Blue Lines
In the high-level conference on Climate, Conflict and Demography in Africa which we co-hosted on 14 September with the International Crisis Group and Royal African Society, over 1,000 attendees heard speakers from Africa, the Americas and Asia, including ...
Blue Lines
Africa's negotiators are heading for the UN's COP26 climate summit starting on 1 November in Glasgow with more at stake than any other region. Africa has contributed less to global warming measured by carbon output than any other continent. Yet it has bee...
Blue Lines
'Ethiopia is on the precipice' according to an open letter to be published this week from a pan-African group of intellectuals calling for a negotiated settlement to the country's nine-month conflict. Their timing is critical. All the signs point to anoth...
Blue Lines
After the directors of the International Monetary Fund voted on 2 August for a record-breaking injection of resources – the creation of US$650 billion reserve assets known as Special Drawing Rights – the central banks of all member states will be credited...
Blue Lines
Although journalism has been facing all manner of economic and political pressures during the pandemic, it is gratifying to see a team of skilled investigators produce revelatory stories about the state of diplomacy and espionage.
Foreign affairs speciali...
Blue Lines
With the latest reports from the UN that almost a million people face famine in Tigray despite the Ethiopian government's announcement of a unilateral ceasefire on 28 June, there is little prospect of an end to the fighting. Federal troops withdrew from T...
Blue Lines
Sceptics could be forgiven for thinking that the African Development Bank (AfDB) plans to launch a five-year Strategy for Economic Governance in Africa next week is like sending someone out in a typhoon armed with an umbrella. After the devastation of 202...
Blue Lines
Wealthy governments have been promising to donate surplus Covid vaccine doses to Africa and other developing regions since the start of the year. The fact that very few of those jabs have arrived – only 1% of Africans have received at least one jab – has ...
Blue Lines
Morocco's decision to open its usually tight border controls in mid-May, allowing thousands of migrants into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, showed two important things: how African states can weaponise migration in their dealings with Europe and the double...
Blue Lines
A small group of regional leaders flew in to see President Yoweri Museveni's inauguration for his sixth term of office on 12 May following January's disputed general elections.
After sanctions from the United States State Department and censure from the ...