This Brief seeks to address the lack of systematic, comparable data on Russia’s engagement in West Africa. Such data is crucial for assessing the threat posed by Russian-sponsored FIMI, which often serves as a tool to advance broader strategic objectives in regions where Russia seeks to expand its influence
Shifting alliances in West Africa: Measuring Russian engagement to support counter-FIMI strategies
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Biodiversity is the foundation for security: myriad micro-organisms filter and purify fresh water, the most basic essential for survival; pollinators hold the front line of food production; complex interactions across ecosystems regulate pests and disease vectors; forests, lakes, and coral reefs sustain livelihoods and economic stability.
Gone Fishing: A Biodiversity Loss Security Scenario in the Lake Victoria Basin
Council on Strategic Risks
Le Bénin est confronté à des défis environnementaux majeurs liés à la pollution. Les principaux facteurs contribuant à cette situation préoccupante sont la croissance démographique rapide, l'urbanisation galopante et le développement industriel non réglementé.
Les Béninois restent sur leur soif en matière de lutte contre la pollution
Afro Barometer
This research note examines the implementation of property tax in Liberia. Based on original fieldwork data, the note analyses taxpayers' perceptions of the new tax system in the light of their experiences with public services, development projects and the political system.
Grand Bassa and the 50/50 tax pilot: A brilliant idea, but...
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Following an intensification of normative contestation in the region, together with shifts in global politics and order, West Africa and the Sahel seem to be currently experiencing a redrawing and redefinition of regional spaces. On 28 January 2024, the military leaders of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger – who had recently formed the Alliance des Ètats du Sahel (AES) – declared their withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS): A Region and an Organisation at a Crossroads
Italian Institute for International Political Studies
Continued violence in West Africa is sharpening America’s critical challenge to reduce extremism and violence, particularly in the Sahel. Violent deaths in three western Sahel nations surged by 38% last year and Niger’s coup has complicated the U.S. military role in the region
To Help Stabilize West Africa, Bolster a Key Partner: Nigeria
United States Institute of Peace
Across Africa, the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) has documented the proliferation of synthetic drugs ranging from synthetic opioids to methamphetamines and synthetic cannabinoids, the resulting transformation of several drugs markets and the escalation of drug-related harm.
The challenge of responding to synthetic drug markets through the lens of tramadol in West-Africa
The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
Since its change of government in 2017, the Gambia has undergone significant reforms aimed at promoting reconciliation and healing the wounds left by Yahya Jammeh’s two decade rule (Jaw, 2019). During his presidency, Jammeh adopted divide-and-rule tactics, such as declaring the Gambia an Islamic state in 2015 and attacking the Mandinka, the majority ethnic group in the country (Sommerfelt, 2016).
Tolerance for social differences is high, but not universal, in the Gambia
AFRO Barometer
According to the news sources, Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso have announced they are leaving the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a regional bloc that promotes economic integration and political stability. The three countries are led by military juntas that have been suspended from the bloc for failing to restore democratic rule. They said it was a sovereign decision to withdraw from ECOWAS and plan to form a new confederation that will deepen their ties
West Africa trade will take a hit as Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso leave Ecowas
The Conversation
Macroeconomic resilience is crucial for sustainable development. Nigeria and Ghana, two prominent West African countries, have faced unique challenges and opportunities in building such resilience. These two countries have experienced a range of economic shocks over the past two decades, including natural disasters, commodity price fluctuations, financial crises and global economic downturns.
Enhancing Macroeconomic Resilience: A Comparative Analysis of Nigeria and Ghana
South African Institute of International Affairs
This report presents a snapshot of arms trafficking, and the violence that follows it, in one of the least-studied borderland regions of West Africa – the tri-border area of Chad, Cameroon and the Central African Republic (CAR). It also offers an updated analysis of the conflict dynamics affecting this region.
The tri-border tangle
Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
This report presents a snapshot of arms trafficking, and the violence that follows it, in one of the least-studied borderland regions of West Africa – the tri-border area of Chad, Cameroon and the Central African Republic (CAR). It also offers an updated analysis of the conflict dynamics affecting this region.
The tri-border tangle
Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
Is it possible for Nigeria to successfully implement a redesign policy for its currency, the naira, when the informal sector accounts for 65 percent of the country’s GDP and 93 percent of employment, and when 90 percent of transactions in the informal economy are in cash?
Why Nigerias Controversial Naira Redesign Policy Hasnt Met Its Objectives
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
West Africa is one of the world’s most vibrant and diverse regions; home to over 400 million people, around 1 200 languages and many different religious and ethnic identities. The region’s economic growth since the turn of the century has been impressive, resulting in a significant reduction in absolute levels of poverty. Nevertheless, with rampant insecurity at the hands of violent extremists, armed groups and criminal bandits, political instability, limited economic opportunities for the region’s burgeoning youth population and the worsening impact of climate change, West Africa faces many complex challenges.
Reading Of The Week: 2023 West Africa organised crime resilience framework
Global Initiative
This policy brief examines the prevalence of online child sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA) in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Cape Verde, highlighting key risk factors. Data on OCSEA indicates an acceleration in uploads since 2019. The case studies reveal gaps and shortcomings in victim identification, protection and prosecution. Urgent action is required to prevent devastating consequences for individuals in West Africa.
Reading of the Week: Online child sexual exploitation and abuse in West Africa
ENACT Africa
West Africa has become a hotspot for the trafficking of medical products, with estimations that the illicit market makes up to 80% of medical products in Burkina Faso and Guinea, the two case studies of this report. Despite its enormous scale, there are gaps in knowledge that this report seeks to address by providing a qualitative analysis of the market’s key characteristics and enablers (corruption and insecurity), and an assessment of national and regional responses.
Reading of the Week: Bad Pharma - Trafficking illicit medical products in West Africa
ENACT Africa
Liberian President George Weah declared rape a national emergency in 2020, after signing a Domestic Violence Act the previous year. Despite these steps, rape and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls persist, perpetuated by traditional social norms as well as social dislocations and a lack of accountability as a legacy of the country’s 14-year civil war.
Gender-based violence tops womens-rights issues in Liberia; citizens say it is a criminal matter
Afro Barometer
Liberian President George Weah declared rape a national emergency in 2020, after signing a Domestic Violence Act the previous year. Despite these steps, rape and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls persist, perpetuated by traditional social norms as well as social dislocations and a lack of accountability as a legacy of the country’s 14-year civil war.
Gender-based violence tops womens-rights issues in Liberia; citizens say it is a criminal matter
Afro Barometer
A majority of citizens endorse gender equality in hiring, land ownership, and politics, although many consider it likely that women who run for public office will face negative reactions from their communities and families. A majority of Gambians say the government needs to do more to promote equal rights and opportunities for women.
Gender equality in the Gambia: Citizens demand greater government efforts
AFRO Barometer
The Russian army and Russian private military contractors linked to the Kremlin have expanded their global military footprint in Africa, seeking basing rights in a half dozen countries and inking military cooperation agreements with 28 African governments, according to an analysis by the Institute for the Study of War. U.S. officials estimate that around 400 Russian mercenaries operating in the Central African Republic (CAR), and Moscow recently delivered military equipment to support counterinsurgency operations in northern Mozambique.
Russias Footprint in Africa
Center for Security Studies ETH Zurich
This paper contributes to the scholarship on gender and migration through empirical insights into motherhood while in transit and smuggling. It explores how undocumented, West African migrant mothers experience and navigate the temporal and spatial confinement of the Tunisian–Libyan borderlands, border enforcement and counter-smuggling policies confining them and their children to the limbo of indefinite waiting, danger, and uncertainty that they can, however, address through smuggling journeys.
Reading of the week: A Mothers Choice - Undocumented motherhood, waiting and smuggling in the Tunisian-Libyan borderlands
Danish Institute for International Studies
The Illicit Economies and Instability Dialogues are integral to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC)’s work in West Africa. The Dialogues are an opportunity for experts in illicit economies, civil society organizations, regional government representatives, foreign policy and development officials, external experts and stakeholders to discuss contemporary, policy-relevant themes on the intersections between illicit economies, conflict and instability in West and central Africa. The Dialogues are supported by and co-hosted with the Federal Foreign Office of Germany.
Reading of the Week: The role of national parks in illicit economies and conflict dynamics
Gobal Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
The fallout of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has had major consequences for Russia’s engagement around the world in 2022. West Africa is no exception. Russia has sought to increase its political involvement in Africa since the 2014 invasion of Crimea. But as Russia has become more economically and politically isolated under the increasing weight of Western sanctions, the importance of Africa as a strategically significant region for Russia to engage in, both to facilitate business opportunities and to court political allies, has escalated.
Reading of the week: Russias military, mercenary and criminal interests in West Africa grew in 2022 and look set to expand in 2023
Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
Sahelian jihadists have occupied Park W, a huge nature reserve in the borderlands of Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger, transforming it into a launchpad for expansion toward the West African savannah. Their presence in the park is disrupting century-old conservation efforts as well as local livelihoods, feeding struggles among sedentary farmers and nomadic herders for land and water. It also risks aggravating insecurity in coastal countries farther south.
Containing Militancy in West Africas Park W
Crisis Group
Policy efforts to promote gender equality in Uganda built on the Ten-Point Programme that the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) announced in 1984, two years before coming to power. This programme aims to unite all Ugandans under one umbrella irrespective of their gender, religion, ethnicity, and other social characteristics. Under Uganda’s 1995 Constitution, 2006 National Equal Opportunities Policy, and 2007 Uganda Gender Policy, affirmative action has sought to reduce gender gaps, with some success.
Ugandans applaud government efforts to promote gender equality, but want more
Afro Barometer
The present report covers the period from 23 June 2022 to 30 December 2022 and contains an overview of developments and trends in West Africa and the Sahel, and the activities of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS). It also highlights progress made in the implementation of the United Nations integrated strategy for the Sahel, and includes an update on the situation in the Lake Chad basin, pursuant to Security Council resolution 2349 (2017).
Activities of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel
UN Security Council
Believers in equal rights for women are celebrating Sierra Leone’s just-passed Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Act, which mandates equal pay for equal work, maternity leave, financial inclusion, and a 30% quota of women in government appointments and private institutions with more than 25 employees. The act is a major step for Sierra Leone, where women make up only 12.3% of parliamentarians.
Sierra Leoneans welcome government efforts to address gender inequalities
Afro Barometer
West Africa’s economy showed signs of recovery in 2021. In indicating a V-shaped rebound, the average GDP of the region is estimated to grow by 4.3% in 2021, higher than its pre-COVID-19-pandemic growth of 3.5% in 2019. As in other regions of the continent, West Africa navigated the pandemic well as a result of robust monetary, fiscal, and financial policies, the easing of social restrictions, global partnerships, and the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine.
West Africa Economic Outlook 2022
African Development Bank Group