ADF

ADF STAFF Borno State in Nigeria is the birthplace of Boko Haram’s armed uprising. It’s also the province that has been hit the hardest. The terror group has wrought havoc and killed tens of thousands since it formed in the northeastern region in 2009. In the past year, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has worked to expand the size and scope of paramilitary and police forces. The United States is supporting those efforts. “We will direct our attention and strength to reenergizing and reorganizing the security apparatus,” Buhari pledged in a New Year’s Day broadcast amid a spike in insurgent violence.…

ADF STAFF Despite recent setbacks, China continues to bank heavily on exporting coal-based power to Africa through its Belt and Road Initiative. And it does so even as the government promotes renewable energy at home. Since 2000, the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China have funded $51.8 billion in coal projects globally, according to the Boston University Global Development Policy Center. Of China’s 34 coal-fired power projects worldwide, 11 are in Africa. The list of countries includes Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Plants are under construction in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The rest are awaiting approvals…

ADF STAFF The continued presence of foreign fighters in Libya threatens to undermine a peace deal brokered by the United Nations in October 2020. Russian mercenaries who are part of the Wagner Group, which supports Gen. Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA), still are on the ground, as are Turkish Soldiers backing the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA). Under the Juba Peace Agreement, foreign fighters were supposed to leave the country by late January. Weeks after the deadline passed, the United Nations issued a report alleging that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) also maintained contact with Sudanese forces…

ADF STAFF Home to the second-largest rainforest in the world, the Congo Basin plays a crucial role in the world’s biodiversity, water quality and in regulating the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. All of those benefits are under assault. In 2019 alone, nearly 7,000 square kilometers of forest vanished from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Many factors are driving deforestation, from traditional slash-and-burn farming to mining and illegal logging. The development of the trans-African Lagos-Mombasa Highway also has opened previously inaccessible portions of rainforest in Cameroon and Nigeria to development. In the past, tracking deforestation depended…

ADF STAFF For Nigerien Armed Forces (FAN) Soldiers operating in remote regions of the country, first aid training can be the difference between life and death. A United States-led training event helped give Nigerien forces the skills necessary to stabilize wounded Soldiers on the battlefield and move them quickly to a hospital. In conjunction with FAN’s emergency medicine personnel, the U.S. military distributed individual first aid kits (IFAKs) and conducted a one-day medical readiness training exercise (MEDRETE) at FAN’s base in Niamey for 20 Nigerien Soldiers on January 21, 2021. “The medical readiness training exercise illustrated the importance for the…

ADF STAFF Experts are worried that a planned $3 billion coal plant in Zimbabwe will increase pollution and plunge the country further into debt. The plant is to be built in the northern Zimbabwe town of Sengwa, near Lake Kariba, the world’s largest artificial lake and reservoir. Daily power outages in the area have hindered industrial capacity for decades, and the reservoir already is seriously depleted by droughts. China Gezhouba Group Corp. will help build the plant with RioZim Ltd. Commercial Bank of China has formally expressed interest in the project and is negotiating with Sinosure, also known as the…

ADF STAFF Vessels involved in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing are being used for more in Africa than removing tons of fish from already depleted fish stocks and depriving hundreds of thousands of people of their livelihoods. There is a trend of criminal groups using IUU fishing as a cover for drug and weapons smuggling, according to Ecotrust Canada, a nonprofit organization with a focus on fisheries management, and other organizations. The use of small fishing vessels in drug smuggling has tripled worldwide in the past eight years and represents roughly 15% of the total global retail value of…

ADF STAFF A notorious ivory and rhino horn poacher known as Mansour awaits trial in United States federal court after his arrest in July 2020 by Kenya’s Directorate of Criminal Investigations. Mansour, whose real name is Abubakar Mansur Mohammed Surur, was arrested July 29, 2020, at Mombasa’s Moi International Airport as he stepped off a chartered flight from Yemen. Mansour is a Kenyan citizen and has a Yemeni identity card. He is a suspected member of a transnational criminal gang based in Uganda led by Moazu Kromah of Liberia. Chris Thouless, director of the Elephant Crisis Fund at Kenya-based Save…

ADF STAFF The restive Tillaberi region of Niger is part of a vast, semiarid tri-border area of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. Militants attack small towns and villages just south of the Malian border with alarming frequency. In the wake of recent attacks that made international headlines, the federal government and its security forces, known as the FDS, are taking steps to stanch the bloodshed. Tillaberi’s regional government is doing the same and is tapping into a network of local and tribal leaders to partner on their security needs. In November 2020, the Tillaberi government and a U.S. Army civil…

ADF STAFF The jaws of a debt trap are starting to clamp down on Kenya now that payments are due for an infrastructure project financed by huge Chinese loans. When the Standard Gauge Railway connecting Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, and the port city of Mombasa opened to blasts of confetti and streamers in 2017, it was a gleaming symbol of China’s vast plans to connect Asia to Africa, the Middle East and Europe through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Now, it’s another example of the hidden price tag that comes with an infrastructure project that cannot sustain itself. “The country…