Nigeria retained its position as the biggest arms importer in Sub-Saharan Africa, while Morocco overtook its North African neighbour, Algeria, to emerge overall importer of arms in Africa, according to new data released by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Meanwhile, the five largest arms recipients globally in 2021-25 were Ukraine, India, Saudi Arabia, Qatar,…
“IT’S A CRAZY situation right now,” Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, tells The Economist in an interview on March 12th in his office in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital. He has returned after a few hours away to find that crude oil prices have surged by 10% because of the latest news from the Gulf. “And…
The 2026 African Union Summit is being held this weekend in Addis Ababa, with Angola handing the rotating chair to Burundi. The bloc is facing challenges including mounting conflicts, insecurity in the Sahel, strained ties with Washington and internal strife, while this year’s summit theme of water highlights the damage done by devastating floods across…
At the opening session of the 48th AU Executive Council, AUC Chairperson H.E. @ymahmoudali underscored “the urgency of institutional reform, & the imperative of peace and development on the continent” ahead of the 39th AU Assembly. On #Water & sanitation; this year’s theme, he stressed that it “must be protected as a shared resource &…
President John Dramani Mahama, the African Union champion of African financial Institutions, has hinted that he is leading advocacy for the repatriation of and investment of part of Africa’s “huge foreign reserves” in African Financial Institutions. According to him, most of these foreign reserves are by colonial construct held in Western financial institutions and, in…
Special Briefing – Gen. Dagvin R.M. Anderson, Commander, U.S. Africa Command and Sergeant Major Garric M. Banfield, Command Senior Enlisted Leader, U.S. Africa Command MODERATOR: Good afternoon. My name is Phillip Assis, and I am the director of the U.S. State Department’s Africa Regional Media Hub. It is my pleasure to welcome journalists from across…
Raised blood pressure continues to be one of the strongest predictors of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality with an estimated 1.38 billion people worldwide suffering with hypertension. It is also estimated that less than half of the adults with hypertension are aware of it or on treatment. Extensive public health measures including screening programmes in the…
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe — Hunger shadowed Mercy Lung’aho’s childhood, fueling her campaign to promote nutrition as a foundation for Africa’s development. As lead for the Food Security, Nutrition and Health Program at the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), this certified nutritionist and researcher, with more than 20 years of championing development, is advocating for an…
Images of rubber dinghies overcrowded with refugees heading for Europe and narratives about mistreatment and exploitation of migrants on unsafe migration routes have come to dominate how African migration is perceived in European public and policy debates. They suggest a continent on the move, driven mainly by conflict and heading to the global north. These…
Africa is not a sleeping giant; it is a suffocated one. Its lungs have long been pressed by the weight of imperial duplicity, its arteries drained by extractive economies masquerading as partnerships, and its political spine bent by postcolonial elites conditioned to administer decline on behalf of others. Yet history is uncompromising in one respect:…
