Blue Lines
When leaders gather at the African Union summit in Addis Ababa on 17-18 February, they will face the most serious test of the organisation's credibility since its foundation in 2002. The AU is being tested at every level: most devastatingly on its ability...
Blue Lines
The stage-managed decision by the military juntas in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger to quit the Economic Community of West African States strikes at the organisation's credibility and at the region's framework for cooperation.
Some downplay its significance...
Blue Lines
The start of production this week, after years of delay, of the Dangote Group's US$18.5 billion oil refinery opens a brave new world for Nigeria's oil and gas sector, after 50 years of dependence on refined petroleum products from Europe. The refinery wil...
Blue Lines
Efforts by regional leaders to convene talks between Sudan's warring generals at the beginning of the year follow several failed international plans to end the brutal eight-month conflict. This is less a rebirth of multilateral African peacemaking than an...
Blue Lines
The UN COP28 climate summit in Dubai is being heralded as a triumph by western nations and its Emirati hosts. That is largely because of the presence in the final communiqué of a commitment, albeit heavily qualified, to shift 'away from fossil fuels in en...
Blue Lines
The status and funding of the Loss and Damage Fund will be the main institutional issue facing African and other world leaders as the UN COP28 climate summit in Dubai opens on 30 November. It is set to become the third-leading UN channel for climate finan...
Blue Lines
Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has vowed to draft a new treaty on migration with Rwanda after the Supreme Court in London struck down a £140 million (US$174m) 'cash for asylum seekers' deal with President Paul Kagame's government. The ruling is a ma...
Blue Lines
Already facing record levels of inflation, Egypt's economic woes were deepened by a credit rating downgrade in October attributed to growing concerns about its debt affordability. The IMF has warned that Egypt's foreign exchange reserves will continue sou...
Blue Lines
The explosion at the Al-Ahil Hospital in Gaza has underscored the limits on Israel's political support from African states just days after Hamas's 7 October attacks killed more than 1,400 people in southern Israel.AU Commission chairman Moussa Faki Mahama...
Africa Confidential
Out of the phenomenon known as 'earthquake diplomacy' – as practised in Fukushima, Bali and l'Aquila – natural disasters have given grand multilateral meetings a shot in the arm and a sense of purpose. That is what the what the Moroccan government hopes w...