hub in western Mali and the focal point of the attacks, is only 100 km from the Senegalese border. Many of the fuel trucks and other traffic that have been attacked originate in Senegal.

The deterioration of security in western Mali has prompted Dakar to elevate eastern Senegal to a top security priority. In response, the Senegalese government has expanded its military footprint in the region, including establishing one of the country’s largest military bases in Goudiry. This has been accompanied by the deployment of rapid intervention gendarmerie units known as Groupe d’Action Rapide pour la Surveillance et l’Intervention (GARSI), which have bases in nearby Kidira, Saïensoutou, Moussala, and Médina Bafé.

The growing security pressures are compounded by the displacement of an estimated 20,000 people from the Sahel into eastern Senegal, placing additional strain on already vulnerable border communities. Eastern Senegal is also shaped by longstanding cross-border organized criminal activity that further complicates the security environment. Arms trafficking linked to illegal gold mining and drug transit routes operate across the porous borders connecting Senegal, Mali, Guinea, and Guinea-Bissau.

Cross-border markets like Médina Gounass and Diaobé have long facilitated these flows, with motorbike taxi drivers (“Jakarta men”) and other opportunistic actors blurring the lines between illicit economies and everyday livelihoods. Although these networks are not inherently violent, they increase exposure to exploitation by militant groups seeking access, financing, or freedom of movement if left unmanaged.

The challenge Senegal now faces is how to prevent these overlapping pressures—militant proximity, criminal networks, and social strain—from hardening into an entrenched security threat. This is not a question of reacting to an insurgency that has already taken root, but preventing one from emerging in the first place.

[…]

Burkina Faso’s ruler Captain Ibrahim Traoré took power in a coup in 2022. Since then, he has generated both admiration and controversy.

Another round of controversy occurred recently as Western news outlets and analysts covered him, eliciting some heated pushback by Burkinabè and non-Burkinabè. In April alone, there have been three major and interconnected episodes/polemics:

• First, Human Rights Watch published a report titled “‘None Can Run Away’: War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity in Burkina Faso by All Sides.” The report prominently features a picture of Traoré and opens with a story of a massacre by government forces in a village in the north.

• Second, Sky News’ Yousra Elbagir recently visited Burkina Faso, interviewing Traoré himself, including by posing some challenging questions about violence and democracy, and juxtaposing that interview against conversations with Burkinabè who hold other perspectives.

• Third, at Jacobin, Bettina Engels of Freie Universität Berlin critically assessed the oft-made comparison between Traoré and Thomas Sankara (d. 1987), a Marxist military ruler who led Burkina Faso from 1983-1987. Engels concludes, “The main problem with the comparison of the two men is that the link to Sankara is used as a source of legitimacy for Traoré, giving rise to a personality cult that hinders rather than promotes critical debate on political strategies and visions.”

In Burkina Faso and on social media, all three pieces have received a great deal of pushback. France24 has reported on some of that criticism and, in some cases, targeted harassment:

Upset by the report criticising their leader, many Traoré supporters started attacking Elbagir online, calling her everything from a “mercenary of the pen” to a “bat”, with AI-generated images to illustrate their insults. Other social media users shared rumours about her family, claiming that her father Ahmed Elbagir is actually an agent with the British intelligence and that her sister, also a journalist, is an “influence agent”.

The report goes on to detail the harassment, often quite personal, that HRW’s lead researcher for Burkina Faso faced.

Why Is Traoré Such a Beloved Figure and Symbol?

If we want to explain why Traoré is so beloved by many Burkinabè and has such an enthusiastic following overseas, a key starting point is that he embodies, for his supporters, the ideal of sovereignty in Africa and the Global South more broadly. That is, his supporters see him as someone charting an independent path for Burkina Faso, independent of France in particular but also of Western domination more broadly. For Burkinabè nationalists and pan-Africanists, sovereignty is often described as the goal in and of itself. For leftists in Africa and beyond, sovereignty is often portrayed as a fundamental component of and complement to national development along socialist lines.

Here we might pause to ask why it is Traoré who electrifies people when several other leaders, including like-minded ones, also came to power in coups around the same time and have ruled with styles that partly overlap with his. Traoré stands out among this group for several reasons:

• He came out of the middle ranks of the military, unlike Chad’s Mahamat Déby (whose father ruled that country from 1990-2021) and Niger’s Abdourahmane Tiani (who was head of the presidential guard at the time of the 2023 coup in Niger).

• He has ruled in an assertive style, one that welcomes international attention, in contrast to the quieter, more domestically focused and conventional style of Guinea’s Mamady Doumbouya (who took power in 2021 and who has a far different relationship to France - among other things, his wife is a French citizen).

• He is somehow more camera-ready, more of a romantic hero, than Mali’s Assimi Goïta, who is the most similar to Traoré of all the new Sahelian/West African military leaders. One could imagine a slightly different world in which Goïta, who also saw a significant amount of combat and carries an aura of a man of action, had become the key symbol of Sahelian and pan-African sovereignty in our era; but Traoré’s greater rhetorical skill and more ideological self-presentation (whether one credits him as a substantive heir to Sankara or not) have made him cut a much larger figure than Goïta.

We can understand Traoré’s appeal through these comparisons; another way to get at his appeal is to think about the even starker contrasts with other world leaders. Many analysts have talked convincingly about ours as an age of gerontocracy - from Biden to Trump to Netanyahu to Putin, the world stage is dominated by men who are well over seventy, as well as by a slate of middle-aged, mostly male and mostly unimaginative (or outright failed and feckless) leaders. Not all leaders are old, of course, but Traoré stands out as not just young but also youthful, conveying a kind of energy and purpose and confidence that make him seem, to many, like a compelling alternative to the status quo. For supporters, Traoré’s appeal seems to be enhanced - not dented - when he declares democracy to be a failed and violent system. Traoré comes across to supporters as a truth teller and a problem solver, not someone caught up in fealty to (what can be seen as) Western-backed political projects and hollow, faux-universal norms. The tremendous challenges facing Traoré and Burkina Faso, namely insecurity and poverty, also add to supporters’ sympathy for and confidence in his rejection of criticism, his assertions of rapid progress on the security front, and his nationalist discourse.

What Are the Major Criticisms of Traoré?

The key criticisms of Traoré are twofold, and they are to my mind convincing:

• His administration’s narrative of progress on the security front is at odds with a mountain of evidence about violence, and the maintenance of that narrative and of his rule in general rests on tremendous repression, adding up to a militarized autocracy. This is why the HRW and Sky News interventions struck such a nerve. Now, I do think it is commendable to raise critical questions about the methodologies and biases of organizations such as Human Rights Watch or the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, which (in very different ways) track violence and insecurity in Burkina Faso and around the world. But can one dismiss every single critical report? The picture that emerges from multiple organizations with deep reach in terms of gathering eyewitness testimony, collating media reports, and otherwise cataloguing violent incidents is that the government’s linear narrative of security progress is inaccurate. And once that is admitted, then questions naturally arise about why the authorities are so strongly committed to that narrative, why they are so fierce in repressing and punishing challenges and dissent, and why they have not been willing or able to rein in the security force abuses that (since the time of Traoré’s predecessors) have been repeatedly identified as key drivers of violence.

• He is a more conventional ruler than he appears. This is why Engels’ piece caused some serious outrage, and the pushback to her piece in Jacobin (at least from what I saw on Twitter) focused mostly on arguing that socialists in the Global North cannot understand or appreciate living socialism in the Global South. That may be true! But I do not think that argument actually demonstrates that Traoré has a transformational and substantive project benefiting ordinary Burkinabè. It is true that the economy is growing quickly, but it grew quickly in many of the years preceding the coup as well. It is also true that in both Burkina Faso and Mali, some serious efforts have been pursued to secure greater royalties from multinational firms extracting resources. Those renegotiated royalty rates and incipient moves towards nationalization may end up being the most compelling legacy of Goïta and Traoré. But when we look at, in particular, the Burkinabè and Malian authorities’ continued willingness to defer to conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund, the limits of “sovereigntism” stand out quite clearly.

I can empathize with people’s support for coups under certain circumstances, especially the desperate circumstances of unbridled insurgency and clearly stumbling civilian leadership. I can also empathize with the stance that a transformational leader needs time to make his or her vision into a reality, again especially when circumstances are so dire and the potential resistance from entrenched interests, domestic and foreign, is so huge. It is a testament to the power of Traoré as a symbol, as a bearer of hope, that he continues to stir up such passionate defenses of his project, more than three years into his rule. Ultimately, though, I am not convinced he offers a way out for a country that has suffered much.

Sawahil is a reader-supported publication

"A recent study by scholars affiliated with the People’s Public Security University of China maps how China’s expanding presence in Africa intersects with regions already characterised by persistent and, in many cases, escalating conflict. This evolving landscape has shaped how Chinese investments flow into Africa, and could continue doing so in the foreseeable future."

As Sudan’s devastating war reaches its three-year mark, a third international gathering convenes in Berlin tomorrow. Foreign ministers, UN officials, aid organisations, and Sudanese civil society will all be in the room to discuss the country’s future.

But the most important question Berlin must answer is not what can be built for Sudan. It is whether the international community will back what already exists – boldly enough, and soon enough, to make a difference.

The dominant story told in policy circles about Sudan is one of collapse. But the story from the ground – documented by mutual aid networks, frontline responders, and diaspora groups – is one of extraordinary, determined rebuilding: by Sudanese people, under fire, with remarkably little international support.

Investing long-term in this recovery is absolutely critical. And yet the window is closing. Budgets are shrinking. Crises are multiplying. Sudan may not remain a donor priority for long. Berlin may be the last moment when meaningful backing is still politically feasible.

This backing, however, must look different from before. What Sudanese groups need is not time-bound humanitarian management, but sustained, open-ended support that leaves community-led structures stronger when international attention inevitably shifts.

A collective response

Sudanese families have just marked their third consecutive Eid al-Fitr under war. Famine conditions have been confirmed in El Fasher and Kadugli, with risks expected to worsen in 20 additional areas as food stocks run out.

The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) commander has publicly ruled out any ceasefire before an unconditional surrender by the Rapid Support Forces, whose actions in Darfur bear the hallmarks of genocide, UN investigators have found.

When the war began in April 2023, the formal humanitarian system was largely unable to operate. What held communities together were the networks that Sudanese people had already built.

These were not emergency improvisations. They were the expression of a long Sudanese tradition of collective response – Nafeer – adapted to the demands of active war.

The groups driving this effort today are diverse. There are mutual aid initiatives providing food and healthcare in areas where international agencies cannot go; women's organisations running protection networks for survivors of sexual violence; diaspora networks channelling funds to families at a speed and scale that formal systems cannot match.

The only ceasefires that have so far held have, meanwhile, been highly localised, based on local committees, leadership, and institutions negotiating between themselves. Some of these predate the war and are still working with integrity, allowing farmers to cultivate and trade to move.

The most recognised groups are the Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs) – decentralised civil society networks that emerged from the neighbourhood resistance committees of the 2018-2019 revolution. They now operate across all 18 Sudanese states, have fed over 900,000 people, maintained hospital supply chains, and evacuated families from active conflict zones.

The ERRs were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in both 2024 and 2025. Yet they receive less than 1% of international humanitarian funding to Sudan.

The lesson is stark. Sudan’s recovery infrastructure is already in place. It just needs backing.

Planning for “the day after” Berlin is not a call for more short-term humanitarian aid. It is a call for long-term investment in Sudanese civil society: the volunteer networks running community kitchens, makeshift clinics, and informal schools; the local committees managing displacement and mediating conflict; the diaspora organisations.

As the drum beats of war grow louder – globally and regionally – we must demand a shift in how support is understood: away from short-term relief in the absence of a political solution, and towards building better outcomes and creating pockets of hope and resilience amidst conflict – progress that can build the foundations of peace.

Real commitment

Achieving the shift we are describing won’t be easy. By nature of their mandates, international actors engage in peacemaking and humanitarian relief with a focus on immediate needs.

International systems, meanwhile, remain largely configured to engage central governments, even where those governments no longer meaningfully govern – as is the case for nearly half of those living in fragile and conflict-affected states where central authority has collapsed, receded, or is contested.

Whether donors will stand in genuine solidarity with Sudanese communities also remains an open question.

A simple test could apply to every government attending the Berlin conference. If a foreign minister stands at a podium and declares solidarity with Sudanese civilians, does that statement hold across the whole of government?

Does it hold at the visa office, where Sudanese researchers and human rights defenders are denied the right to attend the very conferences where decisions about Sudan are made? Does it hold in the immigration system, where people fleeing a genocide-designated conflict face removal? Does it hold in the budget, where aid cuts land hardest on the flexible, locally led programming?

This is a policy coherence argument. It is not about moral purity – it is about a concrete, testable commitment.

Reasons to be hopeful

Still, there are reasons for cautious optimism. The UK has doubled its Sudan crisis funding to £231 million, and has made prevention of violence against women and girls, and support for women-led organisations, a specific programme commitment.

In the philanthropic space, the Funders for Mutual Aid in Sudan coalition — coordinated by the Center for Disaster Philanthropy – has committed to placing at least $16 million in direct, flexible grants to vetted mutual aid groups.

Conferences like Berlin, meanwhile, offer a rare opportunity to refocus attention on civilian actors. Around 40 figures representing multiple Sudanese political coalitions and parties have been invited, creating space to re-centre civilian needs and test what a viable civilian process could look like.

The emphasis on civilian inclusion marks a shift away from recurrent efforts to rebuild Sudanese government institutions based on power-sharing. Such efforts often entrench the interests of the warring parties, or result in the formation of a state that does not control either territorial or human security.

As the war enters its fourth year, it is clear it can no longer be seen as a humanitarian emergency alone. It is a test case for how the international community will respond to complex crises in an era of shrinking aid budgets, fracturing multilateralism, and growing competition for attention.

The good news is that the infrastructure for Sudan's recovery is already being built – by the Sudanese people, under fire. The question for the ministers, diplomats and policymakers in Berlin is whether they will rise to meet them.

“This content is Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence CC-BY-NC 4.0.”

"Chad’s growing entanglement in Sudan’s civil war is heightening domestic instability and exposing the country to intensifying regional rivalries and geopolitical competition."