Blue Lines
In 2024, one in four developing economies is expected to remain poorer than it was on the eve of the pandemic in 2019, according to a report published on 19 June by the Mo Ibrahim foundation.
Many of the traditional means of finance are no longer viable. ...
Blue Lines
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has invited five African heads of state, as well as AU commission chair Moussa Faki Mahamat, to next week’s G7 summit in Apulia. This meeting comes a week after South Korea’s first Africa Summit at which 48 governmen...
Patrick Smith
Kenyan President William Ruto's state visit to the United States on 23-24 May, the first by an African leader since 2008, reinforces the country's role as the leading western ally in the region – on climate change, energy policy, Ukraine, trade and tax. O...
Patrick Smith
The European Union's offer of data access deals at the summit of African Data Protection Authorities in Nairobi on 7 May should prick the interest of more than just pointy-heads. Brussels wants Kenya, whose 2019 data protection law was modelled on the EU'...
Blue Lines
The alarming volume of human rights abuses and the impunity enjoyed by many governments and their armed forces was underscored in the latest Amnesty International global report. The Sudan Armed Forces and its rival, the Rapid Support Forces, have repeated...
Blue Lines
A report just published by the United States Institute of Peace has given President Joe Biden's government a jolt. 'U.S. economic and national security depend on securing a reliable supply of critical minerals, including from Africa,' it argues. The Unite...
Patrick Smith
Thirty years after the genocide in Rwanda, President Paul Kagame remains omnipresent on the national and regional political scene. He is certain to secure another term with a Soviet-style vote share in July's election. He has made no attempt to groom a su...
Blue Lines
With just over nine months until the end of the current administration in the United States, Tom Perriello, a former Congressman and Director of the Open Society Foundation, has his work cut out as President Joe Biden's Special Envoy for Sudan. Days after...
Blue Lines
Senegal had been edging back from the brink. But the latest plans put forward by civic, political and religious leaders for its delayed presidential elections to be held on 2 June, with President Macky Sall staying in office until then, threaten to reigni...
Africa Confidential
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 challenged at every level: most of all on its response to...