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Ghana

Mahama’s plans clash with IMF strictures

GHANA: Government targets primary surplus as borrowing costs fall. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2025
GHANA: Government targets primary surplus as borrowing costs fall. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2025

After winding up the tortuous debt deal in June, the government will be hemmed in by creditors and multilateral banks

The end of Accra’s debt default tunnel is nigh. After signing a memorandum of understanding with the official creditor committee, Ghana is forecast to end the restructuring of its foreign debts by the middle of this year. The MOU, now agreed with 25 creditor countries, offers Ghana $2.8bn in debt relief until the end of next year. The final hurdle is resolving the $2.7bn arrears to private creditors. That means negotiating with about 60 smaller commercial banks.


Pretoria picks new envoy for the MAGA minefield

Leo Brent Bozell III. Pic: Gage Skidmore CC BY-SA 2.0
Leo Brent Bozell III. Pic: Gage Skidmore CC BY-SA 2.0

President Ramaphosa wants to soothe tensions with the Trump administration but Washington has appointed a hard-liner to South Africa

The choice of the United States’s new Ambassador to Pretoria – Leo Brent Bozell III – dispels any notion that President Donald J Trump’s administration might dial down...


The Hague doubts that Bio’s government will arrest cocaine kingpin

Alusine Kanneh. Pic: @ChiefImigration
Alusine Kanneh. Pic: @ChiefImigration

The Chief Immigration Officer was sacked for his links to Jos Leijdekkers but some diplomats believe the convicted drug smuggler is still being protected in Sierra Leone

Alusine Kanneh, Sierra Leone’s Chief Immigration Officer, has been dismissed as questions about his relationship with notorious cocaine smuggler Jos Leijdekkers have mounted and evidence of past dishonesty...


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...

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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...


Security tops the Ecowas agenda

THE SAHEL AND ECOWAS: Regional leaders negotiate with the Association des Etats du Sahel
THE SAHEL AND ECOWAS: Regional leaders negotiate with the Association des Etats du Sahel

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...


Captain Traoré digs in for a long stay

Pic: @CapitaineIb226
Pic: @CapitaineIb226

The military ruler depends on a corps of ideological supporters who back his ambitions, but the regime is increasingly threatened by jihadists

It’s not even two years since the 34-year-old Captain Ibrahim Traoré overthrew his mentor, the previous military leader, Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Henri Damiba, with whom he had worked to...


Can Forson’s budget reset the economy?

GHANA: GOVERNMENT TARGETS PRIMARY SURPLUS AS BORROWING COSTS FALL. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2025
GHANA: GOVERNMENT TARGETS PRIMARY SURPLUS AS BORROWING COSTS FALL. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2025

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...


Battle rages around the capital

SOMALIA: Foreign backers help Hassan Sheikh repel Al Shabaab offensive on Middle Shabelle. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2025
SOMALIA: Foreign backers help Hassan Sheikh repel Al Shabaab offensive on Middle Shabelle. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2025

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

Duma Boko. Pic: @duma_boko
Duma Boko. Pic: @duma_boko

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

Faure Gnassingbé. Pic :@PresidenceTg

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...


Tinubu aims for Africa’s top economy slot

NIGERIA GDP: Abuja to claim top economy ranking after rebasing. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2025
NIGERIA GDP: Abuja to claim top economy ranking after rebasing. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2025.

Officials in Abuja hope the country’s recalculated GDP can help recover its ranking and prove the government’s harsh reforms are working


Hemeti struggles to launch in Nairobi, again

Heads of State and Government Meeting on the crises in Sudan and the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Addis Ababa, February 2025. Pic: @MusaliaMudavadi
Heads of State and Government Meeting on the crises in Sudan and the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Addis Ababa, February 2025. Pic: @MusaliaMudavadi

As its ties strengthen with the United Arab Emirates, President Ruto’s government is helping Sudan’s RSF militia


Changing course after an oil spill

Kevin Okyere. Pic: @KevinOkyere1
Kevin Okyere. Pic: @KevinOkyere1

The new government has made a U-turn on the oil field battle between Italy’s Eni and former political favourite Springfield


French troops bid a hasty adieu

Ceremony to mark the formal withdrawal of French troops from Chad, Adji Kossei military base, Ndjamena, 31 January 2025. Pic: Mbaigolmem Arnaud/Xinhua/Alamy
Ceremony to mark the formal withdrawal of French troops from Chad, Adji Kossei military base, Ndjamena, 31 January 2025. Pic: Mbaigolmem Arnaud/Xinhua/Alamy

The departure ends an era amid mounting challenges to President Mahamat with a deepening social crisis and overspill from Sudan’s war