Despite a long-term military counterterrorism effort, Nigeria still ranks as the eighth most-affected country on the Global Terrorism Index. Because of the persistence of the problem, Tinubu will need all the help he can get, including from the United States. Thus—especially at a time when the Sahel and coastal West Africa are embroiled in ever-worsening security crises—it may seem illogical for the US State Department to remove Boko Haram, once considered the world’s deadliest terrorist groups, from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO).

However, this action is long overdue. To designate a group as an FTO, the State Department must demonstrate that 1) the group is a foreign organization, 2) the group is engaged in, or retains the capability and intent to engage in, terrorist activity and 3) this activity threatens US citizens, interests, or national security. The US secretary of state must revoke a listing if they find “that the circumstances that were the basis of the designation have changed in such a manner as to warrant a revocation.”

Sure, the circumstances have not changed. But the circumstances never met these criteria to begin with because Boko Haram, one of Africa’s most well-known terrorist organizations, does not exist at all. Ultimately, “unlearning” this term will yield more accurate and valuable insights into the reality of the threat. Revoking the designation will set the United States and its partners on a more productive path toward finally resolving the violence in Nigeria.

The source of the misnomer

Around 2005, a fundamentalist Islamist sect emerged in northern Nigeria under the direction of Mohammed Yusuf. He began preaching a specific interpretation of the Quran, and one of his core arguments was that Nigerian Muslims should reject Western education and schools that had been introduced under British colonial rule. Because of this message, locals began calling him and his followers “Boko Haram,” which translates to “Western education is forbidden” in the Hausa language. Outsiders used this phrase as a derisive term to refer to this secretive sect, their followers, and other suspected affiliates.

In 2009, Yusuf’s sect staged an uprising across several northern states following escalating tensions with the state police. Within a matter of days, the movement was essentially eliminated by security services in a brutal crackdown (killing approximately eight hundred members in just a few days) and Yusuf was taken into custody and then executed shortly after. Since then, several movements have emerged in the region. The most active group has been Jamāʿat Ahl al-Sunnah li-l-Daʿawah wa al-Jihād (JAS), which was founded around 2010 under the leadership of Abubakar Shekau. His organization is responsible for many of the murders and violent incidents in the country over the last decade. Several factions have split from JAS, including Ansaru in 2012, which later rejoined JAS and then splintered again. In 2016, a third group emerged that called itself Islamic State-West Africa Province. They have all, at various times, been active across the region.

What’s in a name?

“Boko Haram” doesn’t really fit into that history. From the first uses of the term to describe Yusuf’s sect, locals have repurposed the name to describe suspected fundamentalist and Islamist extremism in the region. All these operations and more, including a wide array of non-terrorist criminal and gang activity, have variously been attributed to “Boko Haram” by government officials, state security forces, journalists, and locals who lacked complete information about what they were describing.

In short, the use of the name survived even as the actual insurgent organizations in the region changed affiliations, splintered, or disbanded.

Thus, since the early years of the violence, many observers believed they were witnessing the rise of “Boko Haram,” but this perception did not correspond with the activity on the ground and the constellation of terrorist organizations (none of whom used the name) in the region. The ultimate challenge, therefore, isn’t just the use of the wrong name, but what it signifies: It gives an inaccurate impression that there is a singular operational group with a clear ideology and an organizational history. Researchers and experts have analyzed the activity in the region through this lens, bringing a host of largely unrelated activity under the umbrella of the supposed entity. In late 2013, when the State Department designated “Boko Haram” as an FTO, US decision makers seemed to be influenced by what the British anthropologist Ruben Andersson has called “the Timbuktu syndrome”—the mapping of the West’s jihadist fears onto the world’s less familiar peripheries.

Why delisting matters

The State Department’s FTO designation is essentially targeting a ghost. Delisting the organization would have several tangible benefits.

Most importantly, it would streamline the resources the United States dedicates to countering terrorist activity in northern Nigeria. An FTO designation unlocks new authorities for government agencies to target terrorists, but it also requires agencies to follow through and enforce these designations. Due to the host of violence and petty criminal activity that has mistakenly been attributed to “Boko Haram,” the United States is pouring resources into addressing unaffiliated crime and issues that fall solely under the jurisdiction of the Nigerian government without realizing any stabilizing counterterrorism benefits.

Removing “Boko Haram” and instead correctly listing JAS will also benefit the national research apparatus, including academic institutions, think tanks, and government agencies. Since the early years of the violence, independent researchers have helped shape the US approach toward “Boko Haram” and informed US counterterrorism strategies, including military involvement, intelligence collection, and humanitarian assistance. Researchers and academics have had no reason to question the existence of “Boko Haram” when conducting research on the region, which has allowed for persistent uncertainty to dominate the field. As a result, attempts to analyze the confusing array of activity and operations that have been linked to “Boko Haram” have yielded weak insights and less productive recommendations.

For example in 2021, two of the most influential and long-standing leaders in the region—Shekau and Abu Musab Al-Barnawi—were declared dead. For counterterrorism officials, whom Shekau had eluded for almost a decade, this development marked a welcome shift. With the en masse surrender of fighters formerly associated with JAS, some hoped that they had finally witnessed the end of “Boko Haram.” However, many scholars and experts believe that a fundamental aspect of the “group” is its perpetual adaptability, which in fact is largely driven by the loose application of the term to violent events in Nigeria. Thus media organizations, for example, are still publishing articles on new purported attacks by the “organization.” Absent a rejection of “Boko Haram,” the reliance on the term thus ultimately invites a perpetual motion of resurgence that leaves no real end to the violence in sight.

By delisting “Boko Haram,” the State Department will serve its own interests by setting new analyses and inquiries on the right track to accurately identifying terrorist activities and trends in the region. Without this change, there are two grim yet likely consequences. Counterterrorism research projects and resulting US strategies will continue to operate based on avoidable misconceptions and incomplete information on the violence. And more concerningly, without a real reckoning over the existence of the “group,” every new instance of violence in northern Nigeria risks becoming engulfed in the thickening fog of suspected “Boko Haram” activity.

The responsibility now lies with the global collective, and with these US State Department officials in particular, to consciously and deliberately unlearn the deep-seated belief in the “organization’s” very existence.

Alexandra Gorman is a young global professional with the Africa Center and is a masters’ candidate at Johns Hopkins University in the Global Security Studies program. As an undergraduate at Duke University, she received high honors on her senior thesis, “Nigeria’s Militant Jihadism in the Mirror of the Media: the Creation of ‘Boko Haram.’”

New Atlanticist Mar 1, 2023

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The post Boko Haram is a ghost. The US needs to recognize that. appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Online Event Mon, March 27, 2023 • 1:30 pm ET

Live from the Freedom Online Coalition: How the FOC works for people around the world

The DFRLab hosts the US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman along with civil society and industry experts for a discussion on the Freedom Online Coalition and how the world’s democratic tech alliance advances human rights online.

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Ahead of the Biden administration’s second Summit for Democracy, US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman gave a sneak peek at what to expect from the US government on its commitments to protecting online rights and freedoms.

The event, hosted by the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab on Monday, came on the same day that US President Joe Biden signed an executive order restricting the US government’s use of commercial spyware that may be abused by foreign governments or enable human-rights abuses overseas.

But there’s more in store for this week, Sherman said, as the United States settles into its role as chair of the Freedom Online Coalition (FOC)—a democratic tech alliance of thirty-six countries working together to support human rights online. As chair, the United States needs “to reinforce rules of the road for cyberspace that mirror and match the ideals of the rules-based international order,” said Sherman. She broke that down into four top priorities for the FOC:

1. Protecting fundamental freedoms online, especially for often-targeted human-rights defenders
2. Building resilience against digital authoritarians who use technology to achieve their aims
3. Building a consensus on policies designed to limit abuses of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI)
4. Expanding digital inclusion  

“The FOC’s absolutely vital work can feel like a continuous game of catch-up,” said Sherman. But, she added, “we have to set standards that meet this moment… we have to address what we see in front of us and equip ourselves with the building blocks to tackle what we cannot predict.”

Below are more highlights from the event, during which a panel of stakeholders also outlined the FOC’s role in ensuring that the internet and emerging technologies—including AI—adhere to democratic principles.

Deepening fundamental freedoms

• Sherman explained that the FOC will aim to combat government-initiated internet shutdowns and ensure that people can “keep using technology to advance the reach of freedom.”
• Boye Adegoke, senior manager of grants and program strategy at the Paradigm Initiative, recounted how technology was supposed to help improve transparency in Nigeria’s recent elections. But instead, the election results came in inconsistently and after long periods of time. Meanwhile, the government triggered internet shutdowns around the election period. “Bad actors… manipulate technology to make sure that the opinions and the wishes of the people do not matter at the end of the day,” he said.
• “It’s very important to continue to communicate the work that the FOC is doing… so that more and more people become aware” of internet shutdowns and can therefore prepare for the lapses in internet service and in freely flowing, accurate information, Adegoke said.
• On a practical level, once industry partners expose where disruptions are taking place, the FOC offers a mechanism by which democratic “governments can work together to sort of pressure other governments to say these [actions] aren’t acceptable,” Starzak argued.
• The FOC also provides a place for dialogue on human rights in the online space, said Alissa Starzak, vice president and global head of public policy at Cloudfare. Adegoke, who also serves in the FOC advisory network, stressed that “human rights [are] rarely at the center of the issues,” so the FOC offers an opportunity to mainstream that conversation into policymakers’ discussions on technology.

Building resilience against digital authoritarianism

• “Where all of [us FOC countries] may strive to ensure technology delivers for our citizens, autocratic regimes are finding another means of expression,” Sherman explained, adding that those autocratic regimes are using technologies to “divide and disenfranchise; to censor and suppress; to limit freedoms, foment fear, and violate human dignity.” New technologies are essentially “an avenue of control” for authoritarians, she explained.
• At the FOC, “we will focus on building resilience against the rise of digital authoritarianism,” Sherman said, which has “disproportionate and chilling impacts on journalists, activists, women, and LGBTI+ individuals” who are often directly targeted for challenging the government or expressing themselves.
• One of the practices digital authoritarians often abuse is surveillance. Sherman said that as part of the Summit for Democracy, the FOC and other partners will lay out guiding principles for the responsible use of surveillance tech.
• Adegoke recounted how officials in Nigeria justified their use of surveillance tech by saying that the United States also used the technology. “It’s very important to have some sort of guiding principle” from the United States, he said.
• After Biden signed the spyware executive order, Juan Carlos Lara, executive director at Derechos Digitales, said he expects other countries “to follow suit and hopefully to expand the idea of bans on spyware or bans on surveillance technology” that inherently pose risks to human rights.

Addressing artificial intelligence

• “The advent of AI is arriving with a level of speed and sophistication we haven’t witnessed before,” warned Sherman. “Who creates it, who controls it, [and] who manipulates it will help define the next phase of the intersection between technology and democracy.”
• Some governments, Sherman pointed out, have used AI to automate their censorship and suppression practices. “FOC members must build a consensus around policies to limit these abuses,” she argued.
• Speaking from an industry perspective, Starzak acknowledged that sometimes private companies and governments “are in two different lanes” when it comes to figuring out how they should use AI. But setting norms for both good and bad AI use, she explained, could help get industry and the public sector in the same lane, moving toward a world in which AI is used in compliance with democratic principles.
• Lara, who also serves in the FOC advisory network, explained that the FOC has a task force to specifically determine those norms on government use of AI and to identify the ways in which AI contributes to the promise—or peril—of technology in societies worldwide.

Improving digital inclusion

• “The internet should be open and secure for everyone,” said Sherman. That includes “closing the gender gap online” by “expanding digital literacy” and “promoting access to safe online spaces” that make robust civic participation possible for all. Sherman noted that the FOC will specifically focus on digital inclusion for women and girls, LGBTI+ people, and people with disabilities.
• Starzak added that in the global effort to cultivate an internet that “builds prosperity,” access to the free flow of information for all is “good for the economy and good for the people.” Attaining that version of the internet will require a “set of controls” to protect people and their freedoms online, she added.
• Ultimately, there are major benefits to be had from expanded connectivity. According to Sherman, it “can drive economic growth, raise standards of living, create jobs, and fuel innovative solutions” for global challenges such as climate change, food insecurity, and good governance.

Katherine Walla is an associate director of editorial at the Atlantic Council.

Watch the full event

The post What to expect from the world’s democratic tech alliance as the Summit for Democracy unfolds appeared first on Atlantic Council.

It was a close call. Ruling party candidate Bola Tinubu was declared the narrow winner of Nigeria’s presidential election on Wednesday after balloting delays and scattered violence, with his two closest challengers saying they will dispute the results in court. Assuming Tinubu takes office as planned in May, he will lead a nation that is at once making big strides on the world stage and reeling from crises at home. Why was the election so rocky, and what should the new president’s priorities be? Our experts share their insights.

• Constance Berry Newman: Nonresident senior fellow at the Africa Center, former US assistant secretary of state for African affairs, and official international observer of Nigeria’s 2023 elections 
• Rama Yade (@ramayade): Senior director of the Africa Center
• Aubrey Hruby (@aubreyhruby): Nonresident senior fellow at the Africa Center and co-founder of Tofino Capital

Notes from the ground

• Constance, who monitored the elections as part of the joint International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute Observer Mission, says the government did many things right in administering the election, including technological improvements and getting all political parties to commit to using only peaceful, legal means to challenge the results.
• But she says the government made several key mistakes, including long delays in opening polling sites. “This led to frustrated, often angry, voters, a limited number of whom left and a small number of whom engaged in violent activities,” Constance reports.
• Another failure, she adds, was “a seemingly ineffective and late tabulation announcement process that raised concerns about the announced results.”
• Constance attributes the surprisingly low voter turnout (27 percent) to “a belief that nothing will change anyway, a fear of violence and other intimidation factors, and a lack of an understanding of the voting procedures.”
• But she comes away most impressed with the enthusiastic young people in a country where around 70 percent of the population is younger than age thirty. “Nigeria has reason to hope for a better future because many of the youth are really engaged and understand what is right and wrong for their country.”

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Tinubu’s agenda

• While Peter Obi, an outsider candidate from the Labour Party, garnered a ton of international press and led in some polls, Rama tells us that Tinubu’s win is “not a surprise.”
• That’s because Tinubu, 70, hails from the ruling All Progressives Congress party, “is Muslim from the Yoruba-speaking southwest, and even if he lost there, he has strong support in Lagos,” Rama adds.
• But the fact that Tinubu lost Lagos—where he served as governor from 1999 to 2007—“demonstrates the power of the message” from Nigeria’s disaffected youth to their country’s political leaders, Aubrey says. Tinubu spoke directly to their concerns in his victory speech, referring to young people’s “pains, your yearnings for good governance, a functional economy, and a safe nation.”
• It won’t be easy for him to deliver: Aubrey points to Nigeria’s 42.5 percent youth unemployment, rampant inflation, soaring debt burden, and plummeting oil production. Tech and entrepreneurship are “a bright spot” in the economy, but amid a brain drain that’s seeing fifty doctors leave per week to work overseas, she adds, “Tinubu will have to show quick results on the economic front to stem the tide.” 

On the world stage

• Tinubu will be immediately thrust into a leadership role on the continent. “The future of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the new Eco currency (which has been postponed to 2025), and the African Continental Free Trade Area (which needs to be accelerated) are in Nigeria’s hands,” Rama tells us.
• And as Africa seeks a larger role in the G20 and Bretton Woods Institutions, “Nigeria will play an important role in this unprecedented dialogue,” Rama adds. “The expectations have never been so high.”

The post What’s in store for Nigeria after a messy election appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Constance Berry Newman: The view from the ground: Where election administration fell short

Aubrey Hruby: To win over his younger skeptics, Tinubu needs economic results—and fast

Rama Yade: Tinubu will play a pivotal role in the continent—and the world

The view from the ground: Where election administration fell short

On the ground, where I served in recent days as an election observer, it is about the Nigerian people—the voters, non-voters, youth, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and other government officials, political parties, media, and civil society. Around ninety-three million Nigerians were registered to vote, but only 26 percent of those registered turned out to vote. Those who voted were engaged, standing in lines sometimes for hours, staying for the final counts, saluting each announced winner in their polling site. 

One puzzle not yet solved is: Why did so many more people decide not to vote than in previous elections? It’s probably all the same reasons Nigerians did not vote in the past—a belief that nothing will change anyway, a fear of violence and other intimidation factors, and a lack of an understanding of the voting procedures. However, the youth are amazing. We saw them at the polling sites, though exact turnout numbers are yet to be verified, and the National Youth Service Corps ran the election at the polling site level. My conversations with many of the youth led to an observation that Nigeria has reason to hope for a better future because many of the youth are really engaged and understand what is right and wrong for their country. There are mixed reviews regarding the role of the media, because there are barriers to media having the freedom to do its job, and parts of the media allow for and even provide misinformation and hate speech. 

With regard to the civil-society participants, many are sophisticated in data collection and analysis, questioning government officials with facts, using media and social media in effective ways. However, neither they nor the government nor the political parties has been effective in getting the citizens to vote in any meaningful numbers. Also, the political parties have a long way to go in terms of improving inclusion for youth, women, persons with disabilities, and internally displaced persons in the political process.

With regard to the government’s role in the administration of the election, one can draw both positive and negative conclusions. On the positive side: 

1. The Electoral Act of 2022 took steps to improve electoral integrity. However, conclusions are yet to be determined about the implementation of those steps across the board. 
2. Preparations for the election started earlier than for previous elections, which should have resulted in improved Election Day activities at the polls and final reporting of the results. 
3. Generally speaking, the technology worked, but it would have worked better had INEC pilot tested the technology on a national level prior to the February election. INEC piloted the key new systems in three off-cycle elections but never conducted a nationwide test.  
4. The government secured signatures from the eighteen political parties to the 2023 Peace Accord. Therefore, each presidential candidate and the candidate’s party committed to accepting the outcome of the elections or seek legitimate means of remedy in the event of divergent viewpoints.

For the various governmental entities charged with playing a role in the election, currency and fuel shortages were a negative. Also, while some may argue that it is unfair to assign blame, the fact is that the government did not stop election violence such as the assassination of the Labour Party senatorial candidate for Enugu East.

Specially for INEC, there were three main negatives: 

1. A lack of transparency, so voters and the general public did not understand why election data was published late, for example. 
2. Very late openings of polling sites because of late transportation of materials, missing materials, and late arrival of staff. This led to frustrated, often angry, voters, a limited number of whom left and a small number of whom engaged in violent activities. 
3. A seemingly ineffective and late tabulation announcement process that raised concerns about the announced results.

—Constance Berry Newman is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center and a former US assistant secretary of state for African affairs. She is a member of the joint International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute Observer Mission to Nigeria’s 2023 presidential and legislative elections.

To win over his younger skeptics, Tinubu needs economic results—and fast

After one of the closest elections in recent Nigerian history, Tinubu has called for an “era of renewed hope,” asking for peace, patience, and solidarity. He acknowledged the role that the youth have played in the elections and the need to address young people’s “pains, your yearnings for good governance, a functional economy, and a safe nation.” The fact that the “godfather of Lagos” lost his home city to Peter Obi demonstrates the power of the message Nigerian youth sent in this election.  

In order to address the concerns of the youth, the septuagenarian Tinubu will need to turn his immediate attention to the economy. Food inflation, at a seventeen-year high, is up 28 percent year on year from 2021 to 2022, official youth unemployment hit 42.5 percent (according to the national bureau of statistics) and oil production has fallen to a forty-year low. Power is still expensive—Nigeria is home to sixty million diesel generators and fuel products are still imported—and the World Bank estimates that over 40 percent of Nigerians live below the poverty line. Borrowing on international markets to invest in infrastructure is not really an option for the new Tinubu administration, as Nigerian debt has nearly doubled since 2015 and is now over one hundred billion dollars.  

In the campaign, Tinubu committed to removing the fuel subsidies that cost Nigeria more than ten billion dollars in 2022, but this is not the first time a president tried to take on this beast. Then President Goodluck Jonathan’s efforts to remove the fuel subsidies ended after nationwide protests in 2012. This time around also promises to be politically difficult given the financial hardships faced by Nigerians.

Tinubu will also be asking a lot of Nigerians who are dependent on day-to-day imports should he push for the free float of the naira. The central bank currently restricts access to foreign exchange and rations dollars to prop up the naira, which is now valued at half of what it was when outgoing President Muhammad Buhari was first elected in 2015, resulting in a large spread between the official and street exchange rates. By the time Tinubu officially takes office at the end of May, hopefully the current government will have rationalized the demonetization plan that has caused cash shortages and long lines at ATMs.  

Despite all of these economic challenges, the Nigerian spirit has remained resilient. The informal economy (which, based on my experience doing business in the country for twenty years, is two-to-three times the size of the official economy) continues to absorb newcomers to the labor market, and there is a bright spot within Nigerian tech and entrepreneurship. The country is home to Africa’s largest venture capital and tech hub, and Nigerian companies such as Sabi, SeamlessHr, Moniepoint, and Moove are expanding to other economies in the region. 

But Tinubu will have an uphill battle in renewing young people’s faith in Nigeria. Young Nigerians are leaving the country in record numbers—those going to the United Kingdom to work has quadrupled since 2019—and the Nigerian Medical Association says that at least fifty doctors are leaving every week to work abroad. Tinubu will have to show quick results on the economic front to stem the tide. 

—Aubrey Hruby is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center, a co-founder of Tofino Capital, and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

Tinubu will play a pivotal role in the continent—and the world

What we can say today is that even if the election was highly disputed, with Bola Tinubu, logic prevailed. Tinubu’s victory is not a surprise. He was running on behalf of the ruling All Progressives Congress. He is Muslim from the Yoruba-speaking southwest, and even if he lost there, he has strong support in Lagos. If the result is confirmed, the largest African democracy will have passed one of its most important tests since military rule ended in 1999. And it is not over: Beyond the presidential election, Nigerians are also electing their 469 representatives in the Senate and the House of Representatives. Democracy is a tough path.

This election is special, too, because Nigeria is transitioning to a new environment marked by an economic turning point and a changing continental and international context. The expectations have never been so high. Tinubu will lead a country that is expected to become the world’s third most populous by 2050. At the African level, Nigeria is a major actor whose economy represents 70 percent of the West African gross domestic product. The future of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the new Eco currency (which has been postponed to 2025), and the African Continental Free Trade Area (which needs to be accelerated) are in Nigeria’s hands. Even as it faces major shifts, it will tremendously impact the rest of the continent. At the global level, the African continent will negotiate its role in international bodies from the Bretton Woods system to the Group of Twenty (G20) nations, and Nigeria will play an important role in this unprecedented dialogue.

—Rama Yade is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.

The post Experts react: As the ruling party’s Tinubu wins a contested election, what’s next for Nigeria? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The summit comes at a challenging time, characterized by deteriorating security conditions on the continent—reminiscent of the Cold War era—exacerbated by rising geopolitical tensions and the urgency to ramp up the energy transition and combat climate change. There is a risk that the subordination of growth and development objectives to security priorities, which has dominated US engagement with Africa, will persist in today’s highly geopolitically driven world.

The United States’ continuous prioritization of security over development (otherwise known as the securitization of development) in its engagement with Africa could be counterproductive: It could easily undermine the net-zero transition as well as opportunities for maximizing the benefits of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which policymakers hope will alleviate the concentration of global supply chains for greater resilience.

Moving up the value chain

The securitization of development has been costly for both Africa and the United States and has led to the weakening of US-Africa relations. This is especially evident in the trade arena, where the United States has been losing ground at lightning speed. For decades, it was Africa’s largest trading partner, accounting for as much as 26.5 percent of total African trade in 1980 according to data from the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank). That figure has fallen into the single digits, to around 6 percent of total African trade, with US investment on the continent having declined sharply as well.

Perhaps the most consequential factor behind the collapse of US-Africa trade has been the stickiness of the colonial development model based on resource extraction, under which Africa is relegated to participating in global value chains (GVCs) along forward rather than backward activities, predominantly as a provider of primary commodities and raw materials. Initially this model grossly inflated US-African trade—both on the export and import side of the trade balance sheet—with the United States importing crude oil from Africa and exporting refined petroleum products back to the continent.

In the modern era of global value chains, in which intermediate goods have become the leading drivers of world trade, falling US investment in Africa has blunted the expansion of US-African trade. Moreover, the predominance of natural resources in that trade has always presented a major risk. For example, as the twenty-first-century US shale boom put the country on a path toward energy independence—with advances in fracking technology lowering production costs and raising oil output—US petroleum imports declined dramatically; between 2014 and 2020, the United States cut its oil imports from Africa by around 40 percent, according to Afreximbank.

While many African countries are oil producers, they rely on imports for refined petroleum products. Under that highly carbon-intensive “round-tripping” model, Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil-producing country, for decades exported crude oil to the United States and imported refined petroleum products back to power its economy, at a huge cost in terms of macroeconomic stability, jobs, and environmental degradation.

Besides increasing the carbon footprint of the heavily polluting shipping industry, the costs of the round-tripping model are significant and go beyond dwindling trade numbers. There is a human element: People are being sickened by intense greenhouse gas emissions and wounded—or, in the worst cases, killed—in conflicts fueled by climate change and competition for scarce resources. Africa is on the frontlines of the global climate crisis, despite being the continent contributing the lowest total greenhouse gas emissions. Round-tripping has also exported jobs off of the continent, which is already contending with Great Depression-level unemployment rates, exacerbating poverty and adding to conflict-fueled migration flows.

At the macro level, the conditions created by round-tripping have long undermined the continent’s pursuit of economic stability, with sustained foreign-exchange leakages increasing the frequency of balance-of-payment crises. Africa’s position as an importer of refined petroleum products plays an outsized role in these crises, a vulnerability that leaders across the continent are looking to address. In Nigeria, for example, a new Dangote Group refinery and petrochemical plant that will come on stream early next year could, according to estimates from the Central Bank of Nigeria, save the country up to 40 percent of its foreign exchange earnings.

Ultimately, the securitization of development in US-Africa engagement has delivered neither security nor development. And the predominance of natural resources has underscored the economic and political risk to both parties, with the sharp decline of US-African trade weakening its relevance for Africa’s development in an increasingly competitive geopolitical world.

Next steps for the US and Africa

There are key questions to consider during what could be a history-making summit in Washington: Can the trend be reversed to boost US-African trade and correct the balance between security and development? And why should such a course of action be undertaken?

On the first question, increased manufacturing in Africa can help the continent diversify its exports beyond primary commodities and natural resources and integrate effectively into the global economy. In addition to its strong theoretical foundation for economic development, manufacturing has other positive spillovers including opportunities for economies of scale and productivity growth, technology transfers, integration into GVCs, and capital accumulation. Recent estimates show that this drives 20 percent of US capital investment and 60 percent of US exports.

Across the developing world, manufacturing has offered a path for low-income countries to increase their shares of global trade. One example is Vietnam, which over the course of the past decade has become one of the United States’ ten largest trading partners, leaping ahead of powerful nations such as France and Italy, according to the Africa Export and Import Bank. Vietnam has achieved this by successfully improving its connections to GVCs, including those around technology. More than 40 percent of Samsung cellphones are manufactured in Vietnam, enabling the country to reap the benefits of the frontier technology industries that are propelling global growth.

Most African countries, which possess the raw materials necessary to manufacture these and similar technology products, could achieve the same performance—if it weren’t for the colonial development model of resource extraction. For instance, the Democratic Republic of Congo, which some call “the Saudi Arabia of cobalt,” could potentially enter electric vehicle GVCs not solely as a resource provider but as provider of lithium batteries and other crucial, manufactured components.

In addition to boosting US-African trade, such involvement across GVCs would mitigate the continent’s vulnerability to adverse commodity terms of trade and improve living standards, as has been the case in Vietnam, where poverty rates have fallen sharply. Simply put, since greater backward participation in GVCs leads to higher gross exports, domestic value added, and employment, manufacturing reduces poverty—and its poverty-reducing effects are even more pronounced in low-income countries.

Turning to the second question, the benefits of increasing manufacturing output and diversifying exports in terms of growth and welfare are textbook trade theory. But there are also two additional benefits with significant geopolitical implications: The diversification of global supply chains for greater resilience and the reduction of the global carbon footprint.

The AfCFTA, which entered into force last year and is expected to catalyze competitive value chains across the continent, provides a new framework for US-Africa engagement. Beyond diversifying Africa’s sources of growth and turning the page on the costly round-tripping model, the agreement has the potential to cut carbon emissions significantly by facilitating the net-zero transition and promoting the diversification of global supply chains. The latter is especially important for building greater resilience in today’s geopolitically tilted world, where trade is increasingly treated as another weapon in superpowers’ arsenals.

There are other reasons for the United States and the world to prioritize Africa in the decentralization of global supply chains. The continent’s young population positions it as a growing consumer market, and shrinking the distance between production and consumption would further alleviate the global carbon footprint during the net-zero transitional period. Simultaneously, economies of scale associated with the AfCFTA will further boost productivity and returns on investments, especially as corporations take advantage of regional integration to spread the risk of investing in smaller markets and, in the process, strengthen investment and trade and lift African exports.

Transcending the colonial development model of resource extraction could position a reforming Africa as the next great frontier market for global investors chasing high yields and resilient supply chains amid today’s rising geopolitical tensions. Earlier this year, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen promoted “friend-shoring” to shift supply chains away from countries that present geopolitical and security risks to supply chains. It is up to the United States to change its ways and make new friends during its second US-Africa Leaders Summit.

Hippolyte Fofack is the chief economist at Afreximbank.

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La donne démographique dans la région et ses retombées à l’horizon de 2045 2045

Le Sahel – soit, dans le cadre de cette étude, la région au sud du Sahara qui s’étend du Sénégal au Tchad en y incluant les douze états septentrionaux de la Fédération nigériane appliquant la charia — est dans une impasse démographique. Loin de produire un « dividende », la croissance rapide d’une population dont le profil d’âge est très jeune et dont le taux de fécondité reste très élevé submerge la capacité des états à produire des biens publics en quantité nécessaire. Cette donne démographique ralentit, voire bloque la croissance économique ; elle limite le progrès social et obère l’urbanisation par l’extension des bidonvilles. Au fil des décennies, ces conditions, qui se renforcent mutuellement, ont sapé la légitimité des gouvernements centraux et rendu les états de la région vulnérables à la propagation d’un populisme islamique radical et, plus généralement, à l’instabilité.

La période 2040-2045 est l’horizon temps de cette étude. D’ici à là, du fait du profil d’âge très jeune de leurs populations (quatre sur dix Sahéliens ont moins de quinze ans), les états de la région devront se doter de nouvelles infrastructures, augmenter la productivité agricole et élargir le marché du travail de façon à pouvoir répondre aux besoins pressants de cohortes de jeunes adultes toujours plus nombreuses qui, d’année en année, rivaliseront pour des emplois rémunérateurs au sein d’une main d’œuvre déjà largement sous-employée. En même temps, les gouvernements devront maintenir la sécurité collective. Leurs efforts pour y parvenir, quand bien même ils seraient sous-tendus par la meilleure volonté et une parfaite expertise, ne pourront s’approcher de leurs objectifs qu’à condition de s’attaquer en priorité à l’entrave majeure au développement, à savoir les taux de fertilité persistant à des niveaux très élevés.

S’ils veulent sortir de l’impasse actuelle, les gouvernements sahéliens devront réorienter une partie importante de leurs efforts de développement et moyens financiers vers des politiques et programmes visant à améliorer la condition féminine : en prévenant les mariages et grossesses précoces chez les adolescentes, en promouvant l’éducation des filles et en garantissant la pleine participation des femmes dans tous les secteurs publics et privés, à commencer par les lieux de travail. Car l’amélioration tous azimuts de la condition féminine est la condition sine qua non pour l’avènement de familles de taille plus réduite et aux membres mieux instruits. Or, l’insurrection djihadiste dans la région complique la mise en œuvre, en toute sécurité, de programmes promouvant les femmes, du moins en dehors des grandes villes sous le contrôle des gouvernements ; elle comporte aussi le risque que les bailleurs de fonds extérieurs du développement, notamment l’Union européenne et les États-Unis, se désengagent de la région pour ne plus chercher qu’à contenir de l’extérieur — à l’instar de ce qu’ils font déjà en Somalie — la menace djihadiste et la pression migratoire montante au Sahel.

Un forum de débat associé : perspectives politiques et projets régionaux

Pour prolonger Bette étude et ouvrir le débat à d’autres expertises, initiatives et projets menés dans le Sahel, le Conseil Atlantique a demandé à l’ONG américaine Organizing to Advance Solutions in the Sahel (OASIS), dédiée à l’accélération de la transition démographique dans la région, d’inviter à collaborer des experts ouest-africains en santé publique et en éducation. Dans une série de débats organisés à cette fin, ces professionnels ont confronté leurs idées quant aux mérites des approches politiques actuelles et des projets en cours dans la région, ainsi que des obstacles rencontrés et de leurs recommandations en la matière. Sous le titre « Accélérer la transition démographique », le synopsis de ces consultations est accessible ici. Par ailleurs, une note d’accompagnement d’OASIS dresse le tableau de l’aide internationale en matière de santé reproductive et pour l’éducation des filles dans le Sahel. La version intégrale de cette note, dont les principales informations ont été intégrées dans la présente étude, peut être consultée via le lien que voici.

Les résultats en un coup d’œil

Le profil d’âge d’une population et la « fenêtre démographique ». Pris dans leur ensemble, les pays du Sahel abritent parmi les populations les plus jeunes du monde. Qui plus est, selon la projection moyenne de fécondité de la Division de la population des Nations Unies (ONU), aucun pays sahélien ne devrait atteindre au cours des vingt à vingt-cinq années à venir — soit la période couverte par le présent rapport — la « fenêtre démographique », c’est-à-dire une période propice à la croissance économique et au développement du fait d’un profil d’âge favorable de la population (on parle à ce propos aussi de « dividende démographique »). Au cours des soixante-dix dernières années, c’est dans cette « fenêtre » — qui s’ouvre à partir d’un âge médian d’une population entre 25 et 26 ans — que d’autres pays ont généralement atteint des niveaux de développement moyens supérieurs (correspondant à cette catégorie de revenus, telle que définie par la Banque mondiale, et les niveaux plus élevés d’éducation et de survie des enfants qui y sont associés). D’ici à 2045, seuls la Mauritanie et le Sénégal s’approcheront de cette « fenêtre démographique », à en croire la projection actuelle de l’ONU à faible taux de fécondité — le scénario le plus optimiste de la série standard de la Division de la Population.

La croissance démographique. Les démographes de l’ONU estiment que la population totale des six états du Sahel est passée de près de 21 millions d’habitants, en 1960, à environ 103 millions en 2020, soit presque un quintuplement en soixante ans. Pour le nord du Nigéria, leurs estimations aboutissent à une trajectoire de croissance similaire, avec près de 78 millions d’habitants en 2020. Les populations combinées des six pays du Sahel et du nord du Nigéria devraient ainsi passer de l’estimation actuelle — 181 millions d’habitants — à une fourchette comprise entre 370 millions et 415 millions d’habitants en 2045. Une grande partie de cette croissance sera le résultat de l’actuel profil d’âge très jeune de ces populations et de l’élan démographique qui en résulte (en anglais, on parle à ce propos de age-structural momentum ou population momentum).

La baisse de la fécondité. Les taux globaux de fécondité de la région varient actuellement entre 4,6 enfants par femme au Sénégal et en Mauritanie et des taux de pré-transition démographique — plus de 6,5 enfants par femme — au Niger et dans les douze états du nord du Nigéria. Dans tout le Sahel, les taux de procréation chez les adolescentes restent extrêmement élevés, et la taille de la famille perçue comme étant « idéale » est généralement égale ou supérieure à la fécondité réalisée. Dans le passé, jusqu’aux séries de données de l’ONU en 2010, les projections de baisse de fécondité de la Division de la Population pour les pays du Sahel se sont toujours avérées trop optimistes. Cependant, des enquêtes locales plus récentes indiquent que la version actuelle de sa projection de fécondité moyenne n’est pas hors de portée. Ce scénario prédit qu’entre 2040 et 2045 la fécondité diminuera pour atteindre entre 4 et 3,4 enfants par femme dans la plupart des états du Sahel, et près de 4,7 au Niger. Il y a déjà des écarts significatifs dans l’utilisation de contraceptifs modernes et entre les modèles de procréation chez les femmes rurales au Sahel et les femmes urbaines plus instruites. Mais ces différences ne sont pas encore aussi prononcées qu’en Afrique de l’Est ou en Afrique australe, où la baisse de la fécondité est plus avancée et se poursuit à un rythme plus rapide.

La santé maternelle et infantile, ainsi que l’éducation des filles. Alors que la mortalité infantile a constamment diminué au Sahel, un enfant sur dix meurt encore avant l’âge de cinq ans au Mali et au Tchad. Par ailleurs, selon des estimations récentes de l’Organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS), plus de 40 pour cent des enfants de moins de cinq ans présentent un retard de croissance au Niger et au Tchad. Toujours selon l’OMS, le taux de mortalité maternelle au Tchad est le deuxième plus élevé du monde, tandis que la Mauritanie, le Mali et le Niger figurent parmi les vingt pays de la planète où la grossesse et l’accouchement sont les plus dangereux. Au Tchad et au Niger, seule une fille sur cinq en âge de l’être est en réalité inscrite dans un établissement d’enseignement secondaire ; ailleurs dans la région, le taux net de scolarisation des filles ne dépasse pas 40 pour cent dans le secondaire. Partout, les mariages d’adolescentes restent le principal obstacle à l’augmentation de leur niveau d’éducation.

L’autonomie et les droits des femmes. En dépit des conseils prodigués par des professionnels locaux de la santé et les exhortations des agences de l’ONU, les gouvernements sahéliens successifs n’ont, jusqu’à présent, pris aucune disposition effective pour faire appliquer les lois déjà existantes qui permettraient de réduire les mariages d’adolescentes, d’éliminer l’excision, de protéger les femmes contre les mariages forcés, de restreindre la polygamie ou, encore, de donner aux femmes des droits égaux de succession et la garde de leurs enfants en cas de séparation conjugale ou de veuvage. Alors que les défenseurs des droits des femmes considèrent que ces mesures sont indispensables pour faire évoluer les préférences vers des familles plus restreintes et mieux éduquées, les dirigeants craignent un retour de flamme politique. L’ampleur de la résistance organisée — comme, par exemple, lors des manifestations d’organisations islamiques au Mali en 2009, qui ont fait reculer les droits des femmes — a même convaincu certains professionnels du développement que, dans plusieurs états du Sahel, la seule voie de changement actuellement ouverte passe, à moyen terme, par un soutien financier accru à l’éducation des filles, aux réseaux des soins de santé pour les femmes et aux organisations de la société civile qui luttent pour l’égalité des femmes.

L’agriculture. Malgré le changement climatique, la hausse des températures locales et le récent ralentissement de l’expansion des terres cultivées, la croissance de la production céréalière a, depuis 1990, dépassé le rythme de la croissance démographique dans la région, qui est de l’ordre de 3 pour cent par an. Cependant, en raison de récoltes erratiques sur des terres exploitées de façon peu productive, de conflits armés et d’un grand nombre de personnes déplacées, les états de la région sont restés tributaires d’une aide alimentaire importante. Alors que l’irrigation par les eaux souterraines est susceptible de prendre de l’ampleur, les effets combinés de la croissance démographique future, du réchauffement climatique continu, de l’insurrection persistante et de la sécheresse périodique dans le Sahel rendent l’autosuffisance alimentaire très improbable dans un avenir prévisible.

Le pastoralisme. Après trois décennies d’augmentation relativement régulière des précipitations dans certaines parties de la région, le nombre de têtes de bétail (ajusté en fonction des différences de taille des espèces) a considérablement augmenté depuis les années 1990. Pourtant, les zones de pâturage les plus productives ont diminué parce qu’elles ont aussi été mises à contribution par des populations croissantes d’agriculteurs dans les zones plus arides. En même temps, le nombre des détenteurs de droits de pâturage a été multiplié et la végétation des zones convoitées s’est sensiblement dégradée, au point où la moins bonne qualité du fourrage a précipité le passage des bovins aux moutons et aux chèvres. Dans tout le Sahel, les agro-écologistes ont noté l’émergence de ce qu’ils appellent des systèmes de production « néo-pastoraux », lesquels se caractérisent par de riches propriétaires de grands troupeaux absents du terrain, la prolifération d’armes légères mais sophistiquées et, sur place, une sous-classe pastorale paupérisée et politiquement marginalisée qui est de plus en plus vulnérable à la radicalisation.

La sécurité. Depuis 2009, le Sahel fait face à des insurrections islamistes en pleine expansion. Cette tendance est susceptible de s’aggraver étant donné qu’aucun état de la région ne devrait atteindre, d’ici à 2045, la « fenêtre démographique » qui, selon les modèles fondés sur l’analyse du profil d’âge d’une population, inaugure une baisse substantielle du risque de conflits non-territoriaux (ou révolutionnaires) persistants. D’après ces modèles, les conflits en cours au Mali, Burkina Faso et Niger, ainsi qu’au Tchad et dans le nord du Nigéria sont ainsi statistiquement susceptibles de se poursuivre, à un certain niveau, pendant les vingt-cinq années à venir. Ce qui retardera d’autant l’amélioration de la condition féminine dans la mesure où, contrairement aux insurrections d’inspiration marxiste dans l’Asie du Sud-Est et en Amérique latine au cours de la seconde moitié du XXe siècle, la présence djihadiste dans les zones rurales du Sahel limite les progrès de l’éducation des femmes, leur autonomie et la fourniture de services de planification familiale..

L’urbanisation. Dans les six pays francophones du Sahel, la population urbaine — en croissance rapide — représente actuellement environ un tiers de la population et devrait s’approcher de la moitié d’ici à 2045. Les investissements dans le logement ont permis de réduire sensiblement la proportion des personnes vivant dans des bidonvilles, mais ces efforts ont été dépassés par une croissance urbaine telle qu’en chiffres absolus, la population des bidonvilles dans la région a presque doublé depuis 1990. À mesure que les opportunités génératrices de revenus se font rares dans les secteurs de l’agriculture et de l’élevage, les espoirs des hommes jeunes reposent sur le marché du travail urbain et les possibilités d’éducation susceptibles de les rendre aptes à l’emploi. Toutefois, l’emploi dans le secteur formel de l’économie demeurera l’exception rare dans la région, et l’urbanisation rapide continue ne manquera pas de poser de nouveaux problèmes de logement, d’accès à l’eau potable et à l’énergie, d’assainissement, de santé publique et de sécurité. Pour relever ces défis, les gouvernements locaux et les bailleurs de fonds étrangers devraient investir massivement dans l’aménagement urbain afin de stimuler les transitions vers une plus grande autonomie des femmes et vers des familles plus réduites, mieux nourries et mieux éduquées. Ce faisant, ils ouvriraient aussi de meilleures perspectives pour trouver un emploi en ville.

La migration. Entre 1990 et 2015, plus de 80 pour cent des flux migratoires à partir des six pays francophones du Sahel ont abouti au-delà des frontières de la région. Au cours de cette période, six migrants sur dix ayant quitté le Sahel se sont installés ailleurs en Afrique, alors que les quatre autres sont partis en Europe, en Amérique du Nord ou vers d’autres destinations. Le Sénégal et le Nigéria ont été les principales portes de sortie vers l’Europe et l’Amérique du Nord. À ces flux migratoires se sont ajoutés, dans la période 2015-2020, d’importants flux de réfugiés du fait de l’escalade des conflits dans le bassin du lac Tchad ainsi qu’au Mali, Niger et Burkina Faso. Pour les jeunes Sahéliens réduits à la précarité aussi bien dans les zones rurales pratiquant l’agriculture de subsistance que dans des bidonvilles, la sécheresse épisodique, les conflits persistants et les difficultés économiques durables représentent des facteurs d’incitation au départ. Dans cette partie aride et peu développée du monde, la taille de la population est importante au regard des ressources disponibles — d’où une pénurie de facteurs d’attraction pour rester sur place. La croissance démographique ne cesse de grossir les rangs des personnes dont les moyens de subsistance sont marginaux et qui pourraient être poussées à partir en cas de désastres naturels ou politiques pour aller chercher de meilleures opportunités ailleurs.

Modèles d’une transition accélérée

Ce rapport met en exergue les voices empruntées par trois états qui, par des politiques et programmes non-coercitifs, ont réussi à accélérer leur transition démographique en baissant leur taux de fécondité et en transformant le profil d’âge de leurs populations: la Tunisie, le Botswana et le Bangladesh. Bien que ces pays diffèrent géographiquement, culturellement et économiquement des pays sahéliens, les points de départ démographiques étaient similaires et sont comparables avec la situation actuelle dans les pays sahéliens. En effet, dans les trois états cités en exemple, l’âge médian de la population était inférieur à vingt ans (ce qui correspond à une pyramide d’âge très élargie à la base) et l’indicateur synthétique de fécondité se situait entre six et sept enfants par femme. Par ailleurs, mention est également faite des politiques et programmes en cours pour changer la donne démographique en Éthiopie, au Rwanda, au Kenya et au Malawi.

La Tunisie. Dans ce pays d’Afrique du Nord, la sortie accélérée de la transition démographique doit beau- coup au leadership inspiré de Habib Bourguiba, le pre- mier président de la Tunisie. Il a fait passer un ensemble de réformes favorables aux femmes, notamment des lois obligeant les parents à envoyer leurs filles à l’école, relevant l’âge légal du mariage, interdisant le port du voile et la polygamie, réduisant le pouvoir des imams locaux, autorisant les femmes à travailler en dehors de leur foyer, leur donnant plein droit à l’héritage, faisant du divorce un processus judiciaire et mettant en place dans tout le pays des centres de planification familiale volontaire.

Botswana. D’emblée, le professionnalisme des soins mis à disposition et leur coût abordable ont été les éléments-clés de l’effort de ce pays en matière de santé reproductive. Proposés gratuitement depuis 1970, les services de planification familiale ont été intégrés aux soins de santé maternelle et infantile dans tous les établissements de santé primaire locaux. En outre, le Botswana est l’un des rares pays d’Afrique subsaharienne où le taux de scolarisation des filles dans l’enseignement secondaire dépasse celui des garçons. Le Botswana a partagé avec les pays du Sahel le défi initial des taux élevés de mariages et de grossesses précoces. Mais sa bonne gouvernance et son utilisation judicieuse de ses rentes minières (diamantifère, notamment) le distingue de la plupart des pays du continent.

Le Bangladesh. La remarquable transformation démographique de ce pays est due à une administration sanitaire dévouée. Celle-ci a su mobiliser des dizaines de milliers d’agents de santé communautaires et de bénévoles en faisant équipe avec une organisation non-gouvernementale locale, le Comité pour le Progrès Rural au Bangladesh (BRAC). Elle a également utilisé à bon escient les fonds d’aide et les produits de santé apportés par les donateurs étrangers. Lancée en 1975, cette approche, soutenue par une campagne de communication en matière de santé publique à l’échelle du pays, a contribué à déclencher la demande de nouvelles méthodes de contraception à long terme (par exemple, des injectables et des implants), l’élargissement au niveau national du programme des travailleurs de village et la mise en place d’une chaîne d’approvisionnement en matière de santé publique.

Programmes ailleurs en Afrique. Forts du soutien de leurs dirigeants politiques et en s’inspirant des expériences en Asie et en Amérique latine, les programmes de santé reproductive en Éthiopie, au Rwanda, au Kenya et au Malawi ont gagné une grande visibilité et des soutiens importants de la part des bailleurs de fonds étrangers. Au cours des trois dernières décennies, une meilleure attention prêtée à l’éducation des filles, les efforts organisés pour accroître les droits des femmes en matière de procréation et leur participation politique, de même qu’une communication efficace en matière de santé publique, ont amélioré l’efficacité de ces programmes ciblant, à la fois, la santé maternelle et infantile ainsi que la planification familiale. Toutefois, d’importants problèmes de prestation de services et d’acceptation des contraceptifs modernes subsistent dans chacun de ces pays où les taux d’abandon de la contraception sont élevés et les écarts dans l’utilisation des contraceptifs restent grands entre les ménages ruraux à faible revenu et les familles urbaines plus riches.

Scénarios

Dans des situations de crise et d’incertitude, bâtir des scénarios d’avenir aide à réduire le champ des possibles et à déceler des éventualités peu visibles qui pourraient prendre les décideurs au dépourvu. Ces futurs fictifs permettent aux analystes de s’écarter des trajectoires d’événements les plus attendus et d’explorer d’autres possibilités sans avoir à imaginer des discontinuités ou à expliquer des enchaînements d’événements complexes qui, au cours de l’histoire, ont parfois conduit à des surprises. Dans un souci didactique de concision, notre étude présentera les trois scénarios suivants sous la forme de dépêches d’agence de presse (évidemment fictives mais plausibles), des coups de projecteur sur la situation du Sahel au début des années 2040

Du pareil au même. Lors d’un sommet interrégional tenu en 2043, l’Union Européenne (UE) et l’organisation des états sahéliens conviennent d’une nouvelle convention quinquennale sur la migration. L’accord contrôle et limite les flux de migrants en provenance et à travers le Sahel en échange d’une forte augmentation de l’aide financière de l’UE à la région. Ce scénario repose sur l’hypothèse que les inscriptions des filles à l’école ont continué à augmenter dans le Sahel et que l’utilisation de contraceptifs modernes y a lentement progressé en s’étendant des zones urbaines en plein essor aux villes de province, puis dans les villages. Cependant, les gouvernements n’ont guère mené d’actions soutenues pour renforcer les droits des femmes ou atténuer l’ordre patriarcal, qui tolère, entre autres, les mariages et grossesses précoces. En même temps, au nom d’une gouvernance islamique, les états du Sahel ont institué des compléments de revenu en espèces pour les mères à la maison, à la fois pour maintenir les femmes au foyer et pour leur offrir une relative indépendance financière. Par ailleurs, ces états ont mis en commun leurs ressources militaires afin de mieux contenir les groupes djihadistes, qui sont restés actifs, notamment, dans les zones rurales du Sahel.

La percée. Également en 2043, un sommet des états sahéliens regroupés au sein du G7 Sahel débat, sur la base d’un rapport parrainé par l’ONU, du retour- nement de situation en matière de santé reproductive dans plusieurs de ses pays membres et des progrès significatifs enregistrés dans d’autres. Un représentant local du Fonds des Nations Unies pour la Population (UNFPA) présente les résultats d’une grande enquête démographique et sanitaire. Il en ressort qu’au Sénégal et au Burkina Faso, l’indicateur synthétique de fécondité est passé sous la barre des trois enfants par femme, et que même le Niger semble emboîter le pas à la région dans sa marche vers une baisse de la fécondité. Des enquêtes locales menées dans plusieurs grandes villes du Sahel révèlent que la fécondité y est déjà proche du seuil de remplacement de deux enfants par femme et que l’afflux dans les maternités, ainsi que la taille des classes d’école, ont considérablement diminué. Mais, du fait de l’accroissement continu de la population (dû à l’élan démographique qui résulte de son profil d’âge très jeune), de la hausse des températures, de mauvaises récoltes périodiques et de la violence sporadique des djihadistes, les importations de céréales et l’aide alimentaire restent des éléments essentiels pour la sécurité alimentaire au Sahel.

Le décrochage. Lors d’une session du Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU en 2043, le Représentant spécial pour le Sahel du Secrétaire général appelle à une action internationale d’urgence pour faire face à une crise multiforme dans la région. Il décrit la faillite de plusieurs états sahéliens et les luttes territoriales entre seigneurs de la guerre. Il cite notamment la détérioration des conditions de sécurité dans le pays haoussa tant au Nigéria qu’au Niger, où des groupes djihadistes prophétiques ont proliféré et, dans certains cas, assis leur autorité politique. Il relève également que les aérodromes dans le Sahel sont devenus des plaques tournantes pour toutes sortes de trafics, y compris d’êtres humains. Il interpelle le Conseil de sécurité au sujet du Niger en proie à une famine d’une ampleur comparable à celle, catastrophique, du début des années 1980. Or, cette fois, ce pays doit nourrir une population de près de soixante millions d’habitants, au lieu des 7 millions à l’époque. Ce défi est d’autant plus grand que la porte d’entrée régionale qu’est le Sénégal pour l’aide alimentaire et d’autres formes d’assistance humanitaire est tout juste entr’ouverte, le gouvernement sénégalais n’étant guère coopératif, pas plus pour l’acheminement de secours que dans la lutte contre la migration illégale vers l’Europe.

Recommandations

Pour les donators d’aide internationale au Sahel, cette étude contient une recommandation d’ordre général: au cours des vingt à vingt-cinq années à venir, les transitions démographiques dans la région devraient comporter au moins une ou deux réussites exemplaires pouvant servir de réservoir d’expertise locale et de modèles pour la mobilisation communautaire susceptibles de se propager ailleurs. Le Sénégal semble être le meilleur candidat à l’accueil d’un tel effort concerté. Parmi les pays enclavés du Sahel, c’est peut-être encore le cas du Burkina Faso, à condition que ses zones rurales retrouvent paix et sécurité. Au Niger, au Mali et au Tchad, les interventions les plus efficaces seront sans doute celles qui améliorent la situation des femmes, développent à grande échelle les infrastructures dans les villes et forment des agents de santé suffisamment dévoués pour qu’ils acceptent de travailler dans les périphéries urbaines et les camps de réfugiés où les demandes d’éducation, de planification familiale et d’autres services de santé reproductive sont généralement élevées. Voici aussi les recommandations plus spécifiques de notre étude:

Mettre à profit l’urbanisation. Les gouvernements de la région devront redoubler d’efforts pour améliorer le niveau d’éduca- tion des filles et, avec le concours des bailleurs de fonds étrangers, augmenter considérablement les dépenses consacrées à la planning familial et aux autres services de santé reproductive. Ils devront par ailleurs élever le statut administratif de la planification familiale au rang de responsabilité ministérielle et renforcer sa visibil- ité par des campagnes d’information. De surcroît, les administrations chargées de l’éducation nationale et Dans ces villes en expansion, il sera également impératif que l’éducation des filles et la planification familiale sur une base volontaire, ainsi que des services de santé maternelle et infantile, se mettent en place, et que les femmes y aient un accès de plein droit aux emplois, tant dans le secteur privé que public.

Renforcer l’éducation des filles et la planification familiale. Les gouvernements de la région devront redoubler d’efforts pour améliorer le niveau d’éduca- tion des filles et, avec le concours des bailleurs de fonds étrangers, augmenter considérablement les dépenses consacrées à la planning familial et aux autres services de santé reproductive. Ils devront par ailleurs élever le statut administratif de la planification familiale au rang de responsabilité ministérielle et renforcer sa visibil- ité par des campagnes d’information. De surcroît, les administrations chargées de l’éducation nationale et de la santé publique devraient éliminer les obstacles bureaucratiques, traditionnels et religieux à la scolarisa- tion des filles et permettre un accès facile et abordable aux services de planification familiale aux personnes mariées aussi bien que célibataires. La mise à dispo- sition de ces services devrait être décentralisée pour être accessible dans les quartiers urbains comme dans les foyers ruraux ; à ce titre, des agents de santé villa- geois et des cliniques mobiles paraissent particulière- ment bien adaptés aux conditions sahéliennes. Il serait également utile que des organisations professionnelles de la santé créent une bibliothèque en ligne pour ren- dre accessibles des exemples de réussite locales dans les domaines de l’éducation des filles — leur éducation sexuelle et en matière de santé reproductive — et du planning familial.

Travailler avec des chefs religieux et politiques, ainsi que d’autres personnalités publiques; impliquer et informer les hommes. L’utilisation plus générale de contraceptifs modernes est souvent liée à des prises de position publiques de la part de chefs religieux, qui jugent le planning familial compatible avec la foi. Par ailleurs, des études récentes accréditent l’idée que les programmes qui informent et impliquent les hommes et s’appuient sur le soutien de dirigeants locaux ont les plus grandes chances de réussite dans le Sahel. Enfin, depuis des décennies, les communicants de la santé y travaillent déjà avec des producteurs de télévision et de radio, ainsi qu’avec des artistes — en particulier des acteurs connus de feuilletons ou talk-shows populaires — pour mieux diffuser des messages de service public concernant la santé maternelle et infantile, la nutrition, l’éducation sexuelle, le VIH/Sida, les droits des femmes ou le planning familial.

Renforcer les droits des femmes. Dans le Sahel, de grands progrès peuvent être accomplis en protégeant les filles et les femmes contre de multiples formes de discrimination et de violence, et en renforçant leurs droits dans le cadre du mariage. Cet effort commence par l’application des lois nationales déjà existantes, qui interdisent l’excision, les mariages forcés et le mariage précoce, avant l’âge de dix-huit ans. Une fois mariées, les femmes devraient avoir le droit d’obtenir un recours contre la violence conjugale, de demander le divorce et de se voir confier la garde des enfants en cas de séparation, de divorce ou de décès du conjoint. Les femmes devraient aussi jouir d’un plein droit de recours en justice et d’un traitement égal devant les tribunaux aux affaires familiales gérés par l’État ; elles ne devraient pas rester tributaires des jugements rendus par des tribunaux religieux et traditionnels, qui n’ont généralement pas su les protéger, pas plus que leurs enfants, contre des préjudices physiques, psychologiques et économiques. Là où la résistance politique a fait reculer les efforts législatifs visant à accroître les droits des femmes (comme, par exemple, au Mali, comme déjà indiqué), le soutien qui est leur apporté par des coopératives ou des organisations professionnelles ou éducatives peut ouvrir des voies alternatives aux femmes sahéliennes pour accéder à une plus grande autonomie et à des fonctions dirigeantes.

Apporter des services aux minorités marginalisées. Les ministères de la santé et de l’édu- cation devraient veiller à ce que les minorités marginalisées, quel que soit leur isolement géo- graphique ou culturel, bénéficient de leurs pro- grammes de planning familial ou en faveur d’une meilleure éducation des filles et du renforce- ment des droits des femmes. Les expériences antérieures dans d’autres parties du monde portent à croire que les disparités régionales, socio-économiques, ethniques ou de caste en matière de fécondité tendent à se solidifier en des inégalités difficiles à effacer et génératrices d’animosités et de tensions politiques.

Promouvoir des efforts au bénéfice des femmes dans tous les projets de développement ou d’équipement. Qu’ils soient gouvernementaux, privés ou financés par des bail- leurs de fonds étrangers, tous les projets de développement ou d’équipement au Sahel, dans le domaine agricole ou d’autres secteurs économiques, devraient contenir des clauses pour promouvoir une meilleure instruction des filles et des femmes, pour leur aménager un accès plus facile aux services de santé reproductive et pour renforcer leurs droits et leur indépendance financière. Aucun projet soutenu par des donateurs internationaux ne devrait permettre aux pouvoirs publics, partis politiques ou chefs religieux ou traditionnels d’entraver l’émancipation des femmes.

Gérer les tensions autour du partage des res- sources entre agriculteurs et pasteurs. Dans une région aride de plus en plus peuplée, l’avenir des moyens de subsistance agricoles et pastoraux dépendra du développement de l’irrigation, de l’intensification de l’agropastoralisme (soit une intégration plus poussée des utilisations agricoles et pastorales des terres) et de l’accès aux marchés urbains. En vue de ce futur plus peuplé, les gouvernements sahéliens devraient limiter le nombre des grands propriétaires de troupeaux de bétail ne résidant pas sur leurs terres de pâturage, protéger les pâturages de l’empiètement par des agriculteurs et aider les éleveurs à lutter contre le vol de bétail. En parallèle, les pouvoirs publics devraient favoriser l’industrie agro-alimentaire de transformation génératrice de valeur ajoutée, promouvoir la coopération entre agriculteurs et éleveurs et améliorer les moyens de transport et voies d’accès aux marchés urbains.

Protéger les acquis du développement par des investissements dans la sécurité locale. Des groupes djihadistes tendent à se multiplier dans le Sahel et à étendre leur emprise. De ce fait, les poches géographiques où des responsables locaux et une majorité de la population soutiennent l’éducation des filles et le renforcement des droits des femmes deviennent les cibles de choix des militants armés. Aussi, ces communautés locales et leurs dirigeants devraient-ils bénéficier d’une protection spéciale par la police ou les unités antiterroristes.

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Report

Nov 4, 2021

What future for the Western Sahel?

By Richard Cincotta and Stephen Smith

The Western Sahel is in a demographic impasse. To work their way out of this dilemma, Sahelian governments must shift a significant part of their development focus and funding to policies and programs aimed at preventing adolescent marriages and childbearing, promoting girls’ education, securing women’s participation in public- and private-sector workplaces, and achieving small, healthy, well-educated families.

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The post Quel avenir pour le Sahel? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On October 25, 2021, Nigeria launched its central bank digital currency (CBDC) — the eNaira. Development began in 2017 with the identification of possible functions. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) then partnered with Bitt, a fintech company based in Barbados, to develop eNaira. The main objectives for developing eNaira were to improve the availability and access to central bank money, support a resilient payments system, encourage financial inclusion, and reduce the cost of processing cash. Furthermore, eNaira aims to enable direct welfare disbursement to Nigerian citizens, increase the government’s revenue and tax collections, facilitate diaspora remittances, and reduce the cost of cross-border payments.

See how the Nigeria fits into the global development of CBDCs using our flagship CBDC Tracker:

How it Works

The current version of eNaira focuses on person-to-person (P2P) and person-to-business (P2B) transactions through the Speed and the Merchant Wallets respectively. Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele announced in October that 500 million eNaira, an equivalent of $1.21 million, had already been minted and a total of 200 million eNaira had been issued to banks.

To set up a Speed Wallet, eNaira currently requires users to enter their phone number, email, and Bank Verification Number (BVN). This means that only those with bank accounts are currently able to use the eNaira. After an email verification, users are able to use the wallet in tandem with online banking apps. To load the wallet with eNaira, users log on to their personal banking app and transfer the desired amount to their wallet. Users are then able to send eNaira to anyone with an eNaira wallet by scanning the recipient’s QR code. 

As a young global professional at the GeoEconomics Center, my research has focused on the evolution of central bank digital currencies. In November, I traveled to Nigeria, where I had the opportunity to see eNaira in action. In my experience, using eNaira’s Speed Wallet was fairly simple. Once I obtained the necessary information from my personal bank, I was easily able to register for the Speed Wallet, and did not experience any of the issues that were reported during the initial launch of the CBDC, such as technical bugs for new users trying to register. 

The CBN announced in December of 2021, it has recorded 583,000 personal wallets and 83,000 Merchant Wallets with total transactions amounting to N188 million, or $500,000. The central bank could do more to increase the adoption of eNaira in a country with over 200 million people and an annual GDP of nearly $500 billion; particularly if President Mohammadu Buhari hopes to use eNaira to increase Nigeria’s GDP by $29 billion over the next 10 years. 

The government should continue to work with private banks to encourage their customers to transition from a mobile payment transfer system to an eNaira wallet. In addition, the Speed Wallet needs to be further developed to facilitate diaspora remittances. The ability to send money directly from foreign to Nigerian bank accounts would encourage more Nigerians to use eNaira. The central bank should also focus on integrating the Speed Wallet and personal banking, so that users could load their Speed Wallet with eNaira without accessing their personal banking app. Having to switch between two apps is the most tedious part of using eNaira so fixing this would make the app more user friendly.

Financial Inclusion 

The Central Bank of Nigeria adopted the National Financial Inclusion Strategy in 2012, with the primary goal of increasing Nigerians’ access to financial services from 36% in 2012, to 80% in 2020. However, Nigeria fell short of this goal. The EFinA’s Access to Financial Services in Nigeria 2020 Survey indicated that the country had reached a financial inclusion rate of 64% by the end of 2020. The remaining 36% — equivalent to over 38 million adults —  still do not have access to banking services. CBN’s Annual Financial Inclusion Strategy Report identified “women, youth, rural dwellers Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) and Northern Nigeria” as the most disproportionately excluded demographics. Widespread use of the eNaira could promote financial inclusion in Nigeria by making banking services easily accessible to these excluded groups. Recently, the CBN reported that northern states, primarily Borno, Sokoto, and Gombe, are leading in CBDC adoption ahead of Lagos, a center for economic activity in Nigeria. If this continues, Nigeria’s CBDC could aid in closing the country’s regional gap in access to financial services.

Cash remains the dominant form of transaction in Nigeria, especially for financially excluded groups who are less likely to have access to banking services. However in recent years the payment landscape in Nigeria has evolved and continues to do so. In 2019, digital payments were valued at close to 109 trillion naira, up from only 4 trillion in 2012, when the National Financial Inclusion Strategy was announced. The next phase of eNaira will allow people to register for the Speed Wallet with just their National Identification Number (NIN), thereby facilitating financial inclusion where the current digital payments infrastructure falls short. Therefore, Nigerians without bank accounts and a Bank Verification Number (BVN) would be able to send and receive eNaira.

The CBN hopes to achieve this, along with offline use for eNaira, through the use of Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) short codes, which would allow users without a strong internet connection and smartphones to use the CBDC. The CBN is also considering making eNaira a payment gateway, technology used by merchants to accept customers’ debit or credit card payments, in order to facilitate wider adoption of the CBDC. If the central bank is able to implement the changes that it has outlined, it could dramatically change the outlook of Nigeria’s financial inclusion strategy.

Naomi Aladekoba is a project assistant with the GeoEconomics Center focusing on Sub-Saharan Africa, Chinese foreign policy, and international development.

Dec 14, 2021

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Our flagship Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Tracker takes you inside the rapid evolution of money all over the world. The interactive database now features 130 countries— triple the number of countries we first identified as being active in CBDC development in 2020.

Issue Brief Oct 15, 2021

Designing decentralized finance for financial inclusion

By Nikhil Raghuveera

The next iteration of DeFi must be developed toward an intentional vision for financial inclusion. Financial inclusion means that everyone has the tools to not only meet their daily needs, but to also build wealth for themselves, their families, and their communities. And in turn, greater financial inclusion supports more resilient and robust economies.

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A recording of the official launch event is available here.

The region’s demography and its implications by 2045

The Western Sahel—a region stretching from Senegal and Mauritania to Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad, and including the twelve sharia law states of northern Nigeria—is in a demographic impasse. Rather than yielding an economic dividend, the conditions spawned by the region’s persistently youthful, rapidly growing, high-fertility populations overwhelm the capabilities of state-run services, generate extensive urban slum conditions, slow if not stall economic and social progress, and aggravate ethnic tensions. Decades of exposure to these mutually reinforcing conditions have undermined the legitimacy of central governments and rendered the region’s states vulnerable to the spread of Islamic populism and regime instability.

Due to the growth momentum of their youthful age structures, from now through the 2040-to-2045 period (the time horizon of this study), the region’s states will be driven to respond to the urgent needs to build infrastructure, increase agricultural productivity, maintain security, and generate jobs in their attempt to employ and politically pacify young-adult cohorts of unprecedented size who, each year, vie to enter the already underemployed Sahelian workforce. Yet these well-intentioned development efforts can never be sufficient unless the region’s governments prioritize policies and programs that address a key underlying impediment to development: sustained high fertility.

To work their way out of this dilemma, Sahelian governments must shift a significant part of their development focus and funding to policies and programs aimed at preventing adolescent marriages and childbearing, promoting girls’ education, securing women’s participation in public- and private-sector workplaces, and achieving small, healthy, well-educated families. However, the region’s persistent jihadist insurgency raises questions as to how far women-centered programs can be safely and successfully extended beyond the edges of the Western Sahel’s inland cities. Absent serious progress on these coupled crises, policy makers in the EU, the United States, and their non-European allies may eventually disengage (as they already have from Somalia today), concluding that containing the Western Sahel’s jihadist insurgency and out-migration at the region’s frontiers is a more viable option than continued development assistance.

Adjoining discussion paper: Regional policy and program perspectives

To gain further insights and cover policy and program issues that extend beyond the authors’ expertise, the Atlantic Council’s Foresight, Strategy, and Risk Initiative commissioned Organizing to Advance Solutions in the Sahel (OASIS), a reproductive health policy organization based in Berkeley, California, to convene a series of consultative discussions among West African public health and education professionals. These professionals discussed the merits of current policy and programmatic approaches in the Sahelian states, identified the major obstacles encountered, and recommended areas for additional effort and investment. A synopsis of these consultations appear in the OASIS discussion paper titled “Accelerating a Demographic Transition”. An additional analysis of international assistance to the Sahel for reproductive health and girls’ education is available in an accompanying OASIS brief. Several of their key points are discussed and cited in this report.

Key findings

Age structure and the demographic window. As a group, the Western Sahelian countries remain among the world’s most youthful populations. Moreover, within the 20-to-25-year period of this report, none of the Western Sahelian countries are projected by the United Nations (UN) Population Division’s medium-fertility projection to reach the demographic window, namely a period of socioeconomically and fiscally favorable age structures (the so-called demographic dividend). Over the past seventy years, it has been within this window—beginning at a median age of around 25 or 26 years—that countries generally have reached upper-middle levels of development (e.g., the World Bank’s upper-middle income category and associated levels of educational attainment and child survival). Notably, Mauritania and Senegal will approach this demographic window by 2045 in the current UN’s low-fertility projection—the most optimistic scenario in the Population Division’s standard series.

Population growth. UN demographers estimate that the overall population of the six states of the Western Sahel has grown from nearly 21 million inhabitants in 1960 to about 103 million in 2020—an almost five-fold increase over sixty years. For the twelve states of northern Nigeria, the authors’ modeled estimates suggest that the population trajectory has been comparably steep, reaching nearly 78 million in 2020. Those sources expect the combined populations of the six Western Sahelian countries and northern Nigeria to grow from today’s estimate of about 181 million to somewhere between a projected high, in 2045, of about 415 million, and a projected low of about 370 million people. Much of this growth is produced by age-structural momentum, a largely unavoidable consequence of the region’s extremely youthful age distribution.

Fertility decline. The region’s total fertility rates currently range between about 4.6 children per woman in Senegal and Mauritania, to pretransition rates—above 6.5 children per woman—in Niger and the twelve sharia law states of northern Nigeria. Throughout the Western Sahel, rates of adolescent childbearing remain extremely high, and ideal family size generally equals or exceeds realized fertility. Even in the recent past—up to and including the UN’s 2010 data series—the Population Division’s medium-fertility projections for the countries of the Western Sahel have proved overly optimistic. Yet, recent local surveys in the region indicate that the current version of its medium-fertility projection is not out of reach. That scenario assumes that, between 2040 and 2045, fertility will decline to between 3.4 and 4.0 children per woman in most of the Western Sahel’s states, and near 4.7 in Niger. Significant differences in modern contraceptive use and patterns of childbearing are already evident between rural women and more educated urban women, but the differences are not yet as pronounced as in East or southern Africa, where fertility decline is proceeding at a faster pace.

Maternal and child health, as well as girls’ education. Whereas childhood mortality has steadily declined in the Western Sahel, still one in ten children die before the age of five in Mali and Chad. Recent World Health Organization (WHO) estimates indicate that in Niger and Chad, more than 40 percent of children below age five exhibit stunting. According to the WHO, Chad’s maternal mortality rate is the world’s second highest, while Mauritania, Mali, and Niger are also among the twenty countries in which pregnancy and childbirth are the most dangerous. In Chad and Niger, just one in five eligible girls are enrolled in secondary school, and net secondary enrollment has yet to rise above 40 percent elsewhere in the region. Adolescent marriages remain the region’s most serious deterrent to increasing girls’ educational attainment.

Women’s autonomy and rights. Despite the advice of regional health professionals and the criticisms of UN agencies, successive governments have, so far, done little to enforce already existing laws that would reduce adolescent marriages, eliminate female genital cutting, protect women from forced marriages, restrict polygamy, and give women inheritance rights and custody of their own children in case of marital separation or widowhood. While women’s advocates see these as key to a shift in preferences to smaller, healthier, and better-educated families, current Sahelian political leadership fears political blowback. High levels of organized resistance—such as the large demonstrations by Islamic organizations in Mali, in 2009, that turned back women’s rights—have convinced some development professionals that for several states in the Western Sahel, the only route to change currently available may be through intensive investments in girls’ education and financial support for women’s health care networks, as well as progressive legal, professional, educational, and cooperative societies.

Farming. Despite rising temperatures and the recent slowdown of cropland expansion, the growth of grain production has, since 1990, exceeded the pace of the region’s roughly three percent per year rate of population growth. However, due to erratic harvests on mar- ginally productive croplands, armed conflict, and the presence of displaced populations, the region’s states are regular recipients of substantial food aid. Whereas ground-water irrigation is likely to become a more important input in the future, the combined effects of future population growth, continued climatic warming, persistent insurgency, and periodic drought in the Western Sahel make food self-sufficiency highly unlikely in the foreseeable future.

Pastoralism. After three decades of relatively steady increases in rainfall in parts of the region, livestock numbers (adjusted for species body-size differences) have grown significantly since the 1990s. Yet the most productive pastoral rangelands, put under the plow by growing populations of dryland farmers, have dwindled in surface area. Meanwhile, the numbers of grazing-rights holders have proliferated and vegetation on the remaining rangelands have dramatically deteriorated in form and forage quality, precipitating shifts from cattle to sheep and goats. Across the Sahel, agro-ecologists have noted the emergence of what they call neopastoral production systems that feature wealthy absentee owners of large herds, the proliferation of light but sophisticated weaponry, and a growing impoverished and politically marginalized pastoral underclass that is increasingly vulnerable to radicalization.

Security. The region is in the throes of rapidly growing Islamic insurgencies. Whereas demographic models of persistent non-territorial (revolutionary) conflict predict substantial declines in the risk of such conflict during the demographic window, none of the region’s states are currently projected by the UN Population Division to reach that window during the period of this report. Thus, the authors’ models suggest that ongoing conflicts in Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad, and northern Nigeria are statistically likely to continue, at some level, through the 2040-2045 period. Unlike the Marxist-inspired insurgencies that ignited across Southeast Asia and Latin America during the second half of the twentieth century, the jihadist presence in the rural portions of the Western Sahel restricts the educational progress of women, their autonomy, and delivery of the family planning services that could facilitate fertility decline and improve reproductive health and nutrition.

Urbanization. The rapidly growing urban population of the six countries of the Western Sahel currently comprises about one-third of the region’s population and is projected to approach half by 2045. Despite laudable investments in housing that have dramatically reduced the proportion of slum dwellers in the urban population in several states, these efforts have been outpaced by rapid urban growth. Consequently, the region’s slum-resident population has nearly doubled since 1990. As income-generating opportunities evaporate in the agricultural and livestock sectors, the hopes of young men will rest on the urban job market and the educational opportunities that make them fit for employment. Yet employment in the formal sector of the economy will remain elusive throughout the region, and rapid urbanization is bound to present new housing, fresh water, energy, health, sanitation, and security challenges. Still, if governments and donors heavily invest, urban transformation could stimulate transitions to greater female autonomy and smaller, better educated, more well-nourished families with skills and prospects for urban employment in the region.

Migration. Between 1990 and 2015, more than 80 percent of migrant flows that originated in the six Western Sahelian countries ended beyond the region’s borders. During this period, slightly more than 60 percent of the net outward flows were added to populations in other African countries, whereas nearly 40 percent were added to populations in Europe, North America, and destinations elsewhere. Senegal and Nigeria in particular, represent significant migrant gateways to Europe and North America. This analysis does not even account for substantial refugee flows during the 2015-2020 period, which are associated with escalating conflict in the Lake Chad Basin, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali. For young Sahelians surviving on marginal rural livelihoods and in urban slums, episodic drought, looming conflict, and sustained economic hardship represent weighty “push factors” that readily tip personal decision-making toward migration. In this arid and poorly developed part of the world, the region’s population size is clearly important. It adds to the ranks of those in marginal livelihoods who might be pressured to leave during episodic disasters and seek greater opportunities elsewhere, while creating few “pull factors” encouraging potential migrants to stay.

Models of demographic progress

The report also highlights the pathways taken by three countries that politically, programmatically, and without coercion, facilitated relatively rapid fertility transitions and age-structural transformations: Tunisia, Botswana, and Bangladesh. While these states differ geographically, culturally, and economically from the Western Sahelian states, their demographic starting points were similar. Initially, each experienced a broadly pyramidal profile with a median age under twenty years and, in each, the total fertility rate was estimated at between six and seven children per woman. To these, the paper adds a discussion of ongoing programmatic efforts that are influencing the patterns of reproduction in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Rwanda.

Tunisia. This North African country’s rapid journey out of the age-structural transition’s youthful phase was the product of the vision and leadership of Habib Bourguiba, the country’s first president. His Neo-Destour political party legislated a package of pro-women reforms, including laws that compelled parents to send their daughters to school, raised the legal age of marriage, prohibited polygamy, gave women full inheritance rights, made divorce a judicial process, provided decentralized centers of voluntary family planning, mandated that women could work outside the home, opposed the veil, and curtailed the power of local imams.

Botswana. From its inception, professional care and affordability have been key elements of this country’s reproductive health effort. Family planning services, provided free of charge since 1970, were directly integrated into maternal and child health care at all local primary health facilities. Moreover, the country is one of the few in the sub-Saharan region where girls’ secondary-school enrollment rates—now above 90 percent—exceed boys’ rates. While Botswana shared the initial challenge of high rates of adolescent pregnancy and early marriage with Sahelian countries, its history of effective governance and wise use of mineral rents sets Botswana apart from most countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

Bangladesh. This country’s remarkable demographic turnaround was brought about by a dedicated health administration that mobilized tens of thousands of community-based health workers and volunteers, teamed up with a local non-governmental organization called Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), and used an infusion of health commodities and funds from foreign donors. Begun in 1975, Bangladesh’s successful donor-funded approach and its country-wide public-health communications program helped trigger demand for other long-term contraception methods (e.g., injectables and implants), countrywide expansion of the village worker program, and formalization of Bangladesh’s public health supply chain.

Programs in East Africa. Applying lessons learned from Asia and Latin America, reproductive health programs in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, and Rwanda have attained strong support from national leaders, achieved high public profiles, and obtained strong financial commitments from foreign donors. Over the past three decades, greater attention to girls’ educational attainment, organized efforts to augment women’s reproductive rights and increase political participation, and effective public health communications have improved the effectiveness of donor-funded programs for maternal and child health as well as family planning. Significant service delivery and contraceptive acceptance challenges remain in each of these eastern African countries, including high contraceptive-discontinuation rates, and wide gaps in contraceptive use between the lowest-income households and wealthier, urban families.

Scenarios

In situations of crisis and uncertainty, scenarios help reduce the scope of options and unveil poorly visible possibilities that could, in the future, catch policy makers unaware. These fictitious futures allow analysts to depart from the most obvious event trajectories and explore other possibilities without having to imagine discontinuities or explain complex chains of events that, throughout history, have led to surprises. For the sake of didactic brevity, we present the following three scenarios under the guise of news dispatches, which shine a light on the situation in the Western Sahel in the early 2040s.

“More of the Same.” In an interregional summit, held in 2043, the European Union (EU) and an organization of Sahelian states agree to a fourth five-year multilateral Migration Convention. The agreement limits and controls the flow of migrants from and through the Sahel in return for a generous increase in the EU’s regional aid package. Girls’ school enrollments continue to rise in the region, and modern contraceptive use increases slowly, spreading from the burgeoning urban areas into smaller cities and towns. However, governments make little serious effort to expand women’s rights or to perturb the patriarchal system that condones adolescent marriages and childbearing. Meanwhile, some Western Sahelian states have instituted cash income supplements for stay-at-home mothers, offering an alternative to women competing in the region’s crowded job market. Meanwhile, Sahelian states continue to pool military resources to contain jihadist groups that remain active across the rural Sahel.

“Breakthrough.” A summit of the expanded group known as G7/Sahel, held in 2043, opens with the rollout of a UN-sponsored report highlighting a reproductive turnaround in several member states in the region and outlines significant progress in others. A local representative of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) reports on the results of demographic and health surveys indicating that, in both Senegal and Burkina Faso, countrywide total fertility rates have fallen below three children per woman, and that Niger appears to be following on a similar path. Local surveys in several Sahelian cities provide evidence that fertility is near the two-child-per-woman replacement level and that maternal and childhood clinical caseloads as well as school class sizes have dramatically declined. Despite a slowdown in the region’s rate of population increase, ongoing growth due to momentum, increasing temperatures, periodic crop failures, and sporadic jihadist violence, grain imports and food aid remain critical elements of the food-security equation in the Sahel.

“Downward Spiral.” In a UN Security Council session convened in 2043, the Sahel’s special representative calls for international action to address a multifaceted crisis unfolding across the Western Sahel. He describes Somalia-like state failures and territorial infighting among warlords in Mali and Chad, and further outlines deteriorating security conditions across the Hausa-speaking regions of northern Nigeria and Niger, where loosely affiliated jihadist groups have proliferated and, in some cases, gained political control. He also notes that airfields in the Sahel have become the interregional hub for moving contraband, including human trafficking. In his report, the Sahel’s special representative calls the Security Council’s attention to Niger, currently in the throes of a famine on a scale that occurred in the latter half of the twentieth century. This time, Niamey, the capital, is faced with feeding a population nearing sixty million, rather than the 5.2 million of the mid-1970s. Senegal, the region’s only gateway for food aid and other humanitarian assistance, is also the jumping-off place for illegal migration to Europe.

Recommendations

For international aid donors, the report offers a general recommendation: Successful demographic turnarounds over the coming twenty to twenty-five years would feature at least one, and hopefully two, countrywide programmatic success stories, providing exemplars of best practices, a pool of local expertise, and models of community participation that might spread elsewhere. Senegal may be the best candidate to host such a model program. Another focused effort should be launched in an inland state—perhaps Burkina Faso, if its rural areas are pacified. In Niger, Mali, and Chad, the most effective interventions will likely be those that vastly improve urban services and expand a trained cadre of dedicated health workers to deploy in urban peripheries and refugee camps, where demands for education, family planning, and other reproductive services are typically high. In addition to the more general take-aways, the report’s specific recommendations are as follows:

Gain from urbanization. By 2045, nearly half of the region’s growing population is projected to live in urban areas. If services can be mobilized and funded, it will be in these urban centers that young Sahelians receive the vocational and professional education and attain the income-generating employment that could keep many of them from slipping into the illegal or extremist margins of their societies. It is imperative that girls’ education and voluntary family planning—along with other reproductive, maternal, and child health services—are also in place in these expanding cities and towns, and that women gain access to both the private- and public-sector workforce.

Ramp up girls’ education and family planning. Governments in the region should reinvigorate their commitments to increasing levels of girls’ educational attainment and, with the assistance of international donors, vastly increase levels of spending on family planning and other reproductive health services. States should elevate the administrative profile of family planning to a ministerial responsibility and augment its public profile through information campaigns. Education and health administrations should eliminate bureaucratic, traditional, and religious barriers to girls’ school attendance and facilitate easy and affordable access to family planning services for both married as well as single individuals. Methods of delivery that directly bring basic reproductive health services to people in their urban neighborhoods and rural homes—including village health workers and mobile clinics—may prove most effective in Sahelian conditions. At this stage of development, it would be helpful if Sahelian professional societies develop an online library of local success stories that cover girls’ education, family planning, as well as sexual and reproductive health.

Work with respected religious and political leaders, and other public figures; involve and inform men. Exposure to supportive messages from religious leaders who address questions of religious acceptability is generally associated with higher levels of modern contraceptive use. Moreover, recent studies indicate that local programs that inform and involve men and seek the support of local leaders may be the most likely to succeed in the Western Sahel. For decades, health communicators have worked with television and radio producers as well as entertainers, particularly those involved in popular daytime dramas (i.e., soap operas) and talk shows to impart public service messaging concerning maternal and child health, nutrition, HIV/AIDS, family planning, women’s rights, and sexual relationships.

Augment women’s rights. In the Western Sahel, much can be accomplished by protecting girls and women from multiple forms of discrimination and violence, and by expanding their rights in marriage. This effort begins by enforcing current national laws that already prohibit all forms of female genital cutting, that outlaw forced marriages, and prohibit marriage before the age of eighteen years. Once married, the region’s women should deserve the rights to initiate divorce, obtain recourse against violence, and secure custodianship over their children in case of marital separation, divorce, or the death of their spouse. Women should have the right to legal recourse and equal treatment in state-run family courts of law, rather than being limited to the judgments of religious and traditional courts, which have generally failed to protect women and children from physical, psychological, and economic harm. Where political resistance has rolled back legislative efforts to augment women’s rights (as it has been the case in Mali), government support and endorsement of women’s legal, professional, cooperative, and educational societies may offer alternative routes for many Sahelian women to achieve greater autonomy and attain leadership positions.

Bring services to marginalized minorities. Health and education ministries should ensure that significant programmatic efforts in girls’ education, voluntary family planning, and women’s rights be distributed, in some form, among marginalized minorities—no matter how geographically or culturally isolated these minorities might be. Prior experiences in other regions suggest that regional, socioeconomic, ethnic, or caste fertility disparities later develop into hard-to-overcome social and economic inequalities that generate political tensions and exacerbate animosities.

Promote women-centered efforts in all agricultural, economic, and infrastructural development projects. All government, private, and donor-supported projects should contain components that facilitate extending girls’ educational attainment and/or quality of education, improve access to reproductive health services, and promote women’s rights and their economic autonomy. No donor-supported project should facilitate the efforts of governments, political parties, or traditional and religious leaders to impede women’s progress in any sector of development.

Manage resource-related tensions between farming and pastoralism. In a more-populous Western Sahel, the future of agricultural and pastoral livelihoods will depend on the development of groundwater irrigation and intensified agropastoralism (a more deliberate integration of agricultural and grazing uses of land), as well as their relation to urban markets. In this more-populous future, the region’s governments should consider enforcing schemes that restrict absentee rangeland users, protect rangelands from further agricultural encroachment, and help pastoralists deter cattle rustling. Meanwhile, governments in the Western Sahel should continue to develop industries that add value to agricultural and livestock products, promote cooperation between farmers and pastoralists, and develop more efficient transport to urban markets.

Protect development gains with investments in local security. In an environment of rapidly spreading jihadist conflict, geographic pockets of progressive local leadership and popular support for girls’ education and other women-centered programs could become primary targets of militants. Affected communities and their leaders deserve special protection provided by police or anti-terrorist units.

Watch the official launch event

Public Event Tue, March 22, 2022 • 11:30 am ET

Report launch | Demographic trends in the Western Sahel

Official launch event of the Scowcroft Center report, “What Future for the Western Sahel? The Region’s Demography and Its Implications by 2045,” in which the authors argue that unless the Sahelian states focus on reversing the underlying conditions that sustain high fertility, they are unlikely to dislodge the mutually reinforcing crises of instability, forced migration, and food insecurity in the foreseeable future.

Africa Energy & Environment Human Rights Politics & Diplomacy

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Report

Mar 7, 2022

Quel avenir pour le Sahel?

By Richard Cincotta and Stephen Smith

Le Sahel est dans une impasse démographique. S’ils veulent sortir de l’impasse actuelle, les gouvernements sahéliens devront réorienter une partie importante de leurs efforts de développement et moyens financiers vers des politiques et programmes visant à améliorer la condition féminine : en prévenant les mariages et grossesses précoces chez les adolescentes, en promouvant l’éducation des filles et en garantissant la pleine participation des femmes dans tous les secteurs publics et privés, à commencer par les lieux de travail.

Africa Energy & Environment

The Foresight, Strategy, and Risks Initiative (FSR) provides actionable foresight and innovative strategies to a global community of policymakers, business leaders, and citizens. 

EXPLORE THE INitiative

The post What future for the Western Sahel? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The post China Pathfinder report cited in South China Morning Post on the implications of decreased liberalization in China, for other market economies appeared first on Atlantic Council.

In this seventy-sixth session of the United Nations General Assembly, Africans represent the largest group, with 28 percent of the votes, ahead of Asia with 27 percent, and well above the Americas at 17 percent, and Western Europe at 15 percent. Yet everyone knows that Africa does not decide anything. The real decision-making body is the Security Council, and its five permanent members are China, Russia, France, Great Britain, and the United States.

The founding of this prestigious council was based on the results of World War II, where global superpowers were defined based on hard power. What about the African people? Weren’t they involved in the victory over Hitler’s Germany? The French launched the Resistance from Brazzaville, and numerous African countries served in the war. They deserve their seat at the victory banquet. 

Besides, the United Nations Security Council still functions on a conventional framework, which was written back in 1945, before the majority of African countries had gained independence from their colonizers—which is another fault to correct.

This gap is all the less bearable because the African continent has dealt with issues threatening peace and security for centuries. Africa even was home to one of the world’s first human-rights charters: the Manden Charter, launched by the great Sundiata Keita, founder of the Mali Empire, long before the English Bill of Rights (1689) and France’s Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789), and perhaps even before the Magna Carta (1215).

Capitalizing on culture

The composition of the UN Security Council—let’s call it aristocratic for this argument—does not reflect the current world at all. Today, the notion of power has evolved from hard power, which is forceful and coercive, to a subtle but more influential power. Soft power enables a nation to lead other countries through influence, which allows those countries to lead their own development without coercive interference, which is what the Security Council should note. Afghanistan and the Sahel are proof of the limits of hard power—and Black Panther, the 2018 movie based on a Marvel comic, is the consecration of soft power. That’s right, it’s Wakanda time.

Africa and its powerful creative industries—driven by connected youth amid the biggest digital revolution of the past two decades—shine beyond the borders of Nollywood to influence Hollywood. This growing market expands its influence everywhere: Nigeria’s entertainment and media market doubled from 2014 to 2019 to become the fastest-growing in the world, according to the audit firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). When Nigeria incorporated Nollywood in its gross domestic product in 2013 (in a rebasing of data), it became the largest economy in Africa. From Dior to Louis Vuitton, luxury fashion has been renewed with African inspirations. Ready-to-wear brands such as Sweden’s H&M and Spain’s Zara have joined in as well. African Fashion Weeks from Johannesburg to Lagos have inspired international celebrity entertainers like Beyoncé and Rihanna, who is a fashion designer herself.

Beyoncé’s Disney-produced musical, Black Is King, is a celebration of Africa, dreamed up in line with the global success of Black Panther, which featured award-winning African actors in Hollywood such as Lupita Nyong’o and Daniel Kaluuya. Moreover, Netflix has greatly enriched its platform of African series, targeting African audiences and not just English speakers. In the music industry, Nigerian artists such as Burna Boy, Davido, and Wizkid have signed with major US labels such as Sony and regularly win Grammy awards. Burna Boy’s songs were included on the playlist for US President Joe Biden’s inauguration. Jay-Z, Will Smith, and Jada Pinkett Smith backed a Broadway musical, Fela!, about a Nigerian singer that won three Tony Awards in 2010. Not so long ago, Nigerians were paying dearly for collaborations with American and European stars, but now the opposite is true. Soft power is now the predominant power.

At United Nations Plaza, these changes have not been taken into consideration. It is quite alarming that the ruling procedures for the security council have not been amended since 1982. The Security Council was built on the principle of sovereignty and equality of all nations; therefore, democratization and reformation of this organization are overdue and a reassessment must ensure fairness and justice for the African continent. Fairness should start with demography. Africa is predicted to become the largest population of the world in the next twenty years, and it already is the youngest: Almost one in four world inhabitants will be a sub-Saharan African in 2050.

Three options for the Security Council

Several African candidates merit consideration for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. First, Nigeria is the continent’s most populous nation, at more than 210 million people. In 1963, after its independence in 1960, Nigeria was one of the founding members of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), now known as the African Union. From 1960 to 1995, Nigeria provided $61 billion in funding for the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. This country also assisted prominent leaders of liberation movements in decision-making against the military government regimes of the time throughout the continent. Nigeria founded the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in 1975, when it utilized its soft power to address a civil war in Angola through OAU policy. By nationalizing Barclays Bank and British Petroleum in the late 1970s, Nigeria was able to pressure the British and contribute to Zimbabwe’s independence.

Another contender for a permanent seat is South Africa. Despite recent concerns about xenophobic violence against African migrants, South Africa has a universal audience because of its powerful story of transformation. The iconic struggle and leadership of the late Nelson Mandela, who went from jail to the presidency, is known the world over. After holding its first democratic elections in 1994, one of the most multiracial countries in Africa went on to have one of the most remarkable constitutions in the world through the Convention for a Democratic South Africa talks, where the current president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, was chief negotiator for Mandela’s African National Congress party. Since then, South Africa has diversified its industry and now plays a role in the Southern African Development Community, is a member of the Group of Twenty (G20) nations, and is regarded as one of the “BRICS”—five major emerging economies, alongside Brazil, Russia, India, and China.

Sports has played a role in South Africa’s appealing story. Shortly after its first free elections, South Africa won the 1995 Rugby World Cup. Bafana Bafana, the South African soccer team, was allowed to play international soccer again, after being banned due to nation’s apartheid policy, and went on to win the 1996 African Cup of Nations. These achievements through sports showed that diversity is far more powerful than segregation, and provided a stepping-stone for the country’s influence in Africa and around the globe. In 2010, South Africa was the first African country to host the FIFA World Cup. This year, South Africa assumed the presidency of the Confederation of African Football, the leading voice on sports on the continent and a hub for creative industries.

“Oho! Congo, couched in your forest bed, queen over subdued Africa,

Let the phalli of the mountains bear your pavilion high…”

Right in the middle of Africa’s heart lies the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), heralded above through the words of poet Léopold Sédar Senghor, the first president of Senegal. The DRC is not only a queen—it is mythical Wakanda. It has always been and was so much so that, in a crazy move, the bloodthirsty Belgian King Leopold II decreed Congo as his personal possession. The richness of the resources surfaced in US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield’s recent remarks at the Atlantic Council. Speaking about Congolese minerals including cobalt, copper, zinc, silver, gold, platinum, and other resources that contribute to the world electronics industry, she said: “Every time I see the movie Wakanda, I think this is DRC. And I know it was an imaginary story, but imagine a DRC where the resources that are available there are being used to build the country, are being used to educate the people, are being used to provide health care and services for the people of DRC, and we would have a Wakanda in the making.” 

Not only is this country rich in terms of its soil, but also in history and culture. With two hundred ethnic groups and two hundred different languages, the DRC is the largest French-speaking country in the world, with more students in school than residents of France. Kinshasa, with its seventeen million inhabitants, is the largest French-speaking city in the world, before Paris. At the UN Security Council, Congo would know how to speak to the three hundred million French-speaking people in the world and the thirty million Lingala-speakers of Africa.

But the most important reason why the DRC should be a permanent member of the Security Council lies less in its strengths than its weaknesses: thirty years of civil wars, political coups, the impotence of the six thousand UN peacekeepers in the eastern DRC (present for two decades), and the distress of 4.5 million displaced people. These are the reasons why the DRC is never quoted among the pretendants to a UN permanent seat. Its tragedy does not even seem to upset the international community, even though a collapse of the DRC, under the pressure of dark forces, would have a tragic, deep, large, and long-term effect on the African continent and beyond.

The reasons why the DRC should join the Security Council are to gain a powerful lever to stop myriad manipulations by its neighbors and the international community, and to help this country’s voice to be heard. The DRC would bring to the Security Council something referred to as “weakness politics”: the effects of fragility causing processes that lead to achievements and the shaping of events. Such a change would be the best and most innovative way to reform and democratize this body. Bring out the new wineskins!

Rama Yade is senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center and a senior fellow at the Europe Center. 

Further reading

Fast Thinking Sep 21, 2021

FAST THINKING: Biden’s UN reality check

By Atlantic Council

President Biden spoke of “relentless diplomacy” at the UN on Tuesday. But can that relentlessness overcome transatlantic strains, not to mention a still-raging pandemic and climate crisis?

Africa Crisis Management

New Atlanticist Sep 10, 2021

Gregory Meeks: For counterterrorism and economic opportunity, turn toward Africa

By Katherine Walla

After the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, it has become clear that “terrorism now is global, and we’ve got to work in a multilateral way to combat and fight that,” said US Representative Gregory Meeks.

Afghanistan Africa

New Atlanticist May 25, 2021

Linda Thomas-Greenfield on Africa’s most overlooked crises and opportunities

By Katherine Walla

Thomas-Greenfield spoke about US President Joe Biden’s outlook on Africa with Ambassador Rama Yade, director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center, at an event celebrating Africa Day and introducing the Africa Center’s new team and mission.

Africa Crisis Management

The post Make way for Wakanda: The UN Security Council needs an African seat appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The post CBDC Tracker cited in Yahoo News on central bank digital currencies in Nigeria and Ghana appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Despite the presence of a UN peacekeeping mission since 1999 and billions of dollars in aid—with the United States contributing more than nine hundred million dollars in humanitarian assistance in the past two years alone—today the eastern Congo is reportedly home to more than 120 rebel groups. Those include numerous foreign-backed militias and a local offshoot of the Islamic State. 

They control roadways and access to resources, and they often engage in kidnapping schemes to generate ransom revenue. Securing their buy-in to any peace processes is key to ensuring lasting stability. 

In fact, the majority of the world’s conflicts feature armed non-state actors (ANSAs), with some sixty-six million people living on territory under their control. The Taliban’s recent takeover in Afghanistan is a fresh reminder of the power of these groups. But traditional attempts at post-conflict stabilization have sometimes failed to produce lasting peace—in large part because of their inability to engage ANSAs in a constructive manner within the peace-building process.

That’s why Congress in 2019 created the Global Fragility Act (GFA), which lays out an array of tools with which to stabilize post-conflict situations. These range from sanctions and intelligence collection to the Women, Peace, and Security initiative and the National Strategy for Counterterrorism. 

But the GFA features a major shortcoming: It assumes the state is the primary actor, meaning that the United States will continue to work with sometimes ineffective national governments while ignoring the influence and power ANSAs have in determining stability. 

To maximize the impact of the GFA, the US government will select five countries on which to focus its attention. As it considers those countries, it needs to properly accommodate ANSAs in its strategic calculations. Failing to do so means potentially repeating the mistakes of Afghanistan, where Washington continued supporting an ineffective national government.  

Mapping the next threat

There is no universal definition of an ANSA; it can be characterized as an organization that is not integrated into formalized institutions, operates with some sort of political autonomy, or is willing to use violence to pursue its political objectives. Either way, ANSAs are involved in the majority of the one hundred active armed conflicts around the world—including Afghanistan, where the Taliban is now in charge, and Syria, where a multitude of armed groups control various pieces of territory. 

Similar dynamics have existed in parts of northeastern Nigeria, where Boko Haram has effectively functioned as the government by levying taxes on the populations under its control or providing some semblance of a justice system to settle disputes. While it no longer controls the amount of territory it did in the early 2010s, the group remains a disruptive and destabilizing force. Now, as the much-criticized US strategy in the Sahel has seen limited success and the Nigerian state appears increasingly weak, the potential for increased conflict there is high. 

More than simply controlling territory, ANSAs also serve a critical regional governance function, providing services and either formal or informal governing structures. 

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, ANSAs around the world imposed travel restrictions and implemented health checks in the regions they control. This serves to portray them as legitimate in the eyes of local citizens, which in turn provides them greater political weight and influence over the structure of power-sharing agreements. ANSAs can also be potential spoilers by intentionally undermining the peace process if they believe it threatens their power. 

The foreign aid trap

The GFS calls for humanitarian, development, and security assistance to be provided as a tool to address state fragility, with a focus on working with the local government and civil society. But in regions where ANSAs perform governance functions, providing foreign aid sometimes directly clashes with American counterterrorism priorities. 

In Nigeria, for instance, USAID efforts were hampered by rules limiting engagement with people who had a previous affiliation with Boko Haram. But the definition of “affiliation” is broad and does not specify whether family members of militants are also excluded from aid—putting the onus on aid workers to investigate any potential linkages. That, in turn, stalls the rollout of humanitarian assistance. 

The Boko Haram rule is well-intentioned, as terrorist organizations should indeed be cut off from American aid, but the provision of foreign assistance is a key component in any effective stabilization operation. The United States is currently facing that very dilemma in a newly Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Washington has not announced whether it plans to officially recognize the Taliban, which is still under numerous sanctions, further complicating assistance plans.

But as in Nigeria, delivering aid is central to creating stability. That’s why the State Department and all other implementing agencies will need to find ways to ensure aid is sent to these conflict areas, and that it actually reaches vulnerable populations, without undermining its counterterrorism goals. This could include clarifying what an acceptable affiliation is, or by providing assistance in contested zones through NGOs or other third parties, such as the UN—therefore not undermining US counterterrorism goals.

Trading for stability

Like foreign assistance, commercial trade is another crucial factor in securing sustainable peace—at least when the state maintains control of its territory. The GFA recognizes this, which is why trade, investment, and commercial diplomacy is seen as another tool to ensure stability by investing in low-income states and building a robust free market. 

But when ANSAs are involved, they can limit this free market and thwart the stabilizing potential of these economic relationships.

For example, these groups often exploit natural resources for economic gain, own valuable land, or nurture ties to corrupt officials. They are rent-seekers aiming to maximize their economic profit. This is why stabilization efforts should provide incentives for them to engage in the peace-building process—ideally transforming their informal and illegal economic structures into legitimate economic activities. 

Consider the Philippines: A peace agreement between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in 2014 created the Bangasmoro, an autonomous political body for the majority Muslim areas in Mindanao. Despite the otherwise successful terms of the peace agreement, which created a power-sharing mechanism, fragile state institutions and corrupt officials meant a deep-seated informal economy took root, compromising the state’s capacity to ensure stability. 

Any tools relating to trade, investment, and commercial diplomacy must fully integrate ANSAs into the free market, preventing their rent-seeking activities while simultaneously squeezing out informal economies. To this end, the United States should develop poverty-reduction and anti-corruption programs that reduce incentives for joining the informal economy. Other actions could include legitimizing illicit sources of income, such as offering incentives for growing legal crops instead of narcotics.

The GFA provides a chance to redefine and reimagine post-conflict stabilization operations. But its tools must better consider the presence of ANSAs to ensure the best chance at success. In its current form, the GFA ignores vital actors in the stabilization process and has not learned from prior operations that failed to integrate and plan for ANSAs, such as in Afghanistan or the Sahel. 

Given the evolving nature of today’s conflicts, a strong ANSA strategy could mean the difference between lasting peace and metastasizing violence. 

Imran Bayoumi is a student at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and a former young global professional at the Atlantic Council.

Further reading

New Atlanticist Jun 10, 2021

The best defense: Why NATO should invest in resilience

By Jaclyn Levy

Policies emphasizing resilience should minimize damage, restore stability quickly, and generate improved strategies. To this end, there are several steps NATO can take to build a preventive, resilience-based approach to emerging global challenges.

Europe & Eurasia NATO

New Atlanticist Jul 22, 2021

Why ‘human security’ matters for tomorrow’s conflicts

By Sarah Dawn Petrin

NATO leaders are finally focusing on human security, a major step toward a broader vision of crisis management.

Conflict Europe & Eurasia

New Atlanticist Aug 26, 2021

Before the Taliban took Afghanistan, it took the internet

By Emerson T. Brooking

This is how the Afghan Taliban waged—and won—a generation-long information war.

Afghanistan Conflict

The post To build lasting peace, you can’t ignore militant groups appeared first on Atlantic Council.

In their remarks, Parkinson and Hinshaw noted how the book remains timely for concerning reasons, as over six hundred Nigerian students have been abducted since December 2020. They laid out the intersecting story lines covered in the book, namely on the involvement of Boko Haram, a profile of the girls themselves, and the race to free them, including the little-known negotiations spearheaded by Swiss diplomats and a group of intrepid Nigerians, including one who was jailed for several months by the Nigerian government for his trouble. The authors’ insights put a human face to the incident, while also underscoring that while they were victims, the girls were not passive, showing great courage in challenging their captors.

Through Ambassador Pham’s moderation and participant questions, the authors were also engaged on topics of ransom policy, the political economy of mass abductions in northern Nigeria, and comparing the different groups involved. The session concluded with thoughts on the extent to which the global campaign helped or exacerbated the situation, the ethical dilemma encountered, and finally, on the United States’ role in the face of such incidents.

Further reading:

AfricaSource Apr 8, 2021

The digital infrastructure imperative in African markets

By Aubrey Hruby

Over the past two decades, Chinese companies have come to dominate the telecom infrastructure landscape in emerging markets. The United States can slow and possibly erode these Chinese gains by promoting innovative US technologies and providing resources to help unleash the second wave of the internet revolution in African countries.

Africa Digital Policy

AfricaSource Apr 6, 2021

Keys to African recovery: Vaccines, debt, and commodities

By Rabah Arezki

In the wake of COVID-19, African markets are consumed by uncertainty about the economic recovery. Because of its large population—1.2 billion people—developments in Africa will weigh heavily on the world. The recovery from COVID-19 in Africa will depend on three factors—vaccines, debt, and commodities.

Africa Coronavirus

AfricaSource Mar 29, 2021

Africa’s real strategic import for the green economy

By J. Peter Pham

Among its efforts to address climate change, the Biden administration has laid out an ambitious agenda for a clean energy revolution. This will require significant quantities of raw materials. And here the African continent has an important role to play.

Africa Democratic Republic of the Congo

The post Reflecting on the Bring Back Our Girls movement appeared first on Atlantic Council.

In her opening comments, Africa Center Senior Fellow Amb. Rama Yade framed the event in terms of African agency and innovation in driving economic recovery after COVID-19, reflecting the ethos of the Center’s Afro-Century Initiative, founded in grateful partnership with the Africa Finance Corporation. Amb. Terence McCulley added, as chairman of the US-Nigeria Council, that creativity is needed to maintain the momentum on US-Nigeria commercial exchanges, and that InfraCorp provides a welcome opportunity to do just that.

In the moderated discussion, the speakers laid out the key points of InfraCorp and made the case for its appeal to global investors.

Structure: InfraCorp will be managed by an independent fund manager that will mobilize additional local and global capital in a long-term fund structure. The target for the fund will be $37 billion, and InfraCorp will have the capacity to raise in both naira and dollars.

Timeline: In the search for an asset manager, the request for proposals process will conclude next week, says Zubairu, with interviews by an expert committee leading to the hire of a fund manager by mid-April. The three funding partners have provided an initial capital of $2.4 billion as a first close, and are otherwise “set to go,” in Zubairu’s words. InfraCorp will start making investments immediately, says Orji, seeking commitments “asset by asset and project by project.”

Priorities: InfraCorp will focus on energy, transportation and logistics, telecommunications, and social infrastructure. Opportunities to support green growth are also available, as Nigeria offers avenues for solar, hydro, and gas, as well as supporting oil companies in their efforts to go green.

Impact: For Emefiele, the core of InfraCorp is to tackle Nigeria’s infrastructure deficit and reduce the costs of doing business. InfraCorp is indicative of a maturation of the Nigerian financial market according to Orji. By supporting project development, financing infrastructure, and mobilizing private capital, InfraCorp will help to combat issues of underemployment and inefficiency across sectors, says Zubairu.

Shifting perceptions: According to Orji, the call for applications for the asset manager position was met with initial skepticism but the response has evolved into real inquiry. He also stressed that once firms have invested in Nigeria, he has rarely seen them leave. As such, he is confident that after several transactions, investor interest will only grow. He further highlighted investor interest by raising the oversubscription of an NSIA project with Moroccan fertilizer giant OCP.

For Orji, risk perception is largely a lack of understanding, not a lack of genuine opportunity or returns. Returns are dependent on the type of infrastructure, agree Orji and Zubairu, but in the opinion of the AFC head, “Nigeria has performed very well in providing returns relative to risk.”

Missed the event? Watch the webcast below and engage us @ACAfricaCenter with any questions, comments, or feedback.

Further reading:

AfricaSource Apr 8, 2021

The digital infrastructure imperative in African markets

By Aubrey Hruby

Over the past two decades, Chinese companies have come to dominate the telecom infrastructure landscape in emerging markets. The United States can slow and possibly erode these Chinese gains by promoting innovative US technologies and providing resources to help unleash the second wave of the internet revolution in African countries.

Africa Digital Policy

AfricaSource Apr 6, 2021

Keys to African recovery: Vaccines, debt, and commodities

By Rabah Arezki

In the wake of COVID-19, African markets are consumed by uncertainty about the economic recovery. Because of its large population—1.2 billion people—developments in Africa will weigh heavily on the world. The recovery from COVID-19 in Africa will depend on three factors—vaccines, debt, and commodities.

Africa Coronavirus

AfricaSource Mar 29, 2021

Africa’s real strategic import for the green economy

By J. Peter Pham

Among its efforts to address climate change, the Biden administration has laid out an ambitious agenda for a clean energy revolution. This will require significant quantities of raw materials. And here the African continent has an important role to play.

Africa Democratic Republic of the Congo

The post InfraCorp set to attract global investors to Nigerian infrastructure appeared first on Atlantic Council.

This month’s topline events

Biden Prioritizes China. In his first foreign policy speech as president, Joe Biden made clear his administration views the challenge of China as among its highest national security priorities. Biden vowed to “confront China’s economic abuses, counter its aggressive, coercive action, [and] push back on China’s attack on human rights, intellectual property and global governance.” He later called on the US and its democratic allies to prepare for a “long-term strategic competition” with Beijing, declaring that the world was at an inflection point between autocracy and democracy.

• Shaping the Order. Biden’s remarks indicate that the United States is likely to intensify the strong stance toward China initiated by the Trump administration, and suggest we may be heading toward a more protracted, longer-term struggle between China and the free world.
• Hitting Home. Ongoing competition with China could require US businesses to redirect supply chains away from China in order to reduce strategic dependencies.  
• What to Do. The Biden administration has adopted a clear-eyed view of the China challenge. It should follow by developing a coordinated strategy with allies and partners that focuses on strengthening ourselves at home and defending against China’s actions to undermine international norms, while also engaging Beijing on issues where cooperation appears feasible. 

Vaccine Race Ramps Up. Distribution of coronavirus vaccines accelerated across the United States and around the world, as the Biden administration authorized a third vaccine and pledged $4 billion to GAVI to distribute vaccines to developing countries, reversing a Trump era policy. Meanwhile, Russia and China teamed up to expand distribution of their own vaccines, with Moscow touting a British medical journal report finding that its Sputnik V vaccine is highly effective and Beijing committing to provide nearly 500 million doses of its Sinopharm vaccine to more than 60 countries worldwide.

• Shaping the Order. The surge in vaccine production could hasten the end of the pandemic and spur a global economic rebound. But with the United States and Europe prioritizing distribution at home, Russia and China are using vaccine diplomacy to try to outcompete the United States and its allies and boost their soft power influence in countries across Asia, Latin America and Africa.
• Hitting Home. The United States is making great strides in vaccine distribution at home, with top health officials predicting that all Americans should have access to the vaccine by May.
• What to Do. The Biden administration should build on its progress to expand access to vaccines at home, while working with allies and partners, including through GAVI and the Indo-Pacific Quad, to accelerate distribution to the developing world. Washington should encourage coordination with Russia and China if their vaccines are truly proven effective, but also investigate reports that the two countries engaged in cyber espionage against Western pharmaceutical companies to hasten their vaccine efforts.

US Strikes Iran-Backed Militias. President Biden authorized military air strikes against Iran-backed militias operating in Syria, the first use of force in his nascent presidency, killing several militants responsible for recent attacks against American and allied personnel in Iraq. The strikes come on the heels of Biden’s appointment of a special envoy to begin talks on reentering the Iran nuclear agreement.

• Shaping the Order. The calibrated attack against the militias makes clear that the Biden administration is prepared to use force to defend American interests, even if that could complicate efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement – a message of resolve likely intended for other US rivals as well. 
• Hitting Home. The attacks could serve to deter future Iranian attacks, but might also trigger retaliation against US troops serving in Iraq or terrorist attacks against other American targets.
• What to Do. Washington should continue to pressure Tehran to cease its support for militia and terrorist groups and be prepared to engage in additional strikes if Iran-backed militias target US troops in Iraq again.

We are in the midst of a fundamental debate about the future and direction of our world. We’re at an inflection point between those who argue that, given all the challenges we face – from the fourth industrial revolution to a global pandemic – that autocracy is the best way forward, they argue, and those who understand that democracy is essential to meeting those challenges.
– US President Joe Biden

State of the Order this month: Strengthened

Assessing the five core pillars of the democratic world order    

Democracy (↓)

• Indian authorities arrested and charged a climate activist with sedition after her involvement in Greta Thunberg’s efforts to support India’s farmer protests – a move denounced by Freedom House and others as anti-democratic.
• Myanmar’s ruling junta maintained its grip on power, despite a general strike and the largest pro-democracy protest since the military coup earlier in the month.
• Despite calls to the contrary by pro-democracy advocates, the Biden administration decided not to sanction the Saudi royal family after a US intelligence report found that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing of Saudi author and dissident Jamal Khashoggi, though the administration did impose visa restrictions – dubbed “Khashoggi Bans” — against several other Saudis involved.
• Overall, the democracy pillar was weakened.

Security (↑)

• The Biden administration’s military strike against Iran-backed militias in Syria could serve as a deterrent against future attacks on US troops, while risking possible retaliation.
• Biden announced an end to US support for Saudi Arabia’s offensive military operations in Yemen and appointed a special envoy to revive dormant peace talks.
• Overall, the security pillar was strengthened.

Trade ()

• Nigerian Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala took the reins of the World Trade Organization, after the Biden administration reversed Trump’s veto of her appointment – a move that could help advance reforms aimed at bolstering the organization’s pro-free trade agenda.
• Biden reinstated a ten percent duty on aluminum imports from the United Arab Emirates, a move criticized by US businesses that had hoped the Biden administration would remove all Trump era tariffs on steel and aluminum.
• Overall, the global trade pillar remained unchanged.

Commons (↑)

• With vaccine distribution surging, daily cases of and deaths due to COVID-19 fell across the United States and most of the world, suggesting the worst of the pandemic may have passed, though many nations still face difficult days ahead.
• A US warship transited the Taiwan Strait in early February, the first since Biden took office, signaling that freedom of navigation operations will be a priority for the new administration.​​​​​​
• Overall, the global commons pillar was strengthened.

Alliances (↑)

• Biden joined G7 leaders at a virtual summit to discuss the coronavirus pandemic, a welcome sign for allies after Trump cancelled the G7 summit last summer. The summit preceded Biden’s address to the Munich Security Conference, where he renewed America’s commitment to transatlantic cooperation. 
• Secretary of State Tony Blinken joined foreign ministers from Australia, Japan, and India in a virtual meeting of the Indo-Pacific Quad. Blinken also joined with European foreign ministers participating in a virtual meeting with the EU Foreign Affairs Council.
• President Joe Biden held the first bilateral meeting of his presidency, welcoming  Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a virtual setting – a meeting described as “warm” and positive. 
• Overall, the alliances pillar was strengthened.​​   

Strengthened (↑)________Unchanged ()________Weakened (↓)

What is the democratic world order? Also known as the liberal order, the rules-based order, or simply the free world, the democratic world order encompasses the rules, norms, alliances, and institutions created and supported by leading democracies over the past seven decades to foster security, democracy, prosperity, and a healthy planet.

This month’s top reads

Three must-read commentaries on the democratic order     

• Robert Kagan asserts in Foreign Affairs that Biden needs to be up front with the American people on America’s responsibility to lead the world order.
• Danielle Lupton, writing in Foreign Affairs, contends that the new administration needs to move fast to repair American credibility on the world stage, by renewing a commitment to its relationships, its values, and the international institutions it helped to build.
• In a new report for Brookings, William Burke-White sets forth a comprehensive roadmap for renewing US multilateral engagement, starting with countries that share US values and a commitment to democracy.

Action and analysis by the Atlantic Council

Our experts weigh in on this month’s events

• Fred Kempe, writing for CNBC, argues that in the wake of the challenge from China, Biden will need to develop a far more creative, intensive, and collaborative approach to America’s Asian and European allies than perhaps ever before.
• Kirsten Fontenrose, in the New Atlanticist, contends that the Biden administration should find ways to admonish the parties in Saudi Arabia responsible for Khashoggi’s death without making the United States the object of retribution.
• In an Atlantic Council issue brief, Matt Kroenig and Mark Massa propose options for including China in an arms control agreement based on the New START Treaty.
• Dan Fried and Eddie Fishman, in the New Atlanticist, recommend options for structuring the State Department’s new Office of Sanctions Coordination.

NOTE: The Atlantic Council Millennium Fellowship is now accepting applications. This is a one-of-a-kind leadership “accelerator” open to rising leaders around the world (ages 25-35) committed to achieving transformational change in their communities, countries, and professional fields with a global impact to tackle the defining challenges of their generation. The application deadline in March 31. 

__________________________________________________

The Democratic Order Initiative is an Atlantic Council initiative aimed at reenergizing American global leadership and strengthening cooperation among the world’s democracies in support of a rules-based democratic order. Sign on to the Council’s Declaration of Principles for Freedom, Prosperity, and Peace by clicking here.

If you would like to be added to our email list for future publications and events, or to learn more about the Democratic Order Initiative, please email AJain@atlanticcouncil.org.

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The post Hruby quoted in Bloomberg on Nigeria’s #EndSARS protests appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The post Hruby quoted in techcabal on Nigeria’s #EndSARS protests appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On October 23, Foreign Policy published a biweekly column featuring Scowcroft Center deputy director Matthew Kroenig and New American Engagement Initiative senior fellow Emma Ashford discussing the latest news in international affairs.

In this column, they discuss the final presidential debate, recent administrations’ struggles to navigate the North Korea challenge, a growing bipartisan consensus on China, and developments in Thailand and Nigeria.

Staff

Matthew Kroenig

Vice President and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

China Defense Policy

Former staff

Emma Ashford

New American Engagement Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Conflict Economic Sanctions

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Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil exporter, and a drop in oil prices to the lowest point in eighteen years has eviscerated government coffers. The Buhari administration had benchmarked the 2020 national budget at $57 per barrel, and sustained prices below $30 per barrel will immediately impact the country’s ability to make a major fiscal injection into the economy to counter COVID-19, given that oil constitutes over 90 percent of export revenue and foreign exchange earnings. 

The resultant pressure on the naira is forcing the Central Bank back into the same dilemma it faced during the 2016 recession—to either devalue the naira (which violates Buhari’s refusal to “kill the naira” and increases the costs of everyday imported goods), or attempt to dance around devaluation through technical adjustments. Already, in response to an increase in the street value of the dollar to the naira and concern over the limited months of import cover, Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele moved the naira-to-dollar peg up by 15 percent to 380 on March 20.

As in other countries across the globe, international trade and business travel is grinding to a halt. Nigeria closed all land borders to human traffic and both major airports in Lagos and Abuja to international arrivals and departures on Monday, March 23. Nigerian government agencies and businesses are beginning to adjust to new working realities: work from home policies are starting to be implemented this week, though many corporate leaders are worried about employee productivity given the irregularity of electricity and wifi. Civil servants were also asked to work from home on Monday, and all large public gatherings (religious services, weddings, funerals, sporting events, etc.) were discouraged. 

Nigeria will closely watch the recent moves in South Africa and Kenya to implement countrywide dramatic shutdowns to stop the spread of the virus before weak health systems quickly become overwhelmed. A federal system, like the United States, Nigeria’s states are already proactively responding. Niger state, for example, has imposed a curfew and has banned gatherings of more than twenty people. Similar federal responses can be expected in the coming days, with the Kaduna state governor pledging his willingness to impose curfews if necessary, to likely be followed by a nationwide directive soon.

Public confidence in the health system was tried last week as doctors in Abuja went on strike for several days during the crisis over issues around backpay, and the country has begun to try to mobilize retired doctors and nurses. Ensuring that reliable medical information reaches the population is a struggle in Nigeria as in other countries. Upon some early reporting that chloroquine could help treat COVID-19, the price on the street tripled and Nigeria reported its first death from chloroquine poisoning. 

Nigeria’s ability to manage the coronarvirus crisis as effectively as it did the Ebola epidemic in 2014 has yet to be seen, but the economic response to the global downturn is likely to be less robust. The government has pledged a 25 percent reduction in recurrent expenditure which will be hard to execute. Instead of decreasing the petrol subsidies, the government has increased the subsidy in anticipation of growing hardship among the average Nigerian from inflation on foodstuffs. The haphazard economic management that was seen in 2016 is likely also to define the 2020 approach. In 2018, Nigeria surpassed India in the number of people living in abject poverty, and with recession returning to Nigeria that number will only grow. In this environment, millions of Nigerians will be at risk of dying from the diseases of poverty (malaria, diarrhea, lassa fever, etc.) in addition to the threat from COVID-19. 

Asian countries have seemed to turn a corner in the past week in stemming the spread of the coronavirus. Nigeria prides itself on being the big player in the region, thinking big and dreaming big, but successfully managing the coronavirus will require big actions and bold reforms. 

Aubrey Hruby is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center. She is also Co-Founder of Insider and the Africa Expert Network. Follow her on Twitter @AubreyHruby.

Questions? Tweet them to our experts @ACAfricaCenter.

For more content, go to our Coronavirus: Africa page.

AfricaSource Apr 2, 2020

Coronavirus deals a blow to Ethiopia’s elections

By Bronwyn Bruton

On March 31, the government of Ethiopia indefinitely postponed historic elections that were scheduled to take place in August. This makes Ethiopia the first African nation, in what is likely to be a wave of countries, forced to set back highly contentious political contests in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, with significant implications for the outcome.

Africa Coronavirus

AfricaSource Mar 24, 2020

What does the coronavirus mean for Africa?

By Bronwyn Bruton

Will the novel coronavirus prove even more deadly and disruptive in Africa? It depends on the country. Bronwyn Bruton identifies the key questions and sets the stage for the Africa’s Center’s ongoing commentary on the crisis.

Africa Coronavirus

AfricaSource Mar 30, 2020

Coronavirus comes to Sudan

By

Not yet one year into a historic political transition and in the midst of an economic collapse, Sudan’s future was already hanging in the balance. The addition of a national and global public health crisis now has the potential for a ‘make or break’ impact on the country.

Africa Coronavirus

The post A rough road ahead for Nigeria appeared first on Atlantic Council.

To make matters worse, Angola sends over 60 percent of its oil to China, and shipments have recently had to be offloaded at discounts due to reduced demand. The country also uses oil as collateral for its $25 billion in Chinese debt. For Congo-Brazzaville, as elsewhere, disruptions related to COVID-19 will also likely stall progress on new projects, including a recent, yet dubious, find in the country’s Cuvette region. While the Congolese operator claims the find could quadruple annual production and serve as an economic lifeline, a compelling report by Global Witness casts doubt on the size and viability of the reserves, while voicing further concerns over corruption and risks to the environment. Thus, while COVID-19 may be immaterial in this case, operations and exploration in the country’s other fields may too be affected, as Italian ENI “will consider a strong reduction in [its] capex and expected costs to levels that are consistent with the new price scenario,” according to the company’s Chief Executive Officer.

The shocks will be felt everywhere, though. Despite oil only making up 10 percent of GDP in Nigeria, the government’s budget relies on oil for 57 percent of all revenue. Oil also accounts for 94 percent of exports and a similar percent of foreign exchange earnings. Thus, government coffers will be hit harder than GDP, and as a result, public services in oil producers will be constrained, just as these countries scramble to shore up their health and education sectors in response to the virus.

Note: This article was originally published on March 24. It was updated on March 25 to incorporate recent analysis from Global Witness on the status of Congo’s oil find.

Luke Tyburski is a project assistant with the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.

Questions? Tweet them to our experts @ACAfricaCenter.

For more content, go to our Coronavirus: Africa page.

AfricaSource Apr 2, 2020

Coronavirus deals a blow to Ethiopia’s elections

By Bronwyn Bruton

On March 31, the government of Ethiopia indefinitely postponed historic elections that were scheduled to take place in August. This makes Ethiopia the first African nation, in what is likely to be a wave of countries, forced to set back highly contentious political contests in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, with significant implications for the outcome.

Africa Coronavirus

AfricaSource Mar 26, 2020

A rough road ahead for Nigeria

By Aubrey Hruby

Africa’s giant, Nigeria, is awakening to a new economic and social reality as a result of the coronavirus crisis. The country of two hundred million has already recorded over fifty cases and its first COVID-related death. News of high-profile infectees is starting to drive social change and spur calls for stronger government action.

Africa Coronavirus

AfricaSource Mar 30, 2020

Coronavirus comes to Sudan

By

Not yet one year into a historic political transition and in the midst of an economic collapse, Sudan’s future was already hanging in the balance. The addition of a national and global public health crisis now has the potential for a ‘make or break’ impact on the country.

Africa Coronavirus

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Buhari was elected on a promise to make progress on three issues of critical importance to Nigerians: security, the economy, and corruption. In his inaugural address Buhari stated “Insecurity, pervasive corruption, the hitherto unending and seemingly impossible fuel and power shortages are the immediate concerns. We are going to tackle them head on. Nigerians will not regret that they have entrusted national responsibility to us.”

As President Buhari finds himself running for re-election four years later, the main opposition candidate–former vice president Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP)–has centered his campaign on attacking Buhari’s lack of progress in these domains. The outcome of this election hinges on the level of voter dissatisfaction with the status quo, and on whether Nigerian voters believe that Atiku will do better.

Security

In 2015, the militant group Boko Haram controlled territory equivalent to the size of Belgium. The group was ranked as the deadliest terrorist organization in the world, being responsible for 6,644 deaths in 2014 alone. By comparison, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIL), which at the time dominated international headlines, was responsible for 6,073 deaths that year. Currently, the group is only in control of slivers of territory and in 2017 was responsible for 900 deaths. But In 2018 the security environment took a drastic turn for the worst with the resurgence of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), a group originally formed in 2015. ISWAP, a breakaway faction of Boko Haram, has proven itself lethal, successfully overrunning military bases across northeastern Nigeria and demoralizing many in the country’s armed services. At the same time, Boko Haram has shifted its strategy to guerilla warfare, continuing to carryout suicide bombings across northern Nigeria.

A new security crisis has manifested itself that was not even on the radar when President Buhari took office: the conflict between farmers and nomadic cattle herders in the Middle Belt of the country. While tensions have existed for decades between the largely Christian farmers and the Fulani Muslim herders, they have reached a breaking point in the past year. In 2018, clashes between the two groups killed over 2,000, surpassing insurgencies in the north as the deadliest conflict in Nigeria. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced, and ethnic tensions have reached an all-time high. Buhari claims he is committed to ending the conflict, having deployed troops to the region and consulted with farmer and herder leaders. However, many view these actions as perfunctory, not doing anything to halt the bloodshed. Buhari himself has been accused of sheltering many of the perpetrators of the violence, who hail from his own religion and ethnic group.

Atiku has lambasted Buhari’s failure to fully eliminate Boko Haram, and resolve the farmer-herder conflict in the Middle Belt region. However, he himself has yet to lay out a comprehensive security strategy and has made only vague promises about improving existing policy. For instance, Atiku has stated that he plans to secure Nigeria’s borders and improve morale amongst the security forces but has not given any details on how he plans to do so.

Economy

In 2015, the economy of Nigeria was trending towards a recession and corruption was endemic in both the public and private sectors. In 2017 and 2018 the Nigerian economy inched out of a recession and is projected to grow by 2.3 percent in 2019. This is due to actions taken by Buhari’s administration, including pinning the Naira to the US dollar in 2016 and reforming some sectors to increase foreign direct investment. While the Nigerian economy in no longer in recession, the Buhari administration has failed to decrease the country’s economic reliance on hydrocarbons; the main act needed to diversify the economy.

In spite of the GDP growth that Nigeria experienced during Buhari’s first term as president, it is important to consider how the economy is affecting average Nigerians. One of the most important economic indicators in Nigeria is unemployment and underemployment, especially among people aged 15-35. Buhari has seen no success in this regard, as the unemployment rate rose each year of his presidency. In July 2018, the unemployment rate in Nigeria was 23.1 percent, compared to a mere 10 percent in July 2016. Average Nigerians will likely be much more concerned about the growing unemployment rate than the country’s GDP growth.

The growing unemployment rate is Buhari’s central weakness in the election.  Atiku has an extensive business background, having made over one billion dollars in the private sector.  Therefore, he could be perceived to be a better bet to decrease the growing unemployment rate. However, Atiku has yet to give any specific policy proposals aside from soundbites regarding how he plans to address the chronic problem of unemployment that is cancerous in not only Nigeria, but virtually all countries across Africa.

Corruption

For decades, Nigeria has been ranked as one of the most corrupt countries globally by international watchdogs such as Transparency International. Buhari has taken some actions that have made an impact on corruption in the country, the most significant being the creation of a single treasury account for the payment of government employees, making it more difficult to intentionally misallocate funds. The Nigerian public has expressed confidence in Buhari’s anti-corruption efforts. In 2017, 59 percent of Nigerians had a favorable perception of the government’s fight against corruption, up from only 21 percent when Buhari took office in 2015. Yet, he has failed to crackdown on corruption in his inner circle, as members of his cabinet are accused of stealing billions of dollars from the country’s treasury. Atiku also has a record of being corrupt himself, having been at the center of domestic and international corruption scandals during his time as vice president in the early 2000s. 

Another issue that has been ever-present during Buhari’s reelection campaign is his severe illness. During his presidency, Buhari spent at least 15 percent of his time on medical leave abroad. He was gone so often, and with so little explanation to the public, that a substantial amount of Nigerians believed he was deceased and had been replaced by a Sudanese clone. This rumor was so widespread that Buhari felt compelled to publicly deny it. However, Buhari’s illness may actually benefit his campaign. Buhari’s vice president, Yemi Osinbajo, is widely popular. Some Nigerians have said that they will vote for Buhari with the hope that he will not finish out his term, and Osinbajo will become president.

The Nigerian elections are likely to be extremely close. Yet, a large amount of the country’s population does not feel inspired by either candidate. In fact, turnout is predicted to be low, especially among youths, and many Nigerians have stated that they feel they are choosing between two bad candidates. The election will likely be decided on if Nigerians believe that Buhari or Atiku will improve the country’s standing on the three aforementioned issues.

R. Maxwell Bone was an intern with the Africa Center. Follow him on twitter @maxbone55.

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In his remarks, Lai Mohammed discussed Nigeria’s relationship with the United States and President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent visit to Washington – the first Sub-Saharan African leader to visit the White House during President Donald Trump’s administration. He explained that this meeting was a reflection of the “warm relations” between the two countries, highlighting ongoing efforts to advance the US-Nigeria relationship in areas of shared interest such as counterterrorism, trade, and economic growth and development.

The Minister went on to address allegations of human rights violations within the Nigerian military, stressing that human rights are a “cardinal objective” of the current administration. He assured participants that all reports of human rights abuses are formally investigated, refencing the rules of engagement for counter-insurgency operations issued by the Nigerian Army. He further discussed efforts to improve the Armed Forces’ sensitivity to human rights abuses, including the establishment of human rights desks for all units and quarterly human rights dialogues, among other initiatives.

Lai Mohammed concluded his remarks with a discussion on the present status of counter-insurgency operations against Boko Haram, as well as escalating clashes between farmers and herders in the Middle Belt. He indicated that security forces are making considerable progress against terror groups, with urban areas that were once the epicenter of Boko Haram’s insurgency now much safer. However, the speaker acknowledged that clashes between farmers and herders are on the rise, driven by factors such as climate change and overpopulation. He outlined the Nigerian Government’s attempts to improve the situation through various initiatives, including ranching and intercommunal dialogue, but admitted that such a complicated issue will take time to solve. 

A discussion, moderated by Atlantic Council Vice President and Africa Center Director Dr. J. Peter Pham, followed the Minister’s remarks. Topics included efforts to reintegrate rescued Chibok girls, creative solutions to address clashes between farmers and herdsmen, and allegations of desertion in the Nigerian Armed Forces following recent Boko Haram attacks.  

Among those in attendance and participating in the discussion were Ambassador of Nigeria to the United States H.E. Sylvanus Nsofor; former Ambassador of the United States to Nigeria Robin Sanders; and several current and former US government officials as well as business executives and representatives of human rights and other nongovernmental organizations.

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“I think it sends a very good signal that the first African head of state to have an Oval Office meeting will be the democratically elected president of Africa’s most populous country and its largest economy,” said J. Peter Pham, director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.

The two leaders are expected to focus on security and economic issues.

On security, Nigeria has been battling the Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast of the country for almost a decade. The group was behind the kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls in Chibok in 2014 as well as the abduction of more than 100 from Dapchi in February 2018.

On economics, the Buhari government has taken great strides in turning around the economy of Africa’s largest country. China, which has a large footprint on the continent, is the top investor in Nigeria—a fact that should get Trump’s attention.

US-Nigerian security cooperation was strained under former US President Barack Obama.

On a visit to Washington in 2015, Buhari said that he had urged the Obama administration to provide Nigeria “counterterrorism with minimal strings.”

The Obama administration did not as it claimed it was prohibited by the Leahy laws, which bar providing US military assistance to specific individuals and units of foreign militaries that have been credibly accused of committing human rights abuses. The State Department at the time concluded that both Boko Haram and the Nigerian military had committed atrocities. Some Nigerian troops, specifically, were accused in a State Department report of committing extrajudicial killings, torture, rape, arbitrary detention, and widespread violence.

Acknowledging these human rights concerns, Pham, who is also vice president for research and regional initiatives at the Atlantic Council, said: “I would make the argument not to allow the best to be the enemy of the good.”

“Absent clear evidence of a systematically abusive regime, moral preening is of little utility in dealing with situations like this,” he added.

Trump, in contrast, has pushed ahead with military cooperation with Nigeria.

In 2017, the Trump administration approved the sale to Nigeria of twelve military planes and security equipment worth $600 million.

Pham favors such engagement.

“Do we get engaged and help shift our Nigerian partners in a more positive direction or risk them going elsewhere as they have in the past?” he said.

Buhari, a 75-year-old former general who was elected president in 2015, has announced that he will seek a second term in elections next year.

Trump has also sought to improve relations with African countries which he allegedly referred to in derogatory terms in January. In March, Trump’s top diplomat, Rex Tillerson, only spent a few hours in Nigeria as he was forced to cut short a trip to Africa. Trump fired Tillerson on his return.

Pham said the Trump-Buhari summit provides an important opportunity to reset the United States’ relationship with Nigeria.

J. Peter Pham spoke in an interview with the New Atlanticist’s Ashish Kumar Sen. Here are excerpts from our interview.

Q: What will be on the agenda of the Trump-Buhari meeting?

Pham: There are two major things that are on the agenda. One is economic opportunities and the other is security issues. On both of them Nigeria is, as I have long argued, the most significant partner for the United States for the long term on the African continent by virtue of the its geographical location, the size of its population and its economy,  and its geopolitical heft.

Q: What kind of military assistance does Buhari seek from the United States in his fight against Boko Haram?

Pham: There has been, at least since President Trump took office, reasonably good security cooperation [between the United States and Nigeria]. In the past, the Obama administration was reluctant and in fact delayed the sale of certain platforms that Nigerian military commanders sought in their fight against Boko Haram. It first blocked the resale of retired US-made Cobra attack helicopters by Israel and subsequently slow-walked the sale of A-24 Super Tucano planes made in Florida to the Nigerian air force.

Since President Trump took office the sale of the Super Tucanos were approved in a $600 million deal and there is ongoing training and other cooperation with the Nigerian military.

Q: The Obama administration had blocked the sale of these weapons over concerns about human rights abuses committed by the Nigerian military. Have those concerns been satisfactorily addressed?

Pham: There was a democratic change of administration in Nigeria in 2015. With the Goodluck Jonathan administration, previously, there were some concern about its commitment to the fight against Boko Haram.

After President Buhari was elected, the new Nigerian administration took a much more decisive approach to fighting Boko Haram. There is no doubting its commitment to fighting Boko Haram and other terrorist groups. One of President Buhari’s first acts was to replace Nigeria’s military leadership with a fresh team with a better grasp of the conflict dynamics; then he ordered the new commanders to move their headquarters closer to the battlefront, where they linked up with allies from neighboring countries. I visited the front lines of the fight at the edge of the Sambisa Forest in northeastern Borno State with an Atlantic Council delegation at the end of 2016 and it was quite clear that a great deal of progress had been made.

There were human rights concerns, but I would make the argument not to allow the best to be the enemy of the good. Nigeria is a significant country in Africa. Even during a recession, it has significant resources which it can deploy to acquire the military equipment its leaders believe they need elsewhere. The question for the United States is a strategic one. Do we get engaged and help shift our Nigerian partners in a more positive direction or risk them going elsewhere as they have in the past?

Absent clear evidence of a systematically abusive regime, moral preening is of little utility in dealing with situations like this. After all, the relevant US laws were intended to bar specific individuals and units who are credibly accused of human rights violations from receiving assistance, not sanction entire countries tout court to the detriment of our national interests.

Q: China is deeply invested in Nigeria. How much of a factor is that likely to be in getting President Trump’s attention focused on Nigeria?

Pham: China is certainly there, but there are also opportunities for US business. Nigeria has turned the corner a bit. After having gone into recession as energy prices declined, a number of measures undertaken by the Buhari administration led to real GDP growth at the end of last year. In 2017, the country ended up in a modest net positive position. Considering the macroeconomics it inherited, that’s a lot better than where Nigeria was with the contraction that occurred in 2016.

Currently, China is the top exporter to Nigeria. The United States is number three.

Q: In January, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer announced that the United States would select an African country for a “model” free trade deal. Is Nigeria a viable candidate?

Pham: We are talking about Africa’s most populous country, its largest market. Demographically, the country is roughly split in population between Muslims and Christians. It is both the most populous Muslim country and the most populous Christian country in Africa. It is also the largest single economy in Africa in absolute terms.

American businesses seek markets where they are scalable. Right now, the only free trade agreement we have with any African country is with Morocco. Nigeria certainly should be a candidate for a “model” free trade deal. Nigeria is part of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). If you have access through Nigeria you have access to a market of several hundred million people—one that, once Morocco completes its accession to ECOWAS, extends from the Strait of Gibraltar to Central Africa.

Q: The Buhari visit comes after President Trump’s alleged derogatory description of African countries and an abbreviated trip by former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to the continent. Is the White House meeting on April 30 an opportunity to prioritize the relationship with Africa?

Pham: It is an opportunity to reset the relationship. I think it sends a very good signal that the first African head of state to have an Oval Office meeting will be the democratically elected president of Africa’s most populous country and its largest economy.

President Buhari was one of two African leaders that Trump called after he came into office. The other was Jacob Zuma of South Africa. I think it is an important signal that Buhari is the African leader who is received at the White House. [Editor’s note: Zuma stepped down as president of South Africa in February amid a corruption scandal.]

Q: President Buhari plans to seek a second term. What is your assessment of his administration so far?

Pham: In addition to the improved security situation and macroeconomic climate, the Buhari administration has made two especially positive investments in Nigeria’s future. First, it has placed an emphasis on developing agriculture and food security. It has focused on rice production by helping farmers with fertilizer and other inputs as well as knowledge of improved agricultural practices. In 2015, Nigeria produced four million metric tons of rice. It is now producing seven million metric tons. More people are getting involved in the sector. There were five million people involved in rice farming in 2015; today there are eleven million people. In the same three years, food imports have gone from 644,000 metric tons to now only 24,000 metric tons. Nigeria has totally turned their food security situation around.

The second thing is the government’s investment in education, including providing food for children in schools—7.5 million pupils are fed every day in Nigeria across twenty-four of Nigeria’s thirty-six states.

These may seem like small measures, but they are indicative of the steady positive trajectory that makes Nigeria the partner that the United States should be investing in.

Ashish Kumar Sen is deputy director of communications, editorial, at the Atlantic Council. Follow him on Twitter @AshishSen.

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Overshadowed by news about tit-for-tat trade wars and rising protectionism, on March 21, forty-four African states signed an agreement to launch the African Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) at an African Union (AU) summit in Kigali, Rwanda. Eleven African countries, including the continent’s two largest economies, Nigeria and South Africa, did not sign the agreement largely due to concerns of their respective domestic industries and labor organizations. The CFTA is a far-reaching free trade agreement that aims to not only eliminate most tariff barriers on goods and services, but also harmonize investment policies, intellectual property rights, rules of origin, and product standards. Ultimately, the CFTA’s goal is to create a continent-wide customs union that promotes Africa’s economic transformation. This edition of the EconoGraphic provides an overview of the CFTA’s scope, assesses the conditions for boosting intra-African trade, and outlines the importance of developing regional value chains to foster sustainable economic growth across Africa.

One of the CFTA’s key objectives is to significantly increase intra-African trade. The continent’s commodity-focused economies are currently sending 82 percent of their exports to non-African countries. To bolster intra-African trade, the CFTA member states will have to go beyond their commitment to eliminate tariffs on 90 percent of goods. Without addressing excessive non-tariff barriers, such as unduly bureaucratic customs processes and onerous sanitary and phytosanitary regulations, and improving the underdeveloped road and rail infrastructure, the CFTA will not reach its target of increasing intra-African trade by 52 percent by 2022 from its level in 2010. For instance, according to the World Bank, Congolese customs typically take almost a month to clear a container with automobile parts. In particular, exporters of perishable agri-food products suffer as a result of costly delays in the customs process. To make intra-African trade an engine for growth, it is vital to reduce non-tariff barriers and goods’ transport times across the continent. Nonetheless, the CFTA will be able to build upon positive momentum in intra-African trade. For one, manufactured goods now make up more than 50 percent of all intra-African exports. This underscores the growing industrialization in African economies. The CFTA is also expected to foster intra-African trade by better coordinating the “spaghetti bowl” of different trade facilitation regimes between the continent’s different Regional Economic Communities (REC). In addition, many of the CFTA’s forty-four signatories have already ratified the World Trade Organization’s Trade Facilitation Agreement, which aims to “expedite the movement, release and clearance of goods”.

Developing regional value chains (RVCs) is essential for fostering intra-African trade and transforming Africa’s economy. By leveraging existing competitive advantages of neighboring African countries, RVCs have the potential to reduce the continent’s dependence on commodity exports and diversify economic output. RVCs facilitate economies of scale and attract investment. This in turn promotes competition, more innovation, and finally higher productivity. To achieve the CFTA’s ultimate goal of changing Africa’s economic structure, African workers must climb-up the value chain “from lower to higher productivity sectors” to add more value to each product and service they produce or render. Manufacturing goods and agri-foods account for the majority of intra-African trade, which offers RVCs room to grow across the continent. Strong RVCs would help African regions and companies to not only take part in (i.e. export commodities), but more importantly contribute significant value to global value chains (GVCs). Meaningful participation in GVCs will bring cutting-edge knowledge and technology, and, in turn, higher productivity to African regions and companies. A more productive private sector will stimulate economic growth and increase household income. As explained above, the CFTA’s aim to reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers is vital to allow RVCs and GVCs to develop.  

To make the CFTA a reality, the forty-four signatory countries must first follow through on their commitment to ratify the agreement. The Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA), set-up to combine three of the continent’s RECs, offers a cautionary tale. Launched with much fanfare in 2015, only two countries have ratified the TFTA thus far. Fifteen countries must ratify the CFTA for it to enter into force. Finally, to facilitate Africa’s economic transformation, the CFTA’s signatories must assuage fears in Nigeria and South Africa to convince the continent’s two largest economies to join the agreement.

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According to J. Peter Pham, vice president for regional initiatives and director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center, the “iteration of Boko Haram the military force was defeated. However, Boko Haram evolved and it has become a more classical terrorist group.” Pham described how Boko Haram has “increased suicide bombings and—if this kidnapping is confirmed—returned to mass kidnappings as well.”

On February 19, militants attacked the village in Yobe State in Northeastern Nigeria, the region where Boko Haram is most active. The following morning, more than ninety girls from the village were missing from their boarding school.

Though there is “no confirmation of kidnapping, the number of victims, or the perpetrators,” said Pham, “the test of reason” would indicate that a large, organized group, such as Boko Haram, must be responsible. “The information at hand points in that direction,” he said.

While Nigerian authorities say the incident does not constitute a kidnapping, parents of the missing girls fear a reprisal of the 2014 Chibok kidnapping. In that incident, 276 school girls were taken, skyrocketing Boko Haram to international notoriety. Over one hundred Chibok girls remain missing.

Pham suggested that the group may have hoped to create similar shockwaves with the recent attack. “It grabs attention,” and “it weakens the Nigerian government,” he said of the apparent kidnapping.

The collapse of the Nigerian government and the creation of an Islamic territory in Africa have been the primary goals of Boko Haram since the group’s emergence in Nigeria in 2003. Since that time, and despite many military defeats, the “remarkably resilient group” has reincarnated itself many times over, said Pham.

In 2015, Boko Haram declared itself an affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). An internal rift has since resulted in the existence of two competing factions of Boko Haram in Nigeria today, both pursuing the same aims.

Therefore, despite suffering territorial losses at the end of 2016, Boko Haram remains active.

According to Pham, it will require increased efforts from both regional and international partners—namely the United States—to root out Boko Haram and address the root socioeconomic causes of their existence.

However, the Nigerian government’s inability to find the Chibok girls and effectively eradicate Boko Haram has strained its relations with counterterrorism partners—the United States. In the early days following US President Donald J. Trump’s election, his transition team raised questions as to the utility of US efforts to fight Boko Haram.

However, Pham insisted: “There is no country in Africa that—in the long term—is as important to US interests on the continent as Nigeria.”

J. Peter Pham joined the New Atlanticist’s Rachel Ansley for an interview on the case of the missing girls and what it reveals about the state of Boko Haram. Below are excerpts from our interview.

Q: Is the incident that took place on Monday night a kidnapping by Boko Haram?

Pham: We don’t have confirmation yet of the kidnapping, the number of victims, or the perpetrators. That being said, if one applies the test of reason, it’s highly unlikely that that many young women would be missing randomly. There’s something nefarious at work. If one thinks of likely suspects for a kidnapping of that scale, one has to look at terrorist groups. The information we have at hand points in that direction, but certainly we need further intelligence.

Q: What can this incident tell us about the state of Boko Haram?

Pham: Boko Haram is a remarkably resilient organization. It adapts to the situation. It shifts and changes ideology, tactics, and strategy so when it is defeated one way it comes back in another incarnation. If you’re looking for Boko Haram in its last incarnation, that’s over, but there is a new incarnation. This is an area where the Nigerian government has had some success. Boko Haram no longer holds any territorial dominion, but it has shifted back to being a terrorist group.

We cannot talk about Boko Haram as one entity anymore. There was last year a split in Boko Haram. Abubakar Shekau was the leader of Boko Haram who pledged allegiance to [Abubakr] al-Baghdadi of ISIS. He was subsequently dismissed by ISIS as the leader of the ‘Islamic State in West Africa’ (ISWAP) as Boko Haram subsequently branded itself. He refused to accept his dismissal, and since then Boko Haram has split into two groups: one group that is recognized by ISIS, led by Abu Musab al-Barnawi, and another group that is still loyal to Shekau, the leader who originally pledged allegiance to ISIS, but got fired from his job.

Q: Over two years ago, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari claimed that the Nigerian military had “technically won” the war on Boko Haram. Was that an overoptimistic assessment?

Pham: The most charitable explanation of Buhari’s claim is that the Boko Haram of that period—we’re talking about the end of 2016—was defeated militarily. At that time, Boko Haram had been pushed back and occupied only a few camps within the Sambisa Forest and a few slivers of territory along the border with Niger. By and large, those areas have been flushed out. The group’s infamous ‘Camp Zero’ base in the Sambisa Forest was overrun by the Nigerian military just before Christmas 2016.

In that sense, that iteration of Boko Haram the military force was defeated. However, Boko Haram evolved and it has become a more classical terrorist group. They have increased suicide bombings, both in number of attacks and their lethality, and—if this kidnapping is confirmed—returned to mass kidnappings as well.

Q: This is not the first incident of its kind. Why would Boko Haram kidnap schoolgirls?

Pham: It grabs attention. You have rival groups competing for attention and with attention comes recruits and resources. They’re both trying to outdo each other. The tactics to date have largely been classic tactics of asymmetric warfare such as suicide bombings. Not a week goes by where Nigeria, and parts of Cameroon and other neighboring countries, do not suffer one or more of these attacks. Peoples’ lives are lost, but that hasn’t gotten attention outside the region. Now, they are potentially going to get global attention again. In a way, they know what it takes to get attention in the world.

Q: Do you foresee more of this?

Pham: I see increased violence, but with kidnappings, there’s a limit to that. Kidnappings take organization and you have to have a place to hide those abducted. The last time Boko Haram committed a mass kidnapping on this scale—the famous Chibok school girls kidnapping—they had territory. It’s more difficult now since the Nigerian government has flushed them out; they don’t have these bases anymore. I’m not saying we won’t see more, but it is a bigger challenge for them than it was four years ago.

Q: What are Boko Haram’s goals?

Pham: Both factions pursue the same goals which is the overthrow of the secular government of Nigeria and the establishment of some sort of Islamic rule as they interpret it. Their tactics are very different. Shekau has been more indiscriminate in his tactics. The group under Abu Musab al-Barnawi has argued that they should be more discriminate. You essentially have two groups pursuing separately, but with different tactics, the same goal.

Q: How does an attack like this help Boko Haram to achieve those goals?

Pham: It weakens the government, not militarily, but politically. It raises questions about claims of government victory. One can offer explanations of what the government meant, but it undermines the legitimacy of the Nigerian government politically.

We’re beginning to enter the political season in Nigeria as well. Next year is an election year.

Q: Nearly four years after over 270 school girls were kidnapped from Chibok, more than 100 are still missing. What are the measures in place and what more must be done to bring them back?

Pham: Recovering kidnapping victims of any sort in any country, the first hours and days are the most critical. It’s nothing short of miraculous that today victims are still found alive and brought back. Quite frankly, in the war that has occurred there and the displacement, one should never stop looking, but in an area where literally millions of people are displaced and casualties are uncounted, it’s unsure if we’ll ever have a full accounting of all the missing girls.

Q: What is the Nigerian government doing to fight Boko Haram?

Pham: The Nigerian government has had a great deal of success militarily. Now the Nigerian government needs to shift gears a bit—not relenting on the military pressure because we don’t want Boko Haram coming back, but building up the police capacity, the intelligence capacity, and most importantly getting the people back to their homes and the land working again.

Q: What has been the response of Nigeria’s regional and international partners?

 Pham: The international community has been focused on helping the Nigerians, one would argue successfully. Boko Haram’s last iteration, the military threat, that has largely been done. Now we need to shift to a much more difficult set of tasks which is defeat of the new iteration as a terrorist organization with a different MO. That requires beefing up policing and intelligence. We successfully built up a regional military partnership that did what it could do. Now there is this next part which will require policing intelligence. Ultimately, the way to beat Boko Haram is development. Northern Nigeria, relatively to Southern Nigeria, lags on virtually every socioeconomic indicator. Northeastern Nigeria, where Boko Haram has been active, lags behind the rest of Northern Nigeria. Poverty and underdevelopment do not necessarily make people terrorists, but it does give terrorists fertile ground on which to sow their poison and an enabling environment in which to operate.

Q: What is the US strategy to counter Boko Haram and what more could Washington do to help its Nigerian partners?

Pham: To date the United States has been relatively helpful with sharing intelligence. Last year, the Trump administration authorized the sale of aircraft that the Nigerians had long sought. Nevertheless there is certainly more that could be done to build up the relationship. There is no country in Africa that—in the long term—is as important to US interests on the continent as Nigeria. It’s a critical relationship.

Q: What are some of the challenges to US-Nigerian collaboration?

Pham: Part of it has been rebuilding trust. The United States has not always been a constant partner; it’s been on-again, off-again. From the Nigerian side, that’s not very reliable.

Q: Is it on or off right now?

Pham: It’s on. We have a strategic dialogue with Nigeria; US Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan led the US delegation to the Bi-National Commission meeting in Abuja in November. We have a very seasoned US ambassador on the ground in Nigeria. However, we also need more resources, political and material.

Rachel Ansley is assistant director for editorial content at the Atlantic Council.

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In his remarks, Youssef discussed the complexities of the protracted conflict in the Lake Chad Basin and the neutral, intermediary role that the ICRC has played in previously-inaccessible civilian areas in the region. He spoke in depth about the armed conflict and violence in northeastern Nigeria, which has spilled over to northern Cameroon, western Chad, and south-east Niger, displacing approximately two million people and severely damaging the regional economy in the process. Youssef further emphasized that a primarily military response is not sufficient to curtail Boko Haram insurgents in the region, citing fundamental humanitarian assistance, emergency mental health and psychosocial support, building resilience in vulnerable communities, and prompting transitional justice initiatives as four pillars of what must be a comprehensive, multifaceted solution.

Africa Center Director of Programs and Studies and Deputy Director Bronwyn Bruton introduced Youssef and moderated the ensuing discussion, which included attendees from the US government, the non-profit sector, and academia.

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Read more about the event here.

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Atlantic Council Vice President and Africa Center Director Dr. J. Peter Pham welcomed participants and introduced the speakers.

Hamakim remarked on Boko Haram’s continued threat to Nigeria’s security and emphasized the importance of US security assistance in securing the Nigerian military’s tenuous gains. Ahmadu then gave an overview of multiple recent Nigerian army operations, including Operation Gama Aiki, a joint offensive operation with Cameroon, Chad, and Niger, and rescue operations, including the capture of Boko Haram’s “Camp Zero,” which led to the liberation of more than 30,300 abductees. Despite these successes, the panel remarked on Boko Haram’s ability to cross borders to avoid capture, and the group’s worrying employment of children as suicide bombers. They noted serious equipment gaps and deficiencies that they hoped the United States could fill.

The discussion that followed focused on how to provide basic services to communities liberated from Boko Haram control, the linkage between Boko Haram and the Islamic State, the impact of Boko Haram’s ideology on its recruitment practices, and the need for further equipment and services from the United States. Some participants also voiced concerns about reported instances of human rights violations.

Among those in attendance were General Carter Ham, USA (ret.), former commander of US Africa Command; the Honorable Dan Mozena, senior coordinator on Boko Haram for the US Department of State; and Amanda Dory, deputy assistant secretary of African affairs for the US Department of Defense. Other participants in the discussion included current and former US government officials including former US Ambassadors to Nigeria, John Campbell and Robin R. Sanders, as well as representatives of US academic and civil society organizations.

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As Aubrey Hruby and I documented in a report last year, those countries that rely heavily on the export of one or two resources to drive their economic growth have suffered as a result of the emerging market downturn and its knock-on effects, both in terms of demand for their commodities and in availability of financing for their major infrastructure and other development projects.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and one which only emerged as the continent’s biggest economy three years ago, is bedeviled not only by low petroleum prices, but decreased production due to attacks by the militants in the oil-producing Niger Delta region—at one point last year, the amount of crude being pumped nearly reached the lowest point in three decades. The rest of the economy in the West African giant essentially stagnated, hammered both by the government’s maladroit management of the currency float and by the failure of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to make much headway in improving the country’s overall business climate, as witnessed by Nigeria’s abysmal 169^th place ranking among 190 countries analyzed in the World Bank’s Doing Business 2017 report. 

Angola nudged ahead of Nigeria early last year to become Africa’s biggest oil producer, thanks in part to the latter country’s problems with its militants, but the distinction means less in a world of depressed hydrocarbon prices. With inflation projected to have been around 45 percent in 2016, while the country’s currency, the kwanza, lost nearly 20 percent of its value during the same period, the country’s grim prospects heading into the new year add to the uncertainty with the announced plans of longtime President José Eduardo dos Santos to retire later this year (elections are scheduled for August).

Similarly, Algeria’s heavy dependence on energy exports caused the growth to slow down to an estimated 3.6 percent in 2016 with the World Bank estimating it will plunge further in the coming year. Low oil prices will continue to weigh on government finances as inflation and unemployment both increase; the dinar has nominally depreciated 20 percent over the last two years. The 2017 budget signed by the country’s octogenarian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in late December raises taxes to compensate for declining revenues from hydrocarbons, signaling that the heavy public spending that enabled the regime to weather the so-called Arab Spring is no longer an option.

While South Africa was spared an end-of-the-year downgrade by Standard & Poor’s of its sovereign credit—it remains at BBB-, one notch above “junk” status—Moody’s opened 2017 by placing the country on a downgrade review, a step which serves notice to investors, some of whom have fiduciary obligations barring them from doing business in places branded with “junk” status. Moreover, the numerous corruption scandals surrounding President Jacob Zuma have divided the ruling African National Congress, already reeling from unprecedented rebuff in the August 2016 local government and municipal elections, adding to the political volatility that undermines investor confidence just as the country regained its title as Africa’s largest economy.

Despite its wealth of natural resources, both in terms of extractives and in potential for renewable energy, to say nothing of the extraordinary human capital in its people, the Democratic Republic of the Congo will struggle economically in the coming year. Notwithstanding a rickety last-minute political deal pushed by the country’s influential Roman Catholic bishops that is supposed to lead to presidential elections before the end of 2017, President Joseph Kabila’s decision to violate the constitution and hold on to power despite the December 19, 2016, expiration of his final term casts a long shadow over the fourth most-populous country on the African continent and the largest country by area in Sub-Saharan Africa. As Sasha Lezhnev of the Enough Project pointed out recently, the political crisis is not without its connection to economic woes, past and present: “Corruption has increased and prices for the key commodities that Congo produces have plummeted in recent years, e.g. with the price of copper going down by nearly half over the past five years. Average Congolese people are bearing the brunt of this. The price of some foodstuffs is up as high as 80 percent; the Congolese Franc has lost 27 percent of its value in 2016; inflation has increased to nearly 6 percent; Central Bank foreign exchange reserves have decreased by nearly half (45 percent) over the past two years. The Congolese government is also slashing state services, with budget cuts of 22 percent and a further 14 percent, including a 90 percent cut in spending on healthcare equipment.”

If some of the bigger and resource-dependent economies in Africa are in the doldrums, some of the continent’s medium-sized and more diversified economies will make interesting watching in the new year.

Côte d’Ivoire may well be Africa’s new economic powerhouse, with a diversified economy and growth in 2016 expected to hit 8.5 percent, the second-highest in the world. While there are occasional hiccups like the mutiny this past weekend by some soldiers left over from the country’s civil war a decade ago, by and large President Alassane Ouattara, an economist and former International Monetary Fund (IMF) director, is widely credited with sound macroeconomic management. Overwhelmingly reelected to a second and final four-year term in 2015, he has laid out an ambitious National Development Plan with major structural reforms to consolidate the private sector as well as to achieve inclusive growth. The IMF’s most recent regional economic outlook projects Côte d’Ivoire’s real gross domestic product (GDP) to continue growing at roughly 8 percent annually over the next few years, while the median for Sub-Saharan Africa will be just shy of 4.5 percent. According to data from the Ivorian government’s Center for the Promotion of Investments in Côte d’Ivoire (CEPICI), through in the first nine months of 2016, some 5,720 new enterprises were started in the country, many drawn by the business-friendly regulatory environment.

Fresh off hosting the 22^nd Conference of Parties (COP22) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change two months ago in Marrakech, Morocco continues to forge a role as an African—and, indeed, a global—leader on renewable energy. The kingdom, which is on track to meet more than 40 percent of its needs through renewable energy, primarily solar and wind, by 2020—an extraordinary turnaround given that just a few years ago the country was, according to the World Bank, the Middle East’s largest energy importer, depending on fossil fuels for over 97 percent of its energy. Moreover, in pursuit of the goal of making Morocco the commercial gateway to Africa as well as Africa’s bridge to Europe, King Mohammed VI has been busy implementing his strategy of making Africa the “top priority” of his foreign policy, with a string of official visits across Africa, including recent forays to Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Nigeria, that have resulted in agreements for multibillion-dollar cross-investments in the agriculture, energy, and financial sectors, as well as the historic announcement last month of a Moroccan-Nigerian joint venture to build a gas pipeline to connect the two countries that will eventually link up to Europe. 

Senegal has long been a bastion of political stability in West Africa, a reputation consolidated in 2016 when voters in a constitutional referendum not only reaffirmed the two-term limit on the presidency, but cut the term of office itself down to five years from the current seven years, as well as enacted a raft of other measures to further good governance. President Macky Sall’s Plan for an Emerging Senegal, crafted with help from McKinsey consultants, includes twenty-seven flagship projects and seventeen major reforms, encompassing diverse sectors ranging from agriculture to energy to education to health to financial services to tourism. The objective of all this is to increase the West African country’s productivity in order to grow its GDP, create jobs, and facilitate industrialization. According to the year-end update to Ernst & Young’s Africa Attractiveness Index, Senegal—along with Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania—is expected to continue growing in the high single digits in 2017.

One possible bump in Senegal’s road to the future is that the country was counting on a second Millennium Challenge Compact from the United States to help address regional obstacles to economic growth. The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) board selected the country a year ago, but the Senegalese government’s December 2016 decision to only vote for, but to actively co-sponsor, United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 on Israeli settlements not only in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), but also in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, may cause Congress to closely scrutinize of a major appropriation for Senegal like an MCC compact, given the broad bipartisan support in the House of Representatives last week—by a margin of 342 to 80 votes—for a measure condemning the UN resolution and the Obama administration’s abstention on it. 

A largely diversified economic base, Kenya has largely been resilient through the emerging markets downturn of the last year. While final numbers for 2016 are still being crunched, it looks like East Africa’s largest economy grew by at least the 5.9 percent forecasted by the World Bank and that may even approach the 6.8 percent growth the revised IMF prediction estimated in October. One of Kenya’s advantages has been its membership in the East African Community, which has evolved from a customs union to a common market and has long-term aspirations of a monetary union and a political federation. On the other hand, the country faces not-insignificant political, security, and economic uncertainty in 2017 with presidential, parliamentary, and local government elections scheduled for August; the ongoing threat posed by al-Shabaab terrorists operating out of neighboring Somalia (recall that 2016 began with more than 100 Kenyan soldiers killed when the al-Qaeda-linked militants overran a peacekeeping base in El Adde, Somalia); and yet-to-be-determined impact on private-sector credit following the signing last year by President Uhuru Kenyatta of legislation capping interest rates at 4 percent above the benchmark central bank rate.

If it can weather the political crises that have led to mass demonstrations and the declaration of a state of emergency in late 2016, Ethiopia will, according to IMF estimates, be positioned to overtake Kenya as East Africa’s largest economy sometime in the coming year, having posted 10.8 percent average annual growth over the last decade, before drought hit the core agricultural sector this year (and anti-government protests erupted). Nevertheless, investors continue to flock to there—some $500 million in new foreign direct investment entered in the last three months of 2016 and an additional $3.5 billion was being processed, according to one analysis—and its large internal market (Ethiopia is the 13^th most populous country in the world) and low labor costs make it an attractive location to manufacture fast-moving consumer goods. In addition, Ethiopia’s investment in hydropower—last month authorities inaugurated Africa’s tallest dam, the Gibe III dam on the Omo River, doubling the country’s electrical output—will not only give it a reliable source of energy, but provide electricity to the region, including Kenya, which has signed up to buy some of the power produced.   

African countries face many challenges in 2017, but, alongside these, there are the fundamentally positive dynamics of many of their economies, including a growing labor force, increased urbanization, and advances in technology, as I argued recently in a new Atlantic Council Strategy Paper, A Measured US Strategy for the New Africa. The 2016 Republican Party Platform affirmed: “We recognize Africa’s extraordinary potential. Both the United States and our many African allies will become stronger through investment, trade, and promotion of the democratic and free market principles that have brought prosperity around the world. We pledge to be the best partner of all African nations in their pursuit of economic freedom and human rights.” As a new US administration takes office in less than two weeks, it’s time to look for ways to fulfill that pledge so that American citizens and business can join their African counterparts in grasping the continent’s burgeoning opportunities.

J. Peter Pham is Vice President of the Atlantic Council and Director of its Africa Center. Follow the Africa Center on Twitter @ACAfricaCenter.

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Buratai detailed his priorities in ongoing operations against Boko Haram, specifically noting the military’s shift under President Muhammadu Buhari to adopt a more aggressive and offensive posture against the terrorist insurgents. He also detailed the mechanisms that the military has put into place to improve accountability and strengthen its respect of human rights.

The Nigerian delegation at the event included Brigadier General Anthony Olu Folorunsho, commandant of the Nigerian Army School of Infantry; Brigadier General Ezra Jahadi Jakko, chief of accounts and budget of the Nigerian Army; Brigadier General Usman Shehu Mohammed, chief of staff to the chief of the army staff of the Nigerian Army; and Air Commodore Mohammed Aminu Yakubu, defense attaché at the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Also in attendance and participating in the discussion were representatives from the US government, private sector, and non-governmental organizations.

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“When you see it from the outside, maybe it looks like it’s falling in. But when you see it from the inside, there are things in place where the country is preventing itself…from going off the edge,” said Barnes.

Barnes joined John Tomaszewski, Africa regional director for IRI and Robert Carpenter, an international polling consultant, at the Atlantic Council on July 14 for an event co-hosted by the Council’s Africa Center and IRI. Bronwyn Bruton, deputy director of the Africa Center, moderated the discussion.

“Nigeria is very much in the news for all the wrong reasons,” noted Bruton.

The country faces a litany of security challenges: terror group Boko Haram continues to menace the country’s northeast and certain parts of neighboring Chad, Niger, and Cameroon; former militants in the oil-producing Niger Delta are growing restless amid uncertainty over whether long-running amnesty payments will continue; and violent land disputes between cattle herders and farmers in the country’s Middle Belt region have killed and displaced thousands of people. 

Despite being Africa’s most populous country and hosting the continent’s largest economy, Nigeria’s economic woes include rising inflation, foreign exchange shortages, and plummeting government oil revenues. Corruption, which Barnes described as the “elephant in the room,” remains a serious problem.

But against the backdrop of these challenges remains an enduring optimism, IRI’s recent Nigeria poll found. Fifty-four percent of Nigerian respondents believed the country was headed in the right direction; in the north, that number was sixty-eight percent.

Recent polling suggests a stark reversal from five years ago. In November of 2011, a similar poll found that fifty-six percent of Nigerians believed their country was headed in the wrong direction.

Much has happened since 2011 to move the needle on public opinion. In 2015, Muhammadu Buhari defeated incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan in a free and fair election. The subsequent handover was the first peaceful political transition since the end of military rule in 1999.

“Democracy has shown that it has legs,” said Barnes.

“There is really this belief that democracy brings economic prosperity,” he added.

A second conclusion from the survey was the perception of improved security throughout the country. An overwhelming majority of respondents—eighty-one percent—said that they felt safe in their communities.

“There is a sense of progress, and that things are moving forward,” Tomaszewski said—though he noted disparities in how safe Nigerians feel, depending on where they live.

Barnes stressed the poll’s importance to IRI’s programming throughout Nigeria, and specifically, the organization’s work in strengthening Nigeria’s political parties.

“[We tell parties that] you can’t be so one-dimensional that you miss out on the important issues,” said Barnes, noting IRI’s assistance to Nigerian political parties in running comprehensive and issue-based campaigns.

Surveying a country of 173 million—not to mention populations known to speak an estimated five hundred indigenous languages—is no easy feat. Pollsters called more than thirteen-thousand people. They received eight-thousand answers to questions ranging from the state of democracy to respondents’ personal feelings on their safety and economic security. Surveyors made a strong effort to include diverse geographies and income levels, as well as an even male-female split.

The panelists suggested that future studies might focus specifically on polling Nigeria’s vulnerable groups—including the more than two million internally displaced persons and people with disabilities.

Kelsey Lilley is an associate director with the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center. 

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The poll was released last month in Abuja, Nigeria, and included results from nearly 8,000 interviews in five languages. More than half of respondents felt that the country is “moving in the right direction,” and nearly half of respondents felt democracy had improved since Nigeria’s landmark 2015 presidential elections.

Sentell Barnes, IRI’s Nigeria country director, noted some of the poll’s discrepancies by region, gender, and income level. He suggested that despite a number of financial and security obstacles, Nigerians are, on average, optimistic about the future of their country. IRI’s Africa Regional Director John Tomaszewski detailed how the survey will influence IRI’s work throughout Nigeria.

Bruton moderated the ensuing discussion, which focused on IRI’s plans for future, including expanded polling and its work with Nigeria’s political parties.

For more on the event, see “Nigeria’s Optimists.”

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Particularly hard hit are those African economies, such as Nigeria, that are dependent on exporting commodities and importing—in the words of President Muhammadu Buhari—“everything including toothpicks.” Despite the pressure that Nigeria’s foreign earnings shortage has put on its currency, the naira, Buhari has obstinately refused to devalue it, ignoring calls from the International Monetary Fund (and many international observers) to do so. The bleak financial outlook has driven some Nigerian consumers to try to kick-start the economy through less orthodox measures, including a movement to encourage the consumption of locally produced goods. This movement, led by Nigerian Senator Ben Murray-Bruce, has spawned a popular Twitter hashtag #BuyNaijaToGrowTheNaira, as well as a catchy theme song.

While promoting African consumer brands isn’t a comprehensive solution to the region’s economic woes, local companies represent an important opportunity for African leaders looking to diversify their economies and protect them from future external price shocks.

As Africa’s population grows rapidly and urbanizes over the coming decades, so will African consumer markets. While African middle class affluence hasn’t materialized as quickly as anticipated, estimates suggest that 128 million Africa households will enjoy discretionary income within the next five years. If new African consumers can look to local producers to meet this growing demand, local companies will benefit handsomely, economies will transition away from a reliance on commodity exports, and dependency on importing foreign goods will be reduced.

African companies enjoy several advantages in meeting this rising consumer demand. To start, they often understand local markets and consumer preferences better than foreign competitors. For example, the Tanzania-based Bakhresa Group recognized that many poorer African consumers treat carbonated drinks as a luxury and prefer to drink them over multiple sittings. The company then packaged their Azam Cola in recyclable plastic bottles that could be resealed, as opposed to the drink-on-the-spot returnable glass bottles used by market-leader Coca-Cola. Coke soon followed suit, also repackaging their product in resealable plastic bottles. 

Whereas non-African firms’ often struggle to make their advertising relevant across the continent, African companies have proven adept at tailoring their marketing strategies to a local consumer base. Bidco, a Kenyan consumer goods company, produces marketing content in seven languages in Kenya alone. This strategy has been working. Bidco is currently present in sixteen African countries and even acquired the Anglo-Dutch corporation Unilever’s cooking oil and soap brands in 2002.

Beyond more effective marketing, many African consumers tend to prefer to purchase local brands, a huge advantage for an African firm competing for a share of the market. In a study conducted by Deloitte, 90 percent of Kenyans, 78 percent of South Africans, and 78 percent of Nigerians expressed a preference for local food brands over their international competitors.

While decision-making in non-African companies often happens in corporate offices in Europe, African firms better understand how to work with local business communities and source their inputs domestically. Sourcing domestically allows firms to side-step problems related to national shortages in foreign currency holdings and, if properly employed, to price goods more competitively than international firms that are reliant on transporting their inputs from further away. Zambeef, a fast-growing Zambian food company based in Lusaka, is an example of this model. The firm has developed a vertically integrated, locally sourced production chain that supports local agricultural producers and insulates the company from foreign exchange fluctuations. Zambeef has already expanded into Ghana and Nigeria and has plans to enter the Congolese and Zimbabwean markets.

African governments have begun to recognize the potential in domestic consumer markets. In 2014, the Ugandan government launched its Buy Uganda, Build Uganda Policy, aimed at increasing public and private consumption of local goods instead of imported products. In an effort to help develop local suppliers, the policy mandates that 20 percent of government procurement must be locally sourced.

Non-African firms have taken notice, too, and are piggybacking on the success of profitable local competitors. Earlier this year, Coca-Cola paid $240 million for a 40 percent stake in the Lagos-based CHI, a popular fruit juice and dairy product company responsible for the Chivita brand, among others.

However, the advantages enjoyed by African companies don’t necessarily outweigh the broader challenges faced by those looking to do business on the continent. Corruption, bloated bureaucracies, non-tariff trade barriers—such as transit fees, customs inconsistencies, and policy restrictions—and lack of infrastructure and power still make trade, investment, and commerce difficult for African and non-African firms alike. Furthermore, while African governments remain keen to support their own commercial actors, this enthusiasm doesn’t carry over to companies from other African countries. In a timely example, the Nigerian government recently fined MTN Group Ltd., a South African-based mobile telecommunications firm that is the continent’s largest by value, a record $5.2 billion last year for non-compliance with new regulations implemented amid a security crackdown. While MTN is still in negotiations with the Nigerian government, and the fine amount has been subsequently lowered to $3.9 billion, the company has already been forced to disconnect more than 10 percent of its subscriber base in Nigeria.

These challenges notwithstanding, African firms could play a critical role in helping Africa grow, diversify its economies, and protect itself from the next global downturn. To read more on how African economies can maintain growth in a constrained global economic environment, see a new Atlantic Council study by J. Peter Pham and Aubrey Hruby, Embracing Impact: How Africa Can Overcome the Emerging Market Downturn.

Julian Wyss is a Program Assistant with the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center and Erina Iwami is an Africa Center intern.

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In his remarks, Lanzer discussed his recent trip to rural areas surrounding the town of Maiduguri in Northern Nigeria and confirmed reports of severe humanitarian need among local populations displaced by Boko Haram-related violence. He emphasized that, while the official public political discourse emphasizes the progress being made against the group, the Nigerian armed forces require substantial international support. Finally, Lanzer discussed the nexus between humanitarian assistance, development aid, and peacebuilding efforts in the Sahel context, highlighting, in particular, the challenges in coordination between the many different international and supranational organizations operating on the ground in West Africa.

To read more about the event, see “Millions in Nigeria are Starving, Warns UN Official.”

Other participants in the event included Her Excellency Hassana Alidou, Ambassador to the United States from the Republic of Niger; Peter Barlerin, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of African Affairs, US Department of State; the Honorable Constance Berry Newman, former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs and Africa Center Senior Fellow; the Honorable Bisa Williams, former Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of African Affairs, and former US Ambassador to the Republic of Niger.  

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In January 2016, oil prices fell to their lowest levels in more than a decade. Meanwhile, China, the world’s second-largest economy, is experiencing its most sluggish growth in a quarter-century—dragging down commodity prices and dampening the global economic outlook. The effects of this broad slowdown will hurt African economies more than most, because China and other emerging markets are not only primary consumers of African commodities, but also are the primary source of financing for the major infrastructure and other development projects that are essential to Africa’s future growth.