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Published 21st March 2025

Vol 66 No 6

Angola

Kigali and the M23 militia clear a path for regime change

M23 militia and the Rwanda Defence Force assess next target after Walikale. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2025
M23 militia and the Rwanda Defence Force assess next target after Walikale. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2025

The collapse of negotiations offers some stark choices as President Tshisekedi’s position weakens further

A week of diplomatic spats and foiled negotiations has handed more political weight to the M23 militia and its Rwandan backers to add to their string of victories on the battlefield, as they eye targets to the west and south-east in Congo-Kinshasa. The M23’s boycott of the Luanda talks on 18 March raises more questions about the plan by Angolan President João Lourenço and the African Union to secure a ceasefire, ahead of talks on devolution and land rights.

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Tigray’s political fight sounds alarm

ETHIOPIA-ERITREA:: Asmara and Addis Ababa back rival factions in Tigray fight. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2025
ETHIOPIA-ERITREA:: Asmara and Addis Ababa back rival factions in Tigray fight. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2025

Unresolved border disputes with Asmara and internal divisions in Ethiopia are driving the region to the brink

A schism in the Tigray regional authority has erupted into clashes in several towns and could draw in Eritrea and Ethiopia’s federal government, maybe others, into a devastating...

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THE INSIDE VIEW

The United States' administration’s decision to slash government funding to media organisations such as Voice of America, like the shuttering of USAID, continues an established trend in the west. US and European media houses have beaten a retreat from Africa over the past decade. The BBC’s Africa Service was badly hit by budget cuts in 2023 after the broadcaster’s licence fee was frozen. With hundreds of millions of listeners in Africa and Asia, VoA and the BBC were exemplar...

The United States' administration’s decision to slash government funding to media organisations such as Voice of America, like the shuttering of USAID, continues an established trend in the west. US and European media houses have beaten a retreat from Africa over the past decade. The BBC’s Africa Service was badly hit by budget cuts in 2023 after the broadcaster’s licence fee was frozen. With hundreds of millions of listeners in Africa and Asia, VoA and the BBC were exemplars of soft diplomatic power.

Shifting geopolitics alignments are shaped by a struggle between the US, China, Europe and Russia – as well as the middle powers such as the Gulf States, Turkey and Brazil. Africa is often at the heart of the rivalry – supplying green transition minerals or targeted by new policies on defence, security and migration control.

The exit of western media has been partly filled by China. State-controlled Xinhua News Agency established its African headquarters in Nairobi in 2006, now the organisation’s largest base outside Beijing.

Most Africans get news via audio and video on social media sites – 77% of Kenyans, according to a Reuters study last year. That means more influence for Donald Trump’s ‘tech bros’: advisor Elon Musk owns X, while Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta owns Facebook and Instagram. It also leaves state-backed rivals such as Radio France Internationale, Deutsche Welle and Al Jazeera struggling to compete.

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Security tops the Ecowas agenda

Above all, civilian governments in the regional bloc want cooperation with the military leaders against jihadist insurgents

Through his visits to the military rulers of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso in the week ending 14 March, Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama may have helped thaw...

Battle rages around the capital

Al Shabaab’s massive offensive in February may have failed, but the news isn’t uniformly positive for Mogadishu

Al Shabaab is still fighting a massive offensive it launched on 19 February to take over Middle Shabelle, the area where the federal government in Mogadishu has had...

Boko’s team hikes spending but diamond market falters

After lambasting the Masisi government’s fiscal recklessness, new finance chief forecasts 3.3% growth

Faced with a weak diamond market but high voter expectations, the new Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) government disregarded business advice and its own economic strategy in its...

Oppositionists mobilise against Faure’s constitutional fix

After 20 years in power, the president is avoiding term limits by becoming an executive prime minister with no constraints on his rule

After launching a rights charter, opposition parties and civil society groups are campaigning against the new constitution coming into effect on 6 May. One transitional year after its...

Can Forson’s budget reset the economy?

After promising to strengthen public finances, the new government is making difficult trade-offs on tax and borrowing

Reading the 2025 budget to parliament on 11 March, Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson kept to the economic reset script and promises of a far-reaching National Economic Dialogue...

Pointers

The queue to run the Commission

Running the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission has been a poisoned chalice for those in the hot seat, but that did not stop a flood of applications that...

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