Africa Defense Forum - Africa Defense Forum

Gen. Adem Mohammed, chief of general staff of the Ethiopian National Defence Force, spoke during the opening ceremony of the African Land Forces Summit, a conference co-hosted by U.S. Army Africa in Addis Ababa on February 18, 2020. His…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Tunisia’s Interior Ministry deployed a police robot to patrol the streets of the capital and enforce a lockdown imposed in March 2020 to help the country battle the spread of COVID-19. Known as PGuard, the…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE A chestnut horse appears on a dusty Bangui street, trotting among the bashed-up cars, motorbike taxis and crumbling buildings. The rider is a well-known figure in the capital of the Central African Republic (CAR):…

THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION The United Nations is testing drones equipped with mapping sensors and atomizers to spray pesticides in parts of East Africa battling an invasion of desert locusts. Hundreds of millions of the voracious insects…

REUTERS In his poem Rough Path, Yousef Kamara reflects on his years selling drugs and stealing as the leader of a street gang in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown. “Like a traveller in a rough jungle/Self propelling all alone/Edging…

ADF STAFF As a frightening new respiratory illness flared in western China and eventually made its way into Europe, Africa was dealing with several other infectious disease outbreaks. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC),…

MAJ. GEN. PRINCE C. JOHNSON III As the world faces an invisible enemy, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, it might be helpful to revisit Liberia’s experience during the 2014-2016 outbreak of the Ebola virus. Although we made…

ADF STAFF As poachers go high-tech with helicopters, animal sedatives and high-powered rifles, the men and women protecting endangered wildlife are going old school — with dogs. Conservation authorities in Zimbabwe and South Africa…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Photos by AFP/GETTY IMAGES When Fredie Blom was born, the automobile was in its infancy, the first airplane was less than a year old and World War I was in the future. More than 116 years later, Blom still got…

ADF STAFF Twenty years ago, few had heard of cyber warfare. Religious extremism was not considered a threat to most countries. And piracy was thought to have been eradicated a century earlier.  Things can change quickly.  As land…