The long-time president of Djibouti, Ismaïl Omar Guelleh, has launched his re-election campaign in the run-up to national elections on 9 April. With the exception of Zakaria Ismael Jafar, an “anti-system” independent candidate, Guelleh is set to run for his fifth term unopposed. His challengers in the 2016 election have…
Note: This article was updated on March 26, 2021 to include comments from Apollinaire Compaoré. Two troubling recent investigations from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) have shone a fresh spotlight on the tobacco industry’s continued complicity in tobacco smuggling in Africa. The first highlighted how Philip Morris…
South Africa must prioritize both the fight against the coronavirus pandemic and the country’s economic recovery, especially with an eye toward climate change and the energy sector, the president said during the annual State of the Nation address. President Cyril Ramaphosa compared his nation to the fynbos, a South African…
Senior government officials in South Sudan have embezzled US$36 million from the country’s coffers with the aid of international institutions and multinational banks, says Yasmin Sooka, the head of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights for the nation. “It is worth noting this is just what we were able to…
Zimbabwe’s crackdown on anticorruption protesters has captured the attention of human rights campaigners at home and abroad, many of them using the #zimbabweanlivesmatter hashtag on Twitter to share their concerns. Among them is President Lazarus Chakwera of neighboring Malawi, who was sworn in at the end of June following new…
Young adults focused primarily on South Africa are worried about the continent’s future, but remain optimistic about their own opportunities and their own communities. That’ s according to the recently released Pan-African Youth Survey, which asked 4,200 young adults ages 18-24 how they viewed both the African future and its…
Germany has been involved in development projects in Liberia since at least 2005, providing millions in funds and expertise to the country in areas ranging from infrastructure to health. This, however, will now come to an end. Berlin recently announced earlier this week it would withdraw support for the country…
I am a London-based researcher specialized in security issues and environmental protection. He is currently writing a book about the role lobbying plays in keeping African leaders in power.
With its publication of the “Luanda Leaks,” the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) effectively dispelled decades’ worth of myth-building surrounding Isabel dos Santos, daughter of Angola’s longtime president José Eduardo dos Santos. The investigative series explains how the younger Dos Santos – the former head of Angola’s state oil…
Sub-Saharan Africa again was the world’s lowest-ranking region in the 2019 Corruption Perceptions Index, released Wednesday by the Transparency International (TI) organization based in Berlin, Germany. The report painted “a bleak picture of inaction against corruption,” the NGO said, with some countries – Liberia, Madagascar and Malawi among them –…
The president of Equatorial Guinea will need to declare his assets in keeping with requirements set by the International Monetary Fund, in order for the West African nation to receive a US$283 million bailout agreed to earlier this month. That’s according to a Bloomberg interview with Lisandro Abrego, the IMF’s…
Participants in the three-day African Oil & Power conference, which runs through Friday in Cape Town, are showcasing African industry’s efforts to align with this year’s theme of “Make Energy Work.” Gwede Mantashe, the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy in South Africa, served as keynote speaker on Thursday with…
Egyptians were experiencing some Internet disruptions on Sunday as protests against President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi continued into the weekend, with service interruptions that appeared to target news sites and social media messaging. NetBlocks.org, an organization that tracks shutdowns and disruptions across the globe, reported that BBC News and other news…
In Zimbabwe, crisis is in the air again. Two years after the country’s long-time ruler Robert Mugabe was ousted in a military coup, a crippling energy crisis forces people to live by candlelight as the economy is lurching back towards hyper-inflationary territory. After years of turmoil under Robert Mugabe, the…
Arnaud is a French freelance writer with an African heart who has lived in 10 different Sub-Saharan countries in the past decade. He is currently based in Paris.
The African National Congress (ANC) was pulling in 57.7 percent of the support in South Africa’s legislative election, as the country’s electoral commission neared the end of vote-counting on Friday night. The ANC’s lead comes with 96 percent of the vote counted by 8 p.m., as the commission wraps up…
With just five days to go before South Africa’s legislative elections, the main opposition party Democratic Alliance (DA) made the rounds in Johannesburg with a novel way to send its message ahead of a final campaign rally on Saturday. The DA paid for a digital billboard and beamed its campaign…