ADF

ADF STAFF As Sahel-based terror groups push south, some West African nations have joined forces to push back. Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Togo recently conducted a joint military operation in response to increased attacks by Islamist insurgent groups. Dubbed Operation Goundalgou-4, it included nearly 5,700 Soldiers deployed from November 21 to 27, 2021, in five regions of Burkina Faso that border the other participating countries. Burkinabe Security Minister Maxime Kone called the operation a success. “This pooling of staff and resources has enabled our defense and security forces to carry out several patrol operations, to cordon off areas followed…

ADF STAFF Benin, Ghana and Togo have signed a pact to work together to reduce illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in the Gulf of Guinea. Benin and Togo completed their first joint patrol operation in mid-December. It was funded by the European Union’s Improved Regional Fisheries Governance in Western Africa program, known as PESCAO. Ghana signed the agreement in late December. Besides at-sea patrols, the countries will share information from the Regional Monitoring, Control and Surveillance Centre in Ghana, which was formed by the Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC) in 2021. Other partners include…

ADF STAFF Mali’s military junta has backed itself into a corner. After the transitional government refused to hold democratic elections in 2022, the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) sanctioned Mali on January 9, imposing a trade embargo, withdrawing all ambassadors, and closing its members’ land and air borders with the country. Col. Assimi Goita, the leader of two recent coups in a nine-month period, proposed elections in December 2025 instead of February 2022, as originally agreed upon with ECOWAS. The 15-member regional bloc called it “unacceptable.” “It simply means that an illegitimate military transition government will take the…

ADF STAFF China’s inroads into Africa’s media environment began in 2006 when Xinhua, the Chinese national news agency, moved its regional headquarters from Paris to Nairobi, Kenya. “There seemed to have been a realization that Nairobi could be used as a launching pad,” Joseph Odindo, former editorial director at Kenya’s Nation Media Group and now editorial director at Standard Group, told DW.com. Over the past 15 years, China’s media influence campaign has run parallel to its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) construction projects. Kenya, home to several BRI projects, has become the hub for China’s expanding African media footprint. Broadcaster CGTN…

Wamkele Mene, secretary-general of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat, spoke on January 1, 2021, at the AfCFTA Start of Trading Ceremony Webinar. His comments have been edited to fit this format. Truly today is a historic day, a day in which we start officially trading under the preferences of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Today is a day we take Africa a step closer to a vision of an integrated market on the African continent. This AfCFTA should not just be a trade agreement; it should actually be an instrument for Africa’s development. In this…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE The round black pellets easily could be mistaken for animal dung. But they contain acacia seeds that help regrow Kenya’s depleted forests. Mara Elephant Project rangers have scattered 22,000 “seedballs” around an illegally cleared corner of the Nyakweri forest bordering the Masai Mara wildlife preserve to give nature a chance to regenerate. The forests have been chipped away for pasture, crops and charcoal. Nyakweri has lost more than 50% of its forest cover in the past two decades, according to Marc Goss, director of the project. Goss and his team have been spreading seedballs for three years. Forests…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Night has just fallen in central Côte d’Ivoire, and the hour has come for two men, venturing forth in protective suits, veils and gloves, to collect honey from their bees. The art of beekeeping has spread swiftly in Assounvoue, in the heart of the world’s top cocoa-producing country. Farmers started taking up honey-making to supplement their income. They soon realized that their primary crops did better when pollinated by the bees. Word of the twin benefits spread fast. “In West Africa, you have to harvest the honey at night,” said beekeeper Sebastien Gavini, co-director of Le Bon Miel…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE A South African company wants to help solve the logistical challenge of keeping COVID-19 vaccinations at the extremely low temperatures necessary as they are shipped across the continent. Johannesburg-based natural gas producer Renergen is developing an ultra-cold biologic transport freezer for the task as African countries continue to roll out comprehensive vaccination programs. Vaccines developed jointly by United States pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech must be stored at minus 70 degrees Celsius, a far cry from what much of rural Africa can support. Some nations have capitalized on vast storage and distribution infrastructure to amass stockpiles of shots…

ADF STAFF In Frederick Forsyth’s 1974 novel, “The Dogs of War,” a band of mercenaries slips into a small, fictional African nation at the direction of a Western tycoon bent on deposing the nation’s dictator to exploit valuable platinum. The novel, and the 1980 movie based upon it, tells a violent tale that paints a stereotypical picture of mercenaries: cynical, amoral, highly trained, heavily armed, single-minded and beholden to those who pay them. In Forsyth’s story, the small band of hired guns are veterans of other clandestine battles, operating through shadowy deals, selling their services to questionable benefactors. The modern…

In Russia’s frenzied attempt to flex its muscles, get access to natural resources and increase its geopolitical relevance, it relies heavily on private military companies (PMCs). This strategy produces a small foreign footprint and offers the Kremlin plausible deniability while enriching a small circle of people. President Vladimir Putin’s Russia favors the use of PMCs such as the Wagner Group when forging training and security deals with African nations while positioning itself to access mines and other rich resource repositories. “They act as force multipliers, arms merchants, trainers of local military and security personnel, and political consultants,” according to the…