Continental geopolitical context: tensions from inside and outside
by Pauline Le Roux
Author: Pauline Le Roux
Source: The African Geopolitical ATLAS 2020: 84 Outlooks of Africa
Publisher: Stake Books
DOI: https://doi.org/10.63542/kmxd7848
Document Type: Book Chapter
Publication date: April 24, 2020
Keywords: African geopolitics, security, conflict, sahel, the horn of Africa
ABSTRACT - 2020’s Africa is certainly not the Africa of the 1990s. Fundamental operating trends have deeply contributed to the reshaping of the African image on political, security, demographic and economic aspects over the last decades. Under the influence of political, social, technological and of climatic changes these trends have hastened during the recent years. Besides, the African continent is still confronted to ills, among which particularly stand security and stability. A lot of African countries are currently confronted to deteriorated security situations. In 2019 the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) described the Sahel region as the "geopolitical dilemma of the year". In their 2020 ranking of the ten conflicts to be monitored three African regions are included: the Sahel, Somalia, and Ethiopia.
PAULINE LE ROUX is a political analyst specializing in African security and geopolitics. A graduate in international administration from the Sorbonne Law School in Paris, she has worked with the United Nations in South Africa, assisting vulnerable refugees and migrants. She also contributed to an INTERPOL project on enhancing the exchange of police information between law enforcement agencies in West Africa. Since 2016, she has been working on the analysis of the security situation and political and strategic trends in Central African and Sahel countries.
ENDNOTES LIST:
[1] Founded in 2014, the G5 Sahel is an intergovernmental partnership that brings together Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Niger and aims to enable the implementation of common responses to the challenges facing the region.
[2] At the beginning of March 2020, a memo signed by the head of the African Union Staff Association, Sabelo Mbokazi, was sent to the president of the AU Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, criticising the "mafia-like, cartel- worthy" management of the organisation. The South African newspaper Mail & Guardian had access to it and reported on it.
[3] United Nations (UN) data.
[4] Direction générale du Trésor, France, 2020.
[5] According to Guleid Artan, director at the International Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC), the current locust invasion is the latest symptom of a series of extreme climate variations that will hit East Africa in 2019.
[6] Figures: World Bank, 2015.
[7] The latest to do so are the Gambia (2013), Sao Tome and Principe (2016) and Burkina Faso (2018).
[8] Following the example of the Islamic State in the Great Sahara (EIGS) and the Islamic State in the Western African Province (ISWAP).