Africa’s Capital Must Stay Home To Plug Its Financing Gap: How It Could Be Done

The African Union resolved in 2024 that its member states should redirect reserves held overseas back into the continent. Li Yahui/Xinhua via Getty Images

BY MISHECK MUTIZE

POST DOCTORAL RESEARCHER,

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS,

UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN

Africa is providing cheap liquidity to wealthy nations. In return it is paying huge interest rates to external institutional investors at the cost of its own development.

For instance, African central banks export their reserve funds for safekeeping. Sovereign wealth funds and pension fund managers invest only in investment-grade European and United States institutions. The most popular one is risk-free US treasuries, where they earn 3.5% annually on average. These are perceived as the safest instruments, easily convertible to cash without losing value.

The same European and US institutions then reinvest the same capital back to Africa at a high return for themselves. They purchase high-yielding bonds issued by African governments. Cumulatively, Africa has raised more than US$200 billion through sovereign Eurobonds since 2003. African countries are paying between 9% and 15% through Eurobond issuances.

Based on my expertise researching African financial markets, I argue that African countries can close their financing gap if they change regulations and investment policies.

Channelling a portion of Africa’s domestic funds to the continent’s development finance institutions would create a huge pool of domestic resources. This will make a significant impact on development. It would not jeopardise the central banks and asset managers’ need for safety of their funds. This would be a practical step towards a self-sustaining African financial ecosystem.

Africa’s capital strength

African central banks hold an estimated US$530 billion in reserves offshore. This is an international financial practice promoted by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and credit rating agencies. Central banks are required to maintain enough US dollar reserves to pay for four to six months of imports.

The sovereign wealth funds of 20 African countries now have approximately US$109.8 billion in total assets under management. Adding other assets of African origin, the amount climbs up to an estimated US$1.2 trillion.

The latest report by Africa Finance Corporation estimates Africa’s domestic capital base at US$4 trillion. These are funds owned by African institutions and individual citizens in the form of reserves, collected deposits, premiums and savings.

Other countries such as China, South Korea and Japan used domestic resources and state-directed finance to aggressively drive their own industrial transformation.

This hasn’t been the case for African countries. The continent’s financing gap is estimated at US$280 billion annually for infrastructure and trade. That’s the amount African countries need every year to build roads, electricity capacity, ports, railways, manufacturing industries and trade connections necessary for African economies to grow and compete globally.

In addition, despite a huge domestic capital stock, African countries pay high interest rates when they borrow abroad.

A system designed for capital flight

The reason for Africa’s capital flight is systemic. Africa’s financial institutions, including central banks, are required by national regulations and investment policies to invest in investment-grade rated instruments. The only investment-grade ratings recognised by the IMF and World Bank are those issued by Moody’s, S&P and Fitch. This means the majority of African assets are excluded from the safe asset category.

The result is that African capital exits the continent. This has left African financial markets with fewer participants and investment instruments. Shallow financial markets make it difficult to finance industrialisation, infrastructure and job creation.

The absence of deep and liquid domestic financial markets becomes the justification for continuing to invest abroad. This is why African countries have remained heavily dependent on foreign capital and external debt despite growing domestic savings.

African central banks reserves

Three African leaders – the presidents of Ghana, Kenya and Zambia – have called for the continent’s foreign reserves invested overseas to be reinvested in African institutions.

At the 2025 Africa Financial Summit, central bankers agreed that it was time for African governments to place a portion of their foreign exchange reserves with domestic institutions.

Channelling a portion of these funds to African development institutions would be a practical step towards a self-sustaining African financial ecosystem. It would not compromise the effectiveness of central banks and other financial institutions. Instead, it would:

deepen domestic financial markets

bolster sovereignty

reduce dependence on foreign financial centres

strengthen local capital markets.

The Central Bank Deposit Programme by Afreximbank is a good example. Launched in September 2014, it invests in trade and development finance. The programme has mobilised over US$44 billion – about 9% of central bank reserves. Participating central banks have earned 6% to 6.5% – much higher than what investments in Europe and the US offer.

The programme’s performance demonstrates that African reserves can be safely and productively invested within the continent.

AU investment policy shift

It is for this reason that in February 2024 the African Union called on member states to redirect all their reserves back into the continent.

This was a landmark but long-overdue correction in the stewardship of Africa’s financial resources. It was more than an investment policy shift. It was a bold declaration of confidence in Africa’s own institutions and financial markets.

Since then, the AU’s own portfolio of resources has been fully reinvested in African-owned financial institutions. This declaration did not require ratification by AU member states.

What more needs to change

Building an African financing architecture demands a fundamental shift in how African assets are valued, regulated and invested. It means redefining risk for African markets. It also means developing regional investment-grade benchmarks and modernising prudential rules so that African capital can work and grow on the continent.

African capital markets remain shallow not because capital is scarce, but because risk perceptions are distorted. The rising discontent from African policymakers on the cost of capital makes the case even more compelling.

This is why a transformative project such as the Africa Credit Rating Agency has gained support in its pre-establishment phase.

African regulators and reserve managers must act decisively in the following ways:

change reserve management frameworks to allow more investment in African assets and regional financial institutions

formally recognise domestic credit ratings that offer contextually sensitive and empirically grounded assessments

reform IMF-driven constraints that exclude reserves placed in African institutions from being accounted as official reserves

allow rapid liquidity across borders when needed. This can be done while maintaining global standards to prevent illicit flows and regulatory breaches.

Africa cannot build credible domestic markets if its own capital is absent from the story. Investment is ultimately an act of confidence in the institutions behind the assets. The continent needs to invest in itself.

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A Draft African Charter On ‘Family Values’ Is On The Cards: Why It’s Flawed And Dangerous

African Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A draft charter wants African governments to ‘protect’ the family by engaging in several regressive actions. Wikimedia Commons

BY CATRIONA MACLEOD, GODFREY KANGAUDE AND NICOLA JEAREY-GRAHAM

A series of conferences held in Entebbe, Uganda, between 2023 and 2025 have resulted in a draft African Charter on Family, Sovereignty and Values. The meetings were organised by the Inter-parliamentary Network on African Sovereignty and Values, which organises continental conferences for African legislators and faith-based advocates. Supported by international conservative groups like Family Watch International and heavily promoted by Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, the aim of the drafters of the charter is to convince African governments to sign on to it.

The draft charter is situated within the current global movement to the right, which prioritises nationalism, tougher immigration policies and an erosion of social values like gender equity. Framed as an effort to “protect” the family, it urges governments to adopt a series of regressive measures.

These include:

opposing comprehensive sexuality education

rejecting the sexual and reproductive health and rights agenda, especially abortion (under any circumstance)

establishing African “sovereignty” over health, food, education and economic development

preserving African cultural values, traditions and the role of elders.

Several legal responses have been set out by African rights institutions, such as Afya Na Haki. These show the clash of many of the draft charter’s proposals with continental legal provisions.

We are researchers with extensive experience in sexual and reproductive health and rights. Here, we address the inaccuracies contained in the charter. We are particularly concerned about the implications if it is adopted.

Decades of scientific evidence produced on the African continent and elsewhere suggest that the measures, if adopted, will cause significant harm.

Reproductive health and rights

The draft charter declares, among other things, that African countries shouldn’t ratify any agreements that reference sexual and reproductive health and rights. It also calls for eliminating comprehensive sexuality education and any form of abortion service provision.

At a very basic level, disregarding sexual and reproductive health undermines obstetric and gynaecological care, childbirth and fertility treatments. It also affects the prevention and treatment of HIV and sexually transmitted infections. It harms access to contraceptive services and family planning, as well as reproductive cancer care. No African country would sensibly contemplate this.

Additionally, the draft falsely claims that the sexual and reproductive health rights “agenda” promotes abortion on demand. Yet, the UN’s definition of “reproductive health” encompasses comprehensive abortion care within countries’ legal frameworks.

The draft charter encourages states to define all related terms to clearly exclude any rights to abortion. No exceptions are specified. This would include cases where the pregnant person’s life is at risk, as well as pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.

This stance contradicts understandings of abortion within African countries. A 2025 survey conducted across 38 African countries found that nearly two-thirds (63%) of citizens say abortion is justified if the woman’s health or life is at risk. Nearly half (48%) justified abortion in the case of rape or incest.

The draft also flies in the face of recent changes in African law. Globally, Africa, compared with other regions, has had the largest number of countries liberalising abortion laws since 1994.

Implementing the draft charter would additionally lead to a significant increase in maternal mortality from unsafe abortions. It’s important to note that the proportion of unwanted and unsupportable pregnancies that end in abortion is consistently similar across countries with liberal or restrictive abortion laws. This means that restrictive laws don’t reduce abortion rates. They merely drive abortion underground, rendering it unsafe.

Already, sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 29% of the global unsafe abortions and 62% of abortion-related deaths. Further restrictions on comprehensive abortion care (including post-abortion care) would drive up maternal morbidity and mortality.

Comprehensive sexuality education

The draft charter argues for abstinence-focused sexuality education. It falsely claims that comprehensive education would sexualise African children, undermine their innocence and violate parental rights.

Comprehensive sexuality education is a curriculum-based, scientifically accurate process of teaching and learning about the cognitive, emotional, physical and social aspects of sexuality. It encourages abstinence but also provides teaching, in an age-appropriate manner, on contraception and ways to avoid sexual risks. These risks include infections and unplanned pregnancies.

Research conducted over three decades indicates that comprehensive sexuality education provides more positive outcomes than abstinence-based sexuality education. These outcomes include reducing early and unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases (including HIV). It also helps delay early initiation of sexual activity and reduces intimate partner violence.

In claiming that comprehensive sexuality education undermines children’s innocence, the draft charter conflates “innocence” with ignorance. Children have a natural curiosity regarding sexual issues once they reach puberty. They will seek out information where they can (including social media). One of the ways of protecting them from sex-related harms is to empower them with age-appropriate knowledge about sexual issues. And the skills to avoid sexual risks.

Comprehensive sexuality education also recognises that parents often struggle with talking to their children about sexual matters. It therefore offers an important source of trustworthy information for children and adolescents. Further, while the family is of pre-eminent importance in society, it can also be the site of child abuse, child neglect and intimate partner violence.

Definition of family

Finally, the draft charter defines the family as based on marriage between a man and a woman. This definition of family as nuclear and heterosexual is not an originally African one.

In precolonial Africa, the practice of polygyny/polyandry was prevalent. This presented a clear contrast to the nuclear, monogamous model. In reality, family structures are highly diverse in Africa. They include many multigenerational, single-parent, re-constituted and same-sex parent families.

The draft charter dresses up its provisions in the language of ubuntu. This is a relational, inclusive and dynamic ethical philosophy. In doing so, it distorts the essence of ubuntu by converting this philosophy into a rigid, exclusionary and state-focused ideology.

What next

The draft charter threatens to undermine the rule of law and the shared legal principles that underpin the international treaty system. It claims to defend African sovereignty.

But true sovereignty means honouring the treaties governments have freely adopted. These include the Maputo Protocol, which guarantees women extensive rights, including reproductive health choices and protection from violence. The African Children’s Charter similarly enshrines children’s rights to protection, development and well-being.

The draft charter is not defence of African values. It’s a legal coup against them. It should be dismissed outright by all African governments.

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A Powerful, Opaque al-Qaeda Affiliate Is Rampaging Across West Africa

Members of the Ghana Immigration Service patrol their country’s porous border with Burkina Faso, inspecting cars crossing in Gwollu, Ghana. (Guy Peterson/For The Washington Post)

BY RACHEL CHASON AND ADRIAN BLANCO RAMOS

TUMU, GHANA (WASHINGTON POST) — In the space of just a few months, the al-Qaeda affiliate has overrun major cities in Burkina Faso and Mali, carried out the deadliest-ever attack on soldiers in Benin and expanded its hard-line Islamist rule across the region. No one knows when its fighters will strike next — or where they plan to stop.

After years spent quietly gaining strength, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) is now the most well-armed militant force in West Africa and among the most powerful in the world, according to regional and Western officials, with as many as 6,000 fighters under its command. Local strategies employed to combat JNIM are accelerating its rise, officials and experts say, as atrocities by West African forces have allowed the group to claim the moral high ground and legitimize its growing authority.

The United States has largely pulled back from — or been pushed out — of the fight, leaving in its wake a deepening security vacuum and mounting anxiety over JNIM’s aims and capabilities.

“They’re creating a proto-state that stretches like a belt from western Mali all the way to the borderlands of Benin. … It is a substantial — even exponential — expansion,” said Héni Nsaibia, West Africa senior analyst for the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project, or ACLED, a nonprofit research group.

JNIM, along with the rival Islamic State-Sahel Province, has turned the region into an epicenter of Islamist insurgency. The Institute for Economics & Peace’s annual index last year found 51 percent of terrorism deaths worldwide were in the Sahel, a vast, tumultuous region south of the Sahara that spans the breadth of Africa. The chaos ravaging the region has helped military officers seize power in coups — vowing to break with the West and restore calm.

But in most countries the security situation has only gotten worse. In 2024, Burkina Faso ranked as the nation most affected by terrorist violence for a second straight year, and Niger saw the largest increase in terrorism-related deaths globally. In a sign of JNIM’s southward spread, Togo reported the most terrorist attacks it its history; Benin has reported nearly as many deaths in the first three months of this year than in all of 2024.

Increasingly, experts say, JNIM’s informant and supply chain networks are stretching into stable nations such as Ghana, Senegal and Guinea. Governments fear their fighters could soon follow.

The Washington Post interviewed experts and officials in five countries to shed light on why the group is growing so fast — and what its end game might be. Reporters also traveled to the porous borderlands between Burkina Faso and Ghana, where tens of thousands have fled violence by JNIM and government forces, to speak to refugees about life under militant rule.

They recounted how gun-toting JNIM members burst into mosques in Burkina Faso in recent years, announcing that strict Islamic laws would be implemented, schools would be closed and state institutions would be targeted. Violating the rules, the extremists made clear, would carry a price. Nearly 6,000 civilians have been killed by the group in the past five years, according to ACLED data.

Refugees said that initially, they rejected the group outright. But their anger was redirected by the government’s response: a militia-led wave of killing targeting the Fulanis, a semi-nomadic, predominantly Muslim ethnic minority spread out across West Africa. Skeptical locals became eager recruits.

“They were afraid, and they ran to them,” said Amadou Diallo, a 69-year-old Burkinabe refugee, describing his three daughters and their husbands who joined JNIM after militia members killed scores of their fellow Fulani.

As the threat grows across West Africa, the region has largely fallen off the radar in Washington, according to interviews with four current and former U.S. officials. Like other officials in this story, they spoke to The Post on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details.

American drones once flown from Niger — where U.S. troops were forced out last year by the country’s military junta — have been moved out of West Africa, according to two former U.S. officials with knowledge of the situation. They added that plans to relocate the drones to Ivory Coast and Benin have been scrapped.

There are now fewer than 200 troops in the region, mostly stationed in countries along the coast — down from about 1,400 as recently as 2023 — according to current and former officials.

The State Department press office said the U.S. “continues to work with various partners in West Africa to counter the scourge of terrorism from groups like [JNIM]" and noted that Will Stevens, a top American official in the region, recently visited Burkina Faso, Niger and Benin “to discuss the growing presence of violent extremist organizations.”

U.S. Africa Command (Africom) declined to comment. A spokesperson pointed to recent remarks by Gen. Michael E. Langley, the head of Africom, who emphasized that the U.S. was focused on helping African nations build the “self-reliance” to fight terrorism.

But the vast majority of programs run through the Global Fragility Act — a multiyear initiative intended to bolster stability in vulnerable West African countries — have been shut down by the Trump administration.

“JNIM is ascendant,” one of the former U.S. officials said. “In a region where we used to monitor what was happening, we no longer have the tools.”

Evolving tactics

JNIM, founded in Mali in 2017 as an umbrella organization combining four Islamist extremist groups, is headed by Iyad ag Ghali and Amadou Koufa, leaders of a 2012 uprising that saw separatists and Islamists take over much of the country’s north.

Ag Ghali belongs to the mostly Muslim Tuareg ethnic group, which has fought for decades to establish an independent state in northern Mali. Koufa is a Fulani preacher based in central Mali. The differences between the two men have given the group broad appeal — and contributed to uncertainty about its goals.

The group operates on a “franchise” model, experts say, tailoring its strategies to local customs and its recruiting to local grievances. But wherever its fighters go, they enforce a strict Salafist version of Islamic law.

Ali Diallo, a 53-year-old herder from Burkina Faso’s Boucle du Mouhoun region, was washing himself before prayers at his local mosque in 2023 when a group of bearded men wearing turbans forced him and other men inside and locked the door.

“I thought we were going to die,” Ali Diallo said, recalling that the men wore machine guns across their chests. “But two men stood where the imam usually stood and started preaching. They said their fight was with the government and their goal was to spread Islam, not to kill us.”

Shortly afterward, the extremists closed his children’s school. “We were angry,” said Asseta Diallo, his 19-year-old daughter. “We just started sitting at home.” Strict dress codes were enforced in the community, with veils required for women and short pants for men. Naming and wedding ceremonies were banned. Loud music too.

In its strongholds in central and southern Mali, experts say, the group has made agreements with communities that compel residents to adhere to JNIM’s rules and pay zakat, or taxes, in exchange for not being attacked. In recent months, these local pacts have allowed JNIM to shift its focus, and move its manpower, to neighboring Burkina Faso and coastal nations such as Benin.

“These guys are smart, sophisticated and evolving,” said Corinne Dufka, a veteran Sahel analyst based in Washington. “And now, there is a model for mainstreaming their political evolution.”

Some of JNIM’s senior figures, Dufka said, are looking to Ahmed al-Sharaa — the Syrian leader who has recast himself as a moderate after once being associated with al-Qaeda — as a potential model for their own trajectory.

When Sharaa’s rebel group overthrew the Assad regime last year, JNIM issued a statement of congratulations. And when Koufa was interviewed by a French journalist in October, he did not mention al-Qaeda, prompting speculation about a possible break with the group.

Western and West African officials and experts estimate JNIM has between 5,000 and 6,000 combatants but say a lack of intelligence makes it difficult to arrive at a definitive figure. Fighters have long targeted symbols of foreign influence in the region, including attacks against French and U.N. forces, and more recently have threatened Russian mercenaries fighting alongside Malian troops.

Aneliese Bernard, a former State Department adviser who now runs a private security firm working in West Africa, said the group has metastasized to such an extent that it now “directly impacts [U.S.] national security.”

And, she added, “they are expanding undeterred into the countries we have long considered robust security partners.”

Propaganda war

Military officers have staged coups in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in response to the growing violence, promising an all-out war against the extremists. In Burkina Faso, President Ibrahim Traoré’s strategy has hinged on arming more than 50,000 militia members, who have committed scores of atrocities, rights groups say.

Each attack has become a recruiting opportunity for JNIM.

In March, in the town of Solenzo, Burkina Faso, government militias killed dozens of mostly Fulani civilians and filmed the aftermath, according to rights groups. Videos shared by the perpetrators on social media showed the dead, including women and children, piled into trucks.

In the days after the attack, JNIM released videos condemning the government. “These miscreants want us to fight back and kill innocent women and kids … which will lead to a civil war,” said one JNIM leader in another video. “Yet our fight is not to defend a country or an ethnicity, but religion instead.”

The videos were part a wider propaganda blitz by the group during Ramadan in March. Fighters in brightly colored headscarves were filmed in action at training camps, or reading from the Quran, guns propped in front of them.

Since 2019, the group has killed more than 5,800 civilians in the region, according to ACLED; about 9,600 civilians have been killed by regional militaries and government-allied militias. In areas where JNIM has achieved strong control, violent attacks against civilians tend to decline, analysts say

When Amadou Diallo, the 69-year-old Burkinabe refugee, learned that his daughters and their husbands had joined JNIM, he said he was so distraught that he stopped sleeping. But then, he said, he thought of his three cousins who had been killed by government militias. Village elders had told Fulani residents to leave, that they could no longer protect them.

“The alternative was death,” he said. “At least now I hope they are safe.”

A lucrative insurgency

Long-haul truck driver Yakubu Janwi travels across the region, a dangerous job that gives him a window into JNIM’s expanding influence. The group controls many of the major roads in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, he said; truck owners have cut deals with the militants to ensure drivers are not stopped.

During one dispute over payment, he said, JNIM members seized his truck full of tea and left him wandering in the bush. He was rescued by another driver about 24 hours later, he said, but it took his boss a full year to get the vehicle back.

The trucking agreements are just one strand in a complex web of illicit commerce that JNIM uses to finance its insurgency. Members are involved in gold mining in Burkina Faso and Mali, according to experts and a former member of the group. Others engineer massive cattle-rustling schemes, including in Ghana, run kidnapping networks or are involved in smuggling drugs and motorcycles.

Analysts say an increasingly large share of JNIM’s funding comes from the taxes levied on communities in Mali and Burkina Faso. Solidifying its base of operations has allowed the group to devote more resources to attacks in Benin, said Andrew Lebovich, a research fellow with the Clingendael Institute.

An ambush last month in the far north of the country killed 54 soldiers, the military said. Soldiers were caught off guard, according to a Benin military official: “It is hard to track their movement,” the official said.

JNIM is now actively recruiting in Benin, according to the official and experts. In the country’s far north, recruiters now openly present themselves to local leaders, as they did when they first moved into parts of Burkina Faso and Mali.

The group’s weapons come largely from the government forces it has defeated, according to a recent report by Conflict Armament Research. There have been so many of those defeats that JNIM has been able to amass a formidable arsenal of machine guns, drones and antiaircraft weaponry — and has demonstrated it can deploy them to deadly effect.

The looming threat

Last month, JNIM took control of Djibo, a regional capital in northern Burkina Faso — killing scores of soldiers and civilians and holding the city from 5 a.m. to 2 p.m. Fighters posed for pictures on the streets and in government offices, including under a photo of Traoré, and vowed they were coming for the young president.

At a recent U.S.-led military training in Tamale, in northern Ghana — a stand-alone Africom exercise spared from the Trump administration’s regional cuts — soldiers from Ghana, Benin and Ivory Coast said the images from Djibo circulated in their WhatsApp groups. JNIM is now top of mind across the region.

“They’re more violent, more organized and have more means,” said a military official from Ivory Coast. “They wanted to spread Islam at first, but now it seems like they want to get all the way to the sea.”

That theory was echoed by a U.S. official, who said the group sees its expansion as a kind of “manifest destiny,” and appears to be pushing for a route to the Atlantic, which would dramatically increase the reach of its smuggling networks.

Ghana, a nation of 33 million still seen as a bright spot of stability and democracy in West Africa, has not been attacked yet by JNIM. But officials from neighboring countries have told their Ghanaian counterparts to be on guard. Already, regional officials and experts said, JNIM is using Ghana to restock its supplies and rest its fighters after assaults in Burkina Faso.

Along the countries’ shared border, which is marked by narrow, sandy footpaths and potholed roads, a group of Ghanaian immigration officers are doing their best to patrol but said they need more resources.

Sixteen officers are tasked with guarding the 10-mile border. They can often hear the echo of gunshots on the other side. “Burkinabes cross every day, and they tell us what is happening there,” said Gabriel Afful, one of the officers.

Was he nervous about the future? Afful simply nodded.

Blanco Ramos reported from Madrid. Ayamga Bawa Fatawu and Ahmed Jeeri contributed to this report.

Has Africa Become A Battleground For The New Cold War? It’s China Vs America In Mother Continent

Rich in resources and strategic opportunities, Africa has become the new hunting ground where China and the US are vying for influence. This rivalry, rooted mainly in economic ambitions rather than ideology, bears striking similarities to the old US-Soviet Cold War

BY PRABHASH K. DUTTA

From mining to road construction to fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs) to economic and political governance model training, China is ubiquitous in Africa. The West, espeically the US, today sees China as its principal challenger almost everywhere but despite the flare-ups in the Pacific particularly the South China Sea, the simmering tension is equally palpable in Africa.

The US-led West might have missed the trick but China’s Africa story begins in the 1950s, when Western powers rivalled, at times one another, to maintain their superiority in Africa. China — along with India — vouched for freedom and self-reliance of African countries through several channels and platforms including the most-famous Bandung conference hosted by Indonesia.

Soviet Russia, rivalled for hegemony. This time, the key players are not the United States and the Soviet Union, rather the US and China. Africa has emerged as a critical theatre in this geopolitical contest.

Incidentally, the new cold war, if we can call it so, involves post-Soviet rising communist power which like the former seeks to challenge the leading capitalist power on the globe. Back then, Asia was seen as the hunting ground for its known exploitable natural resources and manpower, Africa is now viewed as the new minefiled to dig prosperity and security from.

However, the crucial question remains: Is Africa really becoming the new battleground in this global power game?

How China has expanded its footprint in the Mother Continent

Africa is called the Mother Continent as the theory of evolution tells us that humanity sprang from the earlier branches of humans that shot from eastern African roots. In the post-War age of ideological expansion, China set its eyes on Africa as the USSR and the US-led West were involved at various points in Asia, East Europe and Central and Latin Americas.

China’s relationship with Africa has been building for decades. At the Bandung conference, representatives from 29 Asian and African countries gathered to voice their opposition to colonialism and to seek economic cooperation among the Global South —- back then called the “Third World”.

In early decades, China’s interest in Africa was primarily driven by a sense of solidarity with other nations that were also shaking off the chains of colonial rule.

Fast forward to post-Cold War, especially after the 2008 global meltdown, and China’s presence in Africa has grown immensely. The country has poured billions into the continent, building roads, railways, ports, and power plants.

China gradually in the middle years, and in recent years electrifyingly, overtaken the United States as Africa’s biggest trading partner, and its investments continue to shape the continent’s economic landscape. But these investments often come with strings attached, such as requiring African countries to use Chinese companies and materials for their infrastructure projects, further cementing Beijing’s influence.

This isn’t just about business — it’s also about strategy. Africa’s wealth of natural resources, from oil and minerals to fertile agricultural land, is vital to China’s booming economy. In return for access to these resources, China has offered financial aid, loans, and development assistance to African nations.

This hands-off approach made China a popular partner for many African leaders, even as it draws criticism from those who worry about the lack of transparency, environmental damage, and the support of authoritarian regimes.

China’s game in Africa has moved in phases — solidarity in early decades to investments and low-interest loans in middle years to complete domination in trade and now to political governance training, something that African leaders earlier accused the US and its allies of doing. China earlier policy of non-political interference helped it edge out the Western countries in developing cooperation with African countries.

According to the African Centre for Strategic Studies (ACSS), “The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has escalated its training of African party and government officials as part of CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping’s ‘new model of party-to-party relations,’ particularly in the Global South.”

“An indication of this renewed emphasis is the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School. Launched in 2022, the Nyerere School trains ruling party members from the Former Liberation Movements of Southern Africa (FLMSA) coalition—Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe,” it says.

However, political training by China is not new as they began this programme back in the 1960s. But the recent and rapid change is the emphasis on propagating the governance idea of Xi Jinping.

The Nyerere School is the first institute to be modeled after the CCP Central Party School, which trains China’s top cadres and leaders. It is also the first of its kind to cater to multiple African political parties.

“This school parallels the China-Africa Institute, a continental CCP initiative to train African party and government leaders. The Institute, which started in 2019, is based within the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing and the African Union (AU) in Addis Ababa [Ethiopia],” says ACSS.

Why America is concerned and how it responds

The US seems increasingly alarmed by China’s growing influence in Africa as Washington DC sees Beijing as a challenge to American interests on the continent. For a long time, the US has been used to calling the shots in Africa. Now, with China’s rise, that dominance has been seriously challenged. In several countries — from Ethiopia to Uganda to Angola — China has practically come to dictate market terms.

American leaders, though overtly critical of China’s action in the South China Sea, have been particularly concerned that China is exploiting Africa in ways that mirror the colonial powers of the past. There are fears that Chinese loans are leading African countries into a debt trap, potentially compromising their independence. The recent Kenya riots — following an economic crisis linked to Chinese debts — were seen as fitting similar patterns witnessed in countries like Sri Lanka.

The US has also accused China of propping up corrupt and authoritarian regimes, turning a blind eye to human rights abuses, and undermining democratic institutions—all in pursuit of its own economic and strategic goals.

Of late, the US has also courted some of the African dictators to counter Chinese influence on the continent. For example, US President Joe Biden hosted President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea reportedly to fend off China’s efforts to build a naval base in that country.

The naval base would give China a new military foothold in the Atlantic Ocean on the Gulf of Guinea, off the coast of West Africa. Biden ignored America’s own complaints of human rights abuse against the regime led by the world’s longest-serving ruler.

Incidentally, Equatorial Guinea, too, is facing acute economic crisis and 82-year-old Obiang, who has been in power for 44 years, has appointed a former banker as the prime minister this week to fix economic woes of the country.

The US, on its part, has been trying hard to counter China’s influence with its own initiatives — including the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), which aim to promote economic development and good governance in Africa.

Additionally, the US has expanded its military presence across the continent, establishing a network of bases and partnerships designed to combat terrorism and protect its strategic As America continues to influence Africa in the face of China’s relentless economic engagement, the cold war narrative looks only natural on the continent.

What Africa is doing to stave off two rival powers

While China and the US compete for influence, African nations are not just passive bystanders in the new geopolitical struggle. Several African leaders have become adept at playing both sides, using their relationships with China and the US to secure benefits for their countries. However, this balancing act is fraught with challenges, given their rivalry heats up over even a seemingly minor issue.

Africa’s home to some of the world’s fastest-growing economies — including Niger, Senegal, Libya, Rwanda, Ethiopia and the Gambia — and holds vast reserves of the natural resources that, in the first place, make both China and the US interested in the region.

Its rapidly growing population and increasing urbanisation makes Africa a massive future market for goods and services. At this junction, African countries usually take a middle path but that is also fraught with risks, given their sandwiched situation between Chinese money and America’s muscle.

How the new cold war may shape up Africa

It is a difficult proposition to predict the future of Africa in this new cold war as the post-Covid realities of the world are changing at a rapid rate. China’s economy is stagnating. The country is witnessing a flight of big companies as Beijing continues to antagonise the West, which is home to most of the top multinational firms.

However, there is another possibility that Africa may actually benefit tremendously from the increased attention and investment not only from rivals China and the US but also from emerging economic giants such as India and Brazil.

For Africa to emerge stronger from this geopolitical oneupmanship, its leaders look for ways to pass through these turbulent waters carefully. The sudden collapse of growing economies like Sri Lanka have driven home the point that too much dependence on opaque Chinese loans may endager their long-term prosperity.

Whether Africa can extract benefit from this China-US or communist-capitalist tug-of-war and build a secure future depends on how its current crop of leadership explores and chooses their options. For, the continent has to find solutions to its food, energy, environmental, and social crises that threaten to devastate not just Africa but potentially the entire world.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

Africa's CDC Declares Mpox A Public Health Emergency

Director General of Africa Center for Disease Control Dr. Jean Kaseya (African Union)

The African Union's health watchdog on Tuesday declared a public health emergency over the growing mpox outbreak on the continent, saying the move is a "clarion call for action".

The outbreak has swept through several African countries, particularly the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the virus formerly called monkeypox was first discovered in humans in 1970.

"With a heavy heart but with an unyielding commitment to our people, to our African citizens, we declare mpox as public health emergency of continental security," Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), said during an online media briefing.

"Mpox has now crossed borders, affecting thousands across our continent, families have been torn apart and the pain and suffering have touched every corner of our continent," he said.

According to CDC data as of August 4, there had been 38,465 cases of mpox and 1,456 deaths in Africa since January 2022.

"This declaration is not merely a formality, it is a clarion call to action. It is a recognition that we can no longer afford to be reactive. We must be proactive and aggressive in our efforts to contain and eliminate this threat," Kaseya said.



It is the first time the Addis Ababa-headquartered agency has used the continental security power it was given in 2022.



The decision is expected to help to mobilise money and other resources early in any efforts to halt the spread of disease.

Boghuma Titanji, assistant professor in medicine at Emory University in the United States, said the CDC declaration was a "crucial step" towards enhancing coordination among African countries and encouraging them to allocate funds to combat the outbreak.

"While there has been substantial criticism of foreign donors for inadequate support, the over-reliance on external aid has highlighted a major flaw in the current response efforts," Titanji said in a statement.

- Complementary actions -

CDC's announcement on Tuesday comes ahead of a meeting of the World Health Organization's emergency committee on August 14 to decide whether to trigger a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) -- the highest alarm the WHO can sound.

"What we are declaring today can be complemented by the action WHO can take," Kaseya said.

The United States said it was in "close coordination" on mpox with DR Congo, other affected countries and health bodies.

"We are tracking closely the spread of mpox in Central Africa. We are pleased to see international leadership in this area," State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.

He said that the United States so far this year has contributed $17 million beyond already programmed assistance to help African countries prepare and respond to mpox.

In May 2022, mpox infections surged worldwide, mostly affecting gay and bisexual men, due to the Clade IIb strain.

That led the WHO to declare a PHEIC, which lasted from July 2022 to May 2023. The outbreak caused some 140 deaths out of around 90,000 cases.

Titanji, a Cameroonian-born doctor, said that declaration did not however "lead to significant- improved access to diagnostics, therapeutics, or vaccines for African countries".

Renamed from monkeypox in 2022, mpox is an infectious disease caused by a virus transmitted to humans by infected animals but can also be passed from human to human through close physical contact.

The disease causes fever, muscular aches and large boil-like skin lesions.


There are two subtypes of the virus: the more virulent and deadlier Clade I, endemic in the Congo Basin in central Africa; and Clade II, endemic in West Africa.

The cases that have been surging in the DRC since September 2023 are due to a different strain: the Clade Ib subclade.

A PHEIC has been declared by the WHO seven times since 2009: over H1N1 swine flu, poliovirus, Ebola, Zika virus, Ebola again, Covid-19 and mpox.

-----------AFP

Italy’s Meloni Opens Africa Summit To Unveil Plan To Boost Development And Curb Migration

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, top center, poses with African leaders and dignitaries at the Senate for the start of an Italy-Africa summit, in Rome, Monday, Jan. 29, 2024. (Roberto Monaldo/LaPresse via AP)

BY NICOLE WINFIELD

ROME (AP) — Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni opened a summit of African leaders on Monday aimed at illustrating Italy’s big development plan for the continent that her government hopes will stem migration flows, diversify sources of energy and forge a new relationship between Europe and Africa.

But the plan got a lukewarm and cautious reception initially, with African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat telling the summit that African countries would have liked to have been consulted before Italy rolled out its plan.

“We need to pass from words to deeds,” Faki, the former prime minister of Chad, told the summit. “We cannot be happy with promises that are never maintained.”

Two dozen African leaders, top European Union and United Nations officials and representatives from international lending institutions were in Rome for the summit, the first major event of Italy’s Group of Seven presidency.

Italy, which for decades has been ground zero in Europe’s migration debate, has been promoting its development plan as a way to create security and economic conditions that will create jobs in Africa and discourage its young people from making dangerous migrations across the Mediterranean Sea.





In her opening, Meloni outlined a series of pilot projects in individual countries that she said would enable Africa to become a major exporter of energy to Europe, to help wean it off its dependence on Russian energy following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

“We want to free up African energy to guarantee younger generations a right which to date has been denied,” Meloni told the summit in an opening address. “Because here in Europe we talk a lot about the right to emigrate, but we rarely talk about guaranteeing the right to not be forced to emigrate.”

Meloni, Italy’s first hard-right leader since the end of World War II, has made curbing migration a priority of her government. But her first year in power saw a big jump in the numbers of people who arrived on Italy’s shores, with some 160,000 last year.

The government’s plan, named after Enrico Mattei, founder of state-controlled oil and gas giant Eni, seeks to expand cooperation with Africa beyond energy but in a non-predatory way. The plan involves pilot projects in areas such as education, health care, water, sanitation, agriculture and infrastructure.

“It’s a cooperation of equals, far from any predatory temptation but also far from the charitable posture with Africa that rarely is reconciled with its extraordinary potential for development,” Meloni told the leaders.

Italy, which under fascism was a colonial power in North Africa, has previously hosted ministerial-level African meetings. But Monday’s summit — held at the Italian Senate to demonstrate the commitment of all Italian public institutions to the project — marks the first time it’s under the head of state or government level.

The summit includes presentations by Italian ministers detailing various aspects of the plan. A gala dinner hosted by Italian President Sergio Mattarella was held on Sunday night.

As the summit got underway, Italian green and opposition lawmakers planned a counter-conference at Italy’s lower chamber of parliament to criticize the Mattei Plan as a neocolonial “empty box” that seeks to again exploit Africa’s natural resources.

Alongside the Mattei Plan, Meloni’s government has forged controversial deals with individual countries to try to mitigate the migration burden on Italy. An EU-backed deal with Tunisia aims to curb departures through economic development projects and legal migration opportunities, while a bilateral deal with Albania calls for the creation of centers in Albania to process asylum applications for Italy-bound migrants rescued at sea.
___

Follow AP’s coverage of migration issues at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

A Ghana Reparations Summit Agrees On A Global Fund To Compensate Africans For The Slave Trade

Chenzira Kahina, former president of the Caribbean Studies Association, speaks at the African Union reparations conference held in Accra, Ghana, Thursday, November 16, 2023...(AP Photo/Misper Apawu) 

BY FRANCIS KOKUTSE

ACCRA, GHANA (AP) — Delegates at a reparations summit in Ghana agreed Thursday to establish a Global Reparation Fund to push for overdue compensation for millions of Africans enslaved centuries ago during the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

The Accra Reparation Conference adds to the growing demands for reparations after about 12 million Africans were forcefully taken by European nations from the 16th to the 19th century and enslaved on plantations that built wealth at the price of misery.

Centuries after the end of the slave trade, people of African descent around the world continue “to be victims of systemic racial discrimination and racialized attacks,” concluded a recent report by a special U.N. forum which supported reparations as “a cornerstone of justice in the 21st century.”

“It is time for Africa — whose sons and daughters had their freedoms controlled and sold into slavery — to also receive reparations,” said Ghana’s President Nana Addo Akufo-Addo at the conference, attended by senior government officials from across Africa as well as the diaspora community.

Slave reparations have become an issue the world “must confront and can no longer ignore,” said Akufo-Addo, calling out the British and other European nations who enriched themselves during the slave trade while “enslaved Africans themselves did not receive a penny.”

Delegates to the conference in Accra did not say how such a reparation fund would operate. But Gnaka Lagoke, an assistant professor of history and pan-African studies, said it should be used to “correct the problems” that the continent is facing in all sectors of its economy.

Compensations are based on “moral and legal rights and dignity of the people,” said Ambassador Amr Aljowailey, strategic adviser to the deputy chairman of the African Union Commission, who read out the resolution titled The Accra Proclamation.

In addition to the Global Reparation Fund, which will be championed by a committee of experts set up by the A.U. Commission in collaboration with African nations, “a special envoy will engage in campaigns as well as litigation and judicial efforts,” said Aljowailey.

Activists have said reparations should go beyond direct financial payments to also include developmental aid for countries, the return of colonized resources and the systemic correction of oppressive policies and laws.

The required amount for compensation will be decided through a “negotiated settlement (that will) benefit the masses,” said Nkechi Taifa, director of the U.S.-based Reparation Education Project.

Follow AP’s Africa coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

What We Are Witnessing In Africa Is Not An Anti-Colonial Revolution

Let us stop celebrating coups aimed at furthering the interests of a few military elites as acts of anti-imperialist resistance.

BY TAFI MHAKA

On August 17, Arikana Chihombori-Quao, former permanent representative of the African Union to the United States, claimed the recent military coups in Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea were part of the early stages of an “African revolution” against Western neocolonialism.

“What is going on now in Africa is a revolution similar to what we saw with the demise of the mighty Roman Empire, similar to what we saw with the fall of the mighty British Empire,” Chihombori-Quao said in an interview with New York-based Nigerian news channel Arise TV.

This wave of military interventions is a reaction to the West’s ongoing “plunder of the continent’s natural resources”, she explained. “This is just the beginning of the African revolution and it is not going to stop.”

Chihombori-Quao went on to argue that these recent coups “led by our people” represent “children of Africa taking back what is ours” and have nothing in common with the brutal Western-led military interventions of the past.

Sure, Western powers committed particularly heinous crimes against young African democracies in the last century. The Western-orchestrated 1960 coup in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), for example, saw the country’s first democratically elected prime minister, independence hero Patrice Lumumba, assassinated by a hastily put together firing squad and his remains dissolved in acid. All for the fear that he may have brought the DRC closer to the Soviet Union and given Moscow access to its precious natural resources.

These recent coups thankfully did not include such atrocities and were not overtly aimed at furthering the interests of colonial power. But does this automatically mean they were “led by our people”, and aimed at delivering on the people’s wish to end colonial plunder, as Chihombori-Quao claims?

Not so much.

First of all, every single one of these coups was led by powerful and privileged high-ranking army officers – men whose lives are far removed from the everyday experiences of “our people”. And these men appear more than willing to suppress the voice of the people, whenever it happens not to align with theirs. They have no problem with crippling democracy or even physically harming the very people they claim to represent when it fits their agenda.

These men not only upended the democratic process by toppling governments brought to power by reasonably free and fair elections, but are also dragging their feet about setting a date for new polls. Mali’s military government – like the unelected regimes in nearby Chad and Sudan – has repeatedly delayed a transition to democracy. There is not much hope for Niger, Burkina Faso or Guinea’s swift return to full democracy either.

In May, the United Nations reported that Malian troops – with the help of foreign military personnel – tortured, raped and killed at least 500 civilians during a five-day anti-dissident operation in Moura in March 2022.

Around the same time, Human Rights Watch reported that on April 20, 2023, Burkinabe soldiers burned homes, looted property and summarily executed at least 156 civilians in a similar six-hour operation in Karma, northern Yatenga province.

Coup leaders like to talk the anti-imperialist talk because it gives them legitimacy and helps them garner public support, but they are much more reluctant to walk the walk.

Burkina Faso’s interim president, Ibrahim Traore, for example, likes to employ fierce anti-imperialist rhetoric at every opportunity.

Speaking at the Russia-Africa Summit in July, for example, Traore took a swipe at Africa’s older leaders, saying, “The heads of African states should not behave like puppets in the hands of the imperialists.”

But, ironically, he has openly demonstrated sycophantic affection for Vladimir Putin of Russia, a prominent and particularly brutal imperial force in Eastern Europe, and increasingly in Africa.

Traore is not the only “anti-imperialist coupist” in Africa who appears suspiciously blind to Russia’s demonstrably brutal imperialism.

The military government in Mali is known to be very close to the Kremlin and has had help from the Russian Wagner mercenary group in its efforts to stifle dissent. Niger’s coup generals have also openly asked Wagner for help in dealing with the West African regional bloc, ECOWAS.

So much for coup leaders standing with everyday Africans against imperial powers.

This, of course, is not meant to minimise the harm Western colonialism inflicted on Africa. The West has been for centuries, and remains to this day, the most destructive outside actor and the strongest force against swift, independent development and deepening of democracy on the continent.

Indeed, the remnants of the West’s abusive colonial arrangements are still crippling African states, politically and economically.

For example, 14 African countries, including Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, still use the neocolonial CFA franc – which is guaranteed by France and pegged to the euro – as its currency.

In return, France requires these countries to keep 50 percent of their foreign exchange reserves with the French treasury.

This adverse and costly financial entanglement has allowed Paris to exercise undue and outsized influence over CFA franc countries’ economic and political affairs.

As a result, most of these countries have struggled to flourish in the postcolonial era. Niger, for example, is one of the world’s poorest and least developed countries. Along with Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea, it occupies the lowest ranks on the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Index.

While Russia is undoubtedly a destructive imperial power, both in Africa and elsewhere, it is the West that is primarily responsible for Africa’s chronic economic and developmental shortcomings.

This is perhaps why Chihombori-Quao is turning a blind eye to the close relations Africa’s new military leaders have with Russia, and insisting on presenting them as anticolonial revolutionaries.

In fact, she seems to believe in the anti-imperialist credentials and anticolonial intentions of these generals so much that she describes their actions not as coups but an “ideological realignment of economic, political and social values”.

But what have these military regimes said or done so far to achieve that much-longed-for realignment? Are they charting a new path forward for an independent Africa, free of all imperial intervention and manipulation? Have they, for example, announced any plans for bringing an end to the CFA?

Sadly, it seems, these new military regimes, despite their anti-imperialist posturing, lack a strong ideological grounding and political direction.

I am an African. I know what colonialism has done, and what neocolonialism is still doing to these lands. As such, just like Chihombori-Quao, I also long for an African revolution to put an end to this plunder. I want predatory Western governments and companies to end their exploitation of Africa and all African nations to stand tall and independent in the international arena.

But I refuse to support undemocratic actions.

What we are witnessing in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and beyond is not the beginning of an “African revolution”. What we are witnessing is just a few military elites taking advantage of the genuine suffering and frustration of their people to further their interests. They are employing anti-imperialist rhetoric to win support from the streets, but doing very little to actually further Africa’s independence and free it from the clutches of outside powers.

Every coup, regardless of any anti-imperialist or populist facade it may put on, is an attack on democracy. Military rule, however people-oriented it may appear to be, is always a threat to the rule of law. And it is not the ideal vehicle for promoting solid economic growth and development.

Chihombori-Quao is right – African countries do have a moral and economic imperative to end neocolonialism. Nevertheless, they also have an obligation to respect people’s human rights and implement any necessary sociopolitical and economic changes to ensure true African independence within a democratic framework.

Let us stop celebrating harmful power plays by self-centred military elites as acts of anti-imperialist resistance, and focus instead on planting the seeds for a true African revolution that would end neocolonial theft of our resources for good, and empower everyday Africans to shape their own future free from oppression.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

African Union; The Dream Vs. Reality

BY THOMAS C. MOUNTAIN

The predecessor of today’s African Union, the Organization for African Unity, OAU, was launched in 1963 with the glorious goal of uniting Africans to help liberate the continent from colonialism. Unfortunately, despite the dreams of Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Ture and others, reality quickly showed its face and the dream turned out to be a fantasy.

Why do I say this? Because the OAU was founded in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where the US-backed compradore Emperor Haile Sellasie regime was actively engaged in a counter-insurgency war against the Eritrean Liberation Front fighting for independence from…Ethiopia! To put it simply Addis Ababa, Ethiopia was the headquarters of the OAU which was formed for the purpose of ending colonialism in Africa all the while Ethiopia was killing Eritreans in an attempt preserve its control of its Eritrean colony.

Yet this hasn’t stopped all to many Africans and blacks in the west from continuing to propagate the line that the OAU, and the African Union that took its place were and are anti colonialist by every year celebrating African Liberation Day on the anniversary of the founding of the OAU.

Being that Eritrea is the only country in Africa that won its independence on the battlefield by defeating the Ethiopian ruler Haile Mengistu Mariam in 1991 and subsequently running Mengistu the butcher out of Ethiopia on the wings of a US military jet it is important to take a deeper look at Eritrea and its history of problems with the OAU and todays AU.

One of the best places to look at the corruption and bootlicking role of the AU is when it guaranteed the Algiers Peace Agreement between Eritrea and the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) regime in 2002. This took place after the TPLF regime had launched a war in 1998 in what was ultimately a failed attempt to re-colonize Eritrea. Despite major US help, both with funding, arms and intelligence in support of the TPLF, the western backed TPLF invasion of Eritrea was defeated by the Eritrean Defense Forces in 2000 at the battle of Tsorona.

After the defeat of the TPLF invasion followed by two years of negotiations a “final and binding” peace agreement between Eritrea and the TPLF was signed in Algiers on Dec. 12, 2002. The AU, alongside the EU, UN and the USA all promised in writing to enforce another “final and binding” agreement with UN sanctions if either party violated the deal. Part of the deal was to enforce a border demarcation between Eritrea and the TPLF, to be carried out by a supposedly neutral party overseen by the UN because the “border dispute” allegedly being the reason for Ethiopia launching its invasion of Eritrea in the first place.

Like what the world has witnessed in Ukraine regarding the war against the Russian people of the Donbas by the CIA coup government installed in Ukraine in 2008 the western powers had no intent in honoring the Minsk Agreement they “guaranteed”?

It turns out the AU really had no intention of enforcing the deal with the TPLF, following meekly in the footsteps of its masters in the west. What could the AU do, bite the hand that feeds it for the EU is the majority funder of the AU. And could the AU seeks sanctions against Ethiopia where it made it’s home from its birth and which it had help glorify with blatant falsifications of history claiming Ethiopia had never been colonized?

The AU literally never lifted a finger to see the deal implemented and allowed the TPLF to continue to violate the deal until November 2020 when Eritrean fighters, at the request of the new Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed intervened in Ethiopia after the CIA instigated coup attempt by the TPLF in 2020. While destroying the backbone of the TPLF terrorist army Eritrea liberated the town of Badme and its surrounds, which had been awarded to Eritrea by the “final and binding” border demarcation deal later signed, again, with a promise of enforcement by the AU, EU, UN and the USA.

Today is should be clear for all to see that the purpose of the “final and binding” peace deal between Eritrea and the TPLF regime was not to bring peace to the Horn of Africa, just the opposite, rather to help the TPLF regime to lick its wound suffered in its defeat by Eritrea and consolidate its rule in Ethiopia while continuing to be the US policeman on the beat in the critically strategic Horn of Africa.

And where is the AU in all of this? I guess you could say its silence proven golden for it has received billions of dollars from the EU and USA over the past twenty years for loyally keeping its mouth shut about the crimes committed by the TPLF.

Today, the AU leads delegations of African leaders to sit down with the criminals in the US government to talk about whats best for Africa? How the US is blackmailing Zambia and DRCongo into giving the US all of their cobalt and copper? How the US will not restore free trade access to the US with Ethiopia unless the CIA is given control over the supposed “investigation” into crimes committed in the war in Tigray from 2020-2022. If what the CIA through its mouth pieces in the western media has been saying is anything to go by, a whole cesspool of lies will be spewed about fabricated crimes by Eritrea and Ethiopia in Tigray. And the AU remains party to all of this, the judas goat leading the African sheep to slaughter in Washington DC.

There was a great dream involving the founding of the OAU but that dream quickly ran into the brick wall of reality and was still born at birth, never to actually do anything concrete to help bring about real independence from Africa’ former western colonial masters as well as the Ethiopian home-grown imperialists colonizing Eritrea. Actually the opposite, the AU did what it could to help prevent Eritrea from achieving its independence from Ethiopia and beginning its historic leadership of Africa.

When it comes to the African Union its not about the dream, its all about the reality of a compromised, corrupt, subservient organization.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

Security And Food Crises Expected To Dominate African Union Summit

A woman receives a bag of food from the government during the distribution of food items by the government to cushion the high cost of living in Abuja, Nigeria, September 20, 2022. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde

BY GIULIA PARAVICINI

NAIROBI, KENYA (REUTERS) - Deepening security and food crises are likely to dominate the agenda when heads of state convene in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa this weekend, Feb. 17-19, for the annual African Union (AU) summit.

Armed conflict from West Africa's Sahel to the Horn of Africa in the east and the impacts of droughts and floods have driven ever more Africans from their homes, with the number of displaced people south of the Sahara Desert rising more than 15% over the past year, according to United Nations figures. The U.N. estimates 44 million people were displaced in 2022 up from 38.3 million people at the end of 2021.

AU Peace and Security Commissioner Bankole Adeoye is expected to try to rally support for a proposal for new financing of security operations from the United States, African Union members and the European Union, two diplomats told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Financing has been a perennial challenge for AU initiatives like its peacekeeping mission in Somalia. In 2020, the AU postponed plans to start financing security operations from a new fund until 2023 because it had received less than half of the targeted $400 million.

Heads of state will also be briefed on fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and the security situations in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Sudan, which all experienced military takeovers in 2021 and 2022, the two diplomats said.

Bankole and a spokesperson for the Peace and Security Council did not respond to requests for comment.

Another major subject of discussion is expected to be worsening hunger in several regions, which has been driven by armed conflict and extreme weather that scientists have linked to fossil fuel-driven climate change.

Somalia is on the verge of famine after five failed rainy seasons, with hundreds of thousands of people suffering catastrophic food shortages.

In addition to leaders from the 55 AU members states, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and European Council President Charles Michel will attend the summit.

African leaders will advocate for permanent seats for the continent on the U.N. Security Council and among the G20 group of large economies, according to a draft of the summit's conclusions.

They will also adopt a series of protocols aimed at accelerating full implementation of Africa’s new free trade area, under which trading officially began in 2021.

Ethiopia, Tigray Military Leaders Agree On Peace Roadmap

Chief of Staff of Ethiopian Armed Forces Field Marshall Birhanu Jula, left, and Head of the Tigray Forces Lieutenant General Tadesse Werede, right, exchange signed copies of an agreement, at Ethiopian peace talks in Nairobi, Kenya Saturday, Nov. 12, 2022. Top military commanders from Ethiopia and its embattled Tigray region agreed Saturday to allow unhindered humanitarian access to the region and form a joint disarmament committee following last week's truce. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

NAIROBI, KENYA (AP) — Top military commanders from Ethiopia and its embattled Tigray region have agreed to allow unhindered humanitarian access to the region and form a joint disarmament committee following last week’s truce.

The commanders, who since Monday have been meeting in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, signed an agreement Saturday that they said calls for disengagement from all forms of military activities.

Both parties have agreed to protect civilians and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to the region of more than 5 million people, according to a copy of the agreement seen by The Associated Press.

The agreement states that disarmament will be “done concurrently with the withdrawal of foreign and non-(Ethiopian military) forces” from Tigray.

The lead negotiator for Ethiopia, Redwan Hussein, told the AP that Saturday’s signing event created a conductive environment for ongoing peace efforts, noting that the next meeting of military leaders will “most likely” be held in Tigray in mid-December before a final meeting in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, in January.

In a separate statement late Saturday, Ethiopia’s federal authorities said that “efforts are being made to deliver humanitarian assistance to most of the Tigray region which is under (Ethiopian military) command.”

That statement noted that representatives of Ethiopian and Tigrayan militaries meeting in Kenya discussed “detailed plans for disarmament” of Tigray forces, including an agreement on the entry of Ethiopian forces into the Tigrayan capital of Mekele.

The African Union-led talks in Nairobi followed the cessation of hostilities agreement signed by Ethiopia and Tigray leaders in South Africa last week.

Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is helping to facilitate the talks, said Saturday that “humanitarian aid should have resumed like yesterday.” Former Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta, who is also involved in the talks, thanked the commanders for their commitment to peace.

The Tigray conflict began in November 2020, less than a year after Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for making peace with Eritrea, which borders the Tigray region and whose fighters have been fighting alongside Ethiopian federal troops in Tigray.

Eritrea is not explicitly mentioned in the peace papers, and a diplomat who attended the talks in Nairobi said the issue of Eritrea was a sticking point this week.

The brutal fighting in Tigray, which spilled into Amhara and Afar regions as Tigrayan forces tried to break the military blockade of their region, reignited in August after months of lull that allowed thousands of trucks carrying humanitarian aid into Tigray.

The war in Africa’s second-most populous country, which marked two years on Nov. 4, has seen abuses documented on both sides, with millions of people displaced and many near famine.

Phone and internet connections to Tigray are still down, and foreign journalists and human rights researchers remain barred, complicating efforts to verify reports of ongoing violence in the region.

New Round Of Peace Talks Between Ethiopia, Tigray Envoys

From left to right, Chief of Staff of Ethiopian Armed Forces Field Marshall Birhanu Jula, former Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta, African Union envoy and former Nigerian president Olesegun Obasanjo, and Head of the Tigray Forces Lieutenant General Tadesse Werede, attend continuing peace talks between Ethiopia's government and Tigray regional representatives, in Nairobi, Kenya Monday, Nov. 7, 2022. A new round of talks began Monday to work out military and other details of last week's signing of a "permanent" cessation of hostilities in a two-year conflict thought to have killed hundreds of thousands of people. (AP Photo/Khalil Senosi)

BY CARA ANNA

NAIROBI, KENYA (AP) — A new round of talks began Monday between Ethiopia’s government and Tigray regional representatives to work out military and other details of last week’s signing of a “permanent” cessation of hostilities in a two-year conflict thought to have killed hundreds of thousands of people.

The meetings in Kenya involve the military commanders of both sides along with the leading political negotiators. Issues to be discussed include how to monitor the deal, disarming Tigray forces and the resumption of humanitarian aid access and basic services to Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, which has been cut off for months.

“Maybe by the end of this week or the middle of next week” humanitarian aid will be allowed to go in, the Ethiopian government’s lead negotiator, Redwan Hussein, told journalists. The Tigray lead negotiator, Getachew Reda, said the delivery of aid would increase confidence in the talks.

An official familiar with the talks hosted by the Kenyan government says they are expected to continue through Wednesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Already, a communications channel has been established between the two sides to address any incidents “as both recognize the challenge of fully communicating with all their units to stop fighting,” the official said.

Those facilitating and attending the talks include African Union envoy and former Nigerian president Olesegun Obasanjo, former Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta and Nigerian, South African and Kenyan military officers. The United States and the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development are observers.

Kenyatta said they are “very hopeful next time we’ll be in (the Tigray regional capital) for our meeting” and that both sides will “ultimately celebrate together in Addis Ababa,” Ethiopia’s capital.

Over the weekend, the Ethiopian government’s lead negotiator told diplomats that “we’ve sustained colossal damage” and that the finance minister has estimated the country will require nearly $20 billion to rebuild. “We’ll quickly fix both telecoms and electricity soon” to the Tigray region, he said.

On humanitarian aid to a region where health workers and the United Nations and partners have reported even basic medical supplies running out, Redwan said that “the only hiccup we have is ... it is still risky to allow flights until commanders meet to assess the situation.”

If the military commanders agree on a timeline, the Ethiopian government believes that once the government controls the airspace and airports in Tigray fully, then “the entire Tigray region would be accessible for aid” by road and air, he said.

Neighboring Eritrea, whose forces have fought alongside Ethiopian ones, is not a party to the peace talks, and last week’s agreement doesn’t mention the country directly. Redwan in his briefing noted that Ethiopia’s borders and airspace had been violated during the conflict, “so we’re busy fighting each other, we’re busy undermining each other. That paved the way for a third party to undermine us further.”

He didn’t mention Eritrea but added that “we may also have a third party which may not be interested in this peace process.”

In his first public comment outside the talks, Tigray lead negotiator Getachew responded to questions from some Tigrayans about the agreement and his side’s silence. “We are fighting not because we are a trigger-happy nation but because our survival as a people is at stake,” he tweeted. “If a peace agreement can ensure our survival, why not give it a try?′