Blue Lines
After the 'African COP' in Egypt, the Group of Twenty (G20) summit in Bali on 15-16 November – with its focus on debt restructuring and energy policy – addressed several issues key to African leaders. Several G20 members are calling for the African Union ...
Blue Lines
The disjointed international response to the fighting between the Congolese army and the Tutsi-led M23 militia in eastern Congo-Kinshasa has shown where influence lies in the evolving regional order. The little traction that has been generated towards pea...
Blue Lines
Growth in Africa is slowing this year according to the World Bank and IMF. Much of that seems to have been triggered by the spillover from Russia's war on Ukraine, spiralling food and fuel prices and rising interest rates and debt servicing costs. But the...
Blue Lines
Reports of tens of thousands of battlefield deaths since fighting resumed between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's federal forces and the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front in August underscore the scale of the bloodshed in Ethiopia's civil war. As many as hal...
Blue Lines
African Union chairman and Senegal's President Macky Sall launched the most powerful critique at the UN General Assembly on 20 September on his continent's marginalisation in the international system. Africa 'does not want to be the breeding ground of a n...
Blue Lines
The poorly attended African Climate Adaptation summit in Rotterdam on 5 September doesn't augur well ahead of the UN COP27 climate change summit in Egypt in November. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and the European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmerm...
Blue Lines
Protests against escalating food and fuel costs in Sierra Leone last week which left more than 16 protestors and four police officers dead have rocked the government of President Julius Maada Bio, but they follow a pattern of growing anger on the streets ...
Blue Lines
Two G20 meetings have broken up this year without agreeing a final communiqué – first in Washington in April and then in Bali, Indonesia, this month – raising fresh doubts about the organisation's value. Yet African Union officials are pushing to join the...
Blue Lines
Officials from governments and international financial institutions are organising a series of planning sessions to raise finance ahead of the COP27 Climate Summit in Sharm al Sheik in November. The latest meeting brought together Africa's finance ministe...
Blue Lines
The spectre of an institutional crisis hangs over Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Kigali from 20-26 June as the organisation tries to manage the first challenge to a Secretary-General seeking a second four-year term.Support for incumbe...