Editorial commentary. WHEN MUHAMMADU BUHARI won Nigeria’s presidential election in 2015, his victory was greeted with euphoria. He unseated the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which had ruled uninterrupted since the restoration of democracy in 1999. Many hoped Mr Buhari and his All Progressives Congress (APC), a coalition of regional bigwigs whose party symbol is a broom, would sweep away the corruption and dysfunction that flourished under the PDP. But when Africa’s most populous country returns to the polls in February, Mr Buhari faces a fight for his political survival. The excitement of 2015 has long since dissipated. A collapse in…
Author: CASADE
Zheping Huang. World leaders gathered in Beijing in May to hear China’s plan for global trade: the One Belt One Road initiative. Nearly 70 countries and international organizations have signed up for the mega infrastructure project, said president Xi Jinping at the close of the summit, but others still have no idea what it is. The next gathering in Beijing is slated for 2019. During his speech at the opening of the “Belt and Road” forum, Xi pledged at least $113 billion in extra funding for the initiative, and urged countries across the globe to join hands with him in pursuit of globalization. “We…
China’s “Marshall Plan” for Africa – Debt or New Deal? Peter Kagwanja. The recently concluded China-Africa Summit offers a new deal for Africa’s recovery. The Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) has the making of a 21st century equivalent of the Marshall Plan, America’s massive economic rescue programme that President Harry Truman unveiled for Europe on April 3, 1948. In the largest financial bailout in human history — officially the European Recovery Programme (ERP) — named after United States Secretary of State George Marshall, Washington offered $17 billion (equivalent to $193.53 billion in 2018) in economic assistance to help rebuild Western…
The summit on Peace and Security in Africa held on September 17, 2018 at the African Union Mission in Washington, DC brought together security experts, diplomats, NGOs, and development professionals to address the nexus of insecurity in the continent and economic underdevelopment. The summit was timely, for it addressed the root causes of insurgencies in the continent and how they have retarded development efforts in recent years. In the background of the discussions and debates on insecurity in the Sahel, West and East Africa are the relentless attacks on civilians and regional infrastructures by groups such as Boko Haram, al-Quaeda…
Drew D’Alelio.* By 2030, 60 percent of the world’s poor will be concentrated in fragile states, a shift that has prompted the United States (and other donors) to rethink how to confront the particular challenges of these environments and support a path to greater country resilience. To contribute to that conversation, CGD recently launched a working group that will look at the future of US development assistance to fragile states, with a report forthcoming later this year. This blog post takes stock of the current landscape of US foreign aid to fragile states and gives an overview of where the…
Edward Ansah Akuffo. After over fifty-years of Canadian engagement with Africa, no comprehensive literature exists on Canada’s security policy in Africa and relations towards Africa’s regional organizations. The literature on Canada’s foreign policy in Africa to date has largely focused on development assistance. For the first time, Edward Akuffo combines historical and contemporary material on Canada’s development and security policy while analyzing the linkage between these sets of foreign policy practices on the African continent. The book makes an important contribution to the debate on Canada’s foreign policy generally, and on Africa’s approach to peace, security and development, while shedding…
A Brief Response: Marshall Plan for Africa or “Debt Trap?” Lawrence Freeman. The world is witnessing an increase in attacks on Africa’s relationships with China in various articles, as well as low-level, unthoughtful, messages on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Not only does that content intend to demonize China as the new colonial empire of Africa, but it also includes vulgar demeaning caricatures of African Heads of State. Could the reason for the uptick of these kinds of diatribes be related to the successful September 3-4, Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit in Beijing, attended by leaders from almost every…
Jonathan Berman. Business between the US and Africa just took a step forward.Easy to miss amidst the partisan din of the approaching election, the US Senate passed the Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development (BUILD) Act, and it was signed into law Oct. 5. Despite the strong bipartisan support (93 of 99 senators voted for it) the act has its critics, in particular among libertarian conservatives. In my view, the BUILD act brings the US-Africa business relationship from underground to above ground and may yet bring it to the cloud. For at least thirty years, the US’s commercial relationship…
*Erna Solberg and Børge Brende. Education is a human right. And, like other human rights, it cannot be taken for granted. Across the world, 59 million children and 65 million adolescents are out of school. More than 120 million children do not complete primary education. Behind these figures there are children and youth being denied not only a right, but opportunities: a fair chance to get a decent job, to escape poverty, to support their families, and to develop their communities. This year, decision-makers will set the priorities for global development for the next 15 years. They should make sure…
John Ifediora. Time and again Nigerians are placed on notice that those who engage in corrupt practices, especially public officials found wanting in upholding the public trust that define their official capacity, would properly acquaint themselves with the services of a prison warden. Time served would be severe; the forfeiture of looted funds would be just as exacting. While progress has been made in this misnomer of the “fight against corruption,” looting by public officials in Nigeria remains unabated, and debilitating to the effort to place the nation’s economy on a positive growth trajectory. The problem so far is not…