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Pathogenically, not yours

The United States signs an MOU with Nigeria to advance the America First Global Health Strategy, December 2025. Pic: @USinNigeria
The United States signs an MOU with Nigeria to advance the America First Global Health Strategy, December 2025. Pic: @USinNigeria

Ghana joins the pushback against America First health data agreements as Africa’s negotiators try to steer policy back towards pandemic equity

Two international pandemic initiatives are in trouble due to disputes over access to vaccines and medicines in Africa. One, led by the World Health Organization (WHO), is trying to build a post-Covid 19 global consensus on the way forward; the other is Washington’s America First Global Health Strategy (AFGHS), which attempts to use some of the savings from scrapping the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to secure bilateral agreements with individual states to buy critical African health data. At the centre of the bargaining is the management and control of pathogens: the viruses and biological samples that could seed the next global pandemic.

Beijing’s zero-tariff offer won’t close Africa’s $102bn trade gap

Shipping containers. Pic: tiero / stock.adobe.com
Shipping containers. Pic: tiero / stock.adobe.com

China’s latest concession doesn’t shake a system in which Africa exports raw materials while overseas firms capture most of the value-added

As an act of economic diplomacy, Beijing’s offer of tariff- and quota-free trade to 53 African countries, coming into effect on 1 May, was expertly timed. In late...

Chemical imbalance

Pic: kroko021 / stock.adobe.com
Pic: kroko021 / stock.adobe.com

European firms are selling pesticides banned in the EU to African countries, nearly six years after Brussels promised a blanket ban

The European Union’s agricultural trade relationship with Africa has long been unequal but its double standards have sunk to absurd depths. Brussels allows European-based companies to export more...

After the battlefield charge, rebels press for a political opening

MALI AFTER THE 25 APRIL ATTACKS: National cohesion under pressure from three insurgent forces. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2026
MALI AFTER THE 25 APRIL ATTACKS: National cohesion under pressure from three insurgent forces. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2026

Tuareg separatists say they will honour self-determination in Azawad, but the military balance will be key to northern Mali’s future

Having seized key towns across the arid north in alliance with jihadists, the Front de libération de l’Azawad (FLA) claims that rather than ramming through secession it will...

TPLF buries the Pretoria peace deal as Washington courts Asmara

ETHIOPIA AND ERITREA: Changing alignments on ports and proxy wars. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2026
ETHIOPIA AND ERITREA: Changing alignments on ports and proxy wars. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2026

Tigray installs a rival government and Trump’s Red Sea move hands the TPLF an opening, leaving Abiy Ahmed boxed in

As the United States repositions itself in the Horn of Africa, an emboldened Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) is stepping up its struggle with Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy...

Obi’s exit leaves the opposition back where it started

Pic: @KwankwasoRM
Pic: @KwankwasoRM

Obi and Kwankwaso’s split with Atiku has exposed their inability to convert anti-Tinubu sentiment into a disciplined electoral machine

For a moment, Nigeria’s battered opposition looked as though it had agreed a unity formula that might unpick President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s political pre-eminence.

Museveni plays both sides in Parliament's Speaker battle

Norbert Mao. Pic: justice.go.ug
Norbert Mao. Pic: justice.go.ug

By backing Norbert Mao against his own party's candidate, the President is using the speakership race to keep rivals in check and shape his succession

President Yoweri Museveni's decision to invite opposition minister Norbert Mao to the National Resistance Movement's (NRM) parliamentary retreat at Kyankwanzi in April – and then praise his leadership...

The battle for Mandela’s legacy returns to screen

Ivor Ichikowitz, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Jean-Yves Ollivier, October 2013. Pic: Jeanyvesollivier CC BY-NC 2.0
Ivor Ichikowitz, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Jean-Yves Ollivier, October 2013. Pic: Jeanyvesollivier CC BY-NC 2.0

Two western media companies are launching duelling documentaries on the liberation leader and his family

A seven-part documentary series produced by Netflix, the United States-based film and television streaming service, The Trials of Winnie Mandela, which examines the complex legacy of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela,...

The junta loses control after the onslaught and a stalemate sets in

MALI: The coordinated attacks by a jihadist-Tuareg alliance have shaken the junta. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2026
MALI: The coordinated attacks by a jihadist-Tuareg alliance have shaken the junta. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2026

Assimi Goïta’s regime is teetering as insurgent attacks intensify and its Russian allies withdraw

Three days after Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) fighters killed defence minister Sadio Camara and destroyed his home in Kati, General Assimi Goïta finally resurfaced. After...

Traoré’s revolution abolishes democracy

BURKINA FASO: Captain Traoré's regime is losing the security battle despite its militaristic posture. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2026
BURKINA FASO: Captain Traoré's regime is losing the security battle despite its militaristic posture. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2026

The junta’s military operations have killed over 1800 civilians in two years, but it has lost control over most of the country

Abandoning any pretence that his regime is a transitional bridge to even a distant restoration of elected multi-party politics, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, who seized power in a military...

A tax maestro takes the reins

Wale Edun hands the Finance Ministry over to Taiwo Oyedele. Pic: @FinMinNigeria
Wale Edun hands the Finance Ministry over to Taiwo Oyedele. Pic: @FinMinNigeria

The new finance minister wants to double federal revenues but first has to address galloping poverty levels in the face of radical reforms

When Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu quietly dropped his longtime ally Wale Edun as Finance Minister on 21 April, describing the sacking as ‘a resignation on health grounds’,...

Regional rifts define the succession race

Macky Sall's dialogue session with the UN General Assembly with regard to his candidacy for the position of Secretary-General. Pic: @Macky_Sall
Macky Sall's dialogue session with the UN General Assembly with regard to his candidacy for the position of Secretary-General. Pic: @Macky_Sall

Africa’s split over Macky Sall contrasts with Latin America’s trio of contenders as member states weigh competing reform agendas

Against a backdrop of shrinking funding and sharpening geopolitical rivalries, the formal hustings at United Nations headquarters in New York on 21-22 April showcased four contenders, all keen...

Africa faces the costs of the US-Iran war

AFRICA: GROWTH, EXCHANGE RATES, BORROWING COSTS WORSEN. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2026
AFRICA: GROWTH, EXCHANGE RATES, BORROWING COSTS WORSEN. Copyright © Africa Confidential 2026

Bretton Woods institutions have cut Africa’s growth prospects at their Spring Meetings, as economists assess the shock to the global economy

The early 2026 optimism on Africa’s economic prospects, when the International Monetary Fund raised growth projections for African economies, has given way to concerns over the impact of...

Ruto stakes his presidency on a $39bn investment blitz

Aliko Dangote, Yoweri Museveni, and William Ruto. Pic: @KagutaMuseveni
Aliko Dangote, Yoweri Museveni, and William Ruto. Pic: @KagutaMuseveni

Courting capital from Beijing to the Gulf and Paris to become Africa’s Singapore, the President is being stymied by a fuel import scandal and fraying regional alliances

William Samoei Ruto opened the Africa Finance Corporation summit on 23 April in Nairobi last week flanked by Nigeria’s Aliko Dangote and Uganda's Yoweri Museveni – a tableau...

Balancing Rome and Paris, Ruto locks in the Mattei plan

Giorgia Meloni and William Ruto. Pic: @WilliamsRuto
Giorgia Meloni and William Ruto. Pic: @WilliamsRuto

On a three-day trip to Italy, the President agreed multiple funding deals under Giorgia Meloni's €5.5bn Mattei Plan but the opposition questions the pace and volume of disbursements

President William Ruto’s sales pitch to Italian politicians and business leaders went down well, even if some of his claims strained credulity. ‘If you are looking at de-carbonising...

As TotalEnergies restarts gas project, the insurgents take up piracy

TotalEnergies and Mozambique government announce restart of onshore and offshore LNG project activities, January 2026. Pic: @TotalEnergies
TotalEnergies and Mozambique government announce restart of onshore and offshore LNG project activities, January 2026. Pic: @TotalEnergies

Jihadist fighters in Cabo Delgado are rebooting their campaign on land and sea as a row over cash could end Rwanda’s security operations

When France’s TotalEnergies resumed work on its US$25 billion gas project on Afungi in January, it was taken as a challenge by the jihadist insurgents based in the...

Jihadist onslaught exposes fatal flaws in Moscow’s Sahel tactics

Vladimir Putin and Assimi Goïta, June 2025, The Kremlin, Moscow. Pic: kremlin.ru
Vladimir Putin and Assimi Goïta, June 2025, The Kremlin, Moscow. Pic: kremlin.ru

The killing of Sadio Camara and the fall of Kidal to Tuareg rebels delivered a devastating blow to Assimi Goïta's junta and casts doubt on Russia's security claims

Amid a combined offensive by Tuareg and jihadist fighters against the Bamako junta at dawn on 25 April, the killing of Defence Minister General Sadio Camara, the architect...

Failure to launch

Eswatini Deputy Prime Minister Thulisile Dladla visits Lai Ching-te in Taiwan as special envoy of His Majesty King Mswati III. Pic: @ChingteLai
Eswatini Deputy Prime Minister Thulisile Dladla visits Lai Ching-te in Taiwan as special envoy of His Majesty King Mswati III. Pic: @ChingteLai

A new axis emerges

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Abiy Ahmed, February 2026. Pic: @AbiyAhmedAli
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Abiy Ahmed, February 2026. Pic: @AbiyAhmedAli

Fresh evidence reveals covert military cooperation on Ethiopia’s western frontier, reshaping the dynamics of Sudan’s war

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