Interview with Sara Rendtorff Smith #APSACO2018

The Sahelian states of Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso continue to face unprecedented violence arising from multidimensional conflicts. According to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies (2019), “the Sahel has experienced the most rapid increase in activity by militant groups of any region in Africa in recent years. Violent events involving extremist groups in the region have doubled every year since 2015”. In addition to the presence of multiple violent extremist organizations (VEO ...

Tillabéri region of Niger is witnessing unprecedented level of ethnic-based violence. The January 2 massacre caught the national and international actors’ attention, however; the event was preventable. Accessing communities through ethnically charged and other exploitative language has proved to be a game changer for the expansion of violent extremist organizations (VEOs) expansion since 2012. The failure of national and international actors to recognize the seriousness of the situa ...

Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso… L’insécurité fait tache d’huile au Sahel, menaçant de s’étendre aux pays du Golfe de Guinée. Le terrorisme a entraîné la formation de milices d’auto-défense communautaires, et ainsi créé des « friches » sécuritaires dans tout le Sahel, du Bassin du lac Tchad à la région du Liptako-Gourma. Les budgets consacrés à la défense augmentent, contrairement à ceux qui soutiennent le capital humain, santé et éducation. Dans un contexte de croissance démographique so ...

“When I got home late that night, the house was dark and Michelle was already asleep. After taking a shower and going through a stack of mail, I slipped under the covers and began drifting off. In that luminal space between wakefulness and sleep, I imagined myself stepping toward a portal of some sort, a bright and cold and airless place, uninhabited and severed from the world. And behind me, out of the darkness, I heard a voice, sharp and clear, as if someone were right next to me, ...

« Une terre promise » (Fayard), livre événement de Barack Obama, couvre sa campagne et les trois premières années de sa présidence. L’Egypte est le pays d’Afrique dont il parle le plus – et pas seulement à cause du Printemps arabe. L’Afrique occupe à peine 40 pages sur les 840 que comptent les mémoires de Barack Obama. La crise financière internationale, la loi Obama Care et le retrait des troupes d’Irak et Afghanistan ont retenu l’attention du président fraîchement élu. C’est l’Eg ...

In October 2014, Burkina Faso entered a new era when a social uprising resulted in the overthrow after 27 years of President Blaise Compaoré. The uprising was triggered by Compaoré’s attempt to amend the constitution so he could run for another term. In late 2015, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré was elected and sworn as a new president with high hopes for a new Burkina Faso. Corruption, democratic reforms, poverty, and economic development dominated President Kaboré’s inauguration speech ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has been characterized by a shifting balance of power, with some analysts even predicting a new international order in the making. Emerging powers are contributing to the changing power dynamics by competing to increase the influence they have in political, economic, and security spheres. Africa is one of the key spaces where such strategic efforts have been taking place. In such a context, this paper assesses key drivers of emerging powers’ growing engagement ...