Résilience de l'Afrique : cas du COVID-19 - Interview de Abdelhak Bassou

April 7, 2020

- On annonce une catastrophe en Afrique en relation avec le Covid-19, quelle part de vérité dans ces annonces ? - L’Afrique enregistre-t-elle des défaillances de résilience ? - Que peut-on reprocher à la résilience en Afrique ?

Speakers
Abdelhak Bassou
Senior Fellow
Abdelhak Bassou is a Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South and a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center. He is also an Affiliate Professor at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University. Bassou has had an extensive career in Moroccan National Security, where he served in various capacities including as head of the border division from 1978 to 1993. He was the former director of the Royal Institute of Police in 1998 and served as Head of Regional Security (Errachidia 1999-2003, Sidi Kacem 2003-2005) and as Central Director of General Intelligence from 2006 to 2009.   He holds a master's degree in political science and international studies from the Faculty of Law, Economics, and Social Sciences in Rabat. His academic research delves into ...

RELATED CONTENT

  • Authors
    September 15, 2025
    The October 2025 general elections in Tanzania unfold within a political culture grounded in consensus and institutional continuity. President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s leadership has reopened political space by restoring elite dialogue, easing restrictions on rallies, and facilitating the return of exiled figures. Yet the exclusion of CHADEMA—the principal opposition party—highlights the enduring limits of pluralism. This paper analyzes the Tanzanian electoral process less as a convent ...
  • Authors
    Fadoua Ammari
    September 12, 2025
    The Atlantic Initiative, announced by King Mohammed VI in November 2023 to provide landlocked Sahelian countries with access to the Atlantic Ocean via Moroccan territory, promises to profoundly reshape the bilateral relationship between Rabat and Nouakchott. This research paper examines how this unprecedented project creates new strategic opportunities while raising shared challenges for Morocco and Mauritania. Diplomatically, the rapprochement around the Atlantic Initiative unfolds ...
  • September 11, 2025
    Ce travail apporte un éclairage critique sur l'alignement des dispositifs publics d'orientation des étudiants marocains à l'étranger avec les ambitions de développement du pays. Il interroge la capacité de ces mécanismes à transformer la mobilité étudiante d'une potentielle "fuite des cerveaux" en un véritable "gain de cerveaux". S'appuyant sur une étude de cas qualitative, nous avons mené une analyse de contenu systématique (cartographie) de 204 programmes promus par le ministère d ...
  • September 10, 2025
    This Policy Paper analyzes Jacob Zuma’s July 2025 visit to Morocco as a revealing episode in the reconfiguration of South African foreign policy. Far from being mere protocol issue, the event activated multiple registers of mobilization—anti-apartheid legacy, territorial integrity, and diplomatic coherence—while shifting a dossier long confined to elites into the public sphere. Drawing on a corpus of 2,200 posts on X, and 20 South African press articles, the study shows that the con ...
  • Authors
    Loubna Eddallal
    September 8, 2025
    This paper explores the evolving legal, geopolitical, and technical dynamics surrounding the extension of the coastal shelf of Atlantic African states beyond 200 nautical miles under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). As several coastal states pursue rights over seabed areas beyond their exclusive economic zones, the paper highlights the growing strategic importance of these claims for resource access, particularly hydrocarbons and minerals, and maritime b ...
  • September 3, 2025
    Ce Policy Paper analyse la visite de Jacob Zuma au Maroc en juillet 2025 comme un épisode révélateur des recompositions de la politique étrangère sud-africaine. Loin d’une simple question de protocole, l’événement a activé des registres de mobilisation multiples — fidélité à l’héritage anti-apartheid, intégrité territoriale, cohérence diplomatique et a déplacé un dossier longtemps confiné aux élites vers l’espace public. À partir d’un corpus de 2 200 publications sur X et de 20 arti ...
  • Authors
    September 2, 2025
    In 2019 - well before the onslaught of COVID-19 and the wars in Europe and the Middle East - the central thesis of a policy paper by this author, analyzing the relationship between Africa and the Caribbean, characterized it as one of missed opportunity due to the lack of consistent, meaningful engagement between the two regions - despite the relationship’s special significance given their shared history. Underinvested: The Caribbean African Relationship (PCNS 2019) chronicled the li ...
  • Authors
    August 29, 2025
    After 1994, everything was a priority, and our people were completely broken. But we made three fundamental choices that guide us to this day. One—we chose to stay together. Two—we chose to be accountable to ourselves. Three—we chose to think big. — His Excellency President Paul Kagame, 20th Commemoration of the Genocide against the Tutsi (April 7, 2014) Rwanda’s socio-economic progress since 1994 has been remarkable. Rwanda is rightly considered a showcase of the enduring ...
  • Authors
    Fadoua Ammari
    August 28, 2025
    L’Initiative Atlantique, annoncée par le Roi Mohammed VI en novembre 2023, visant à offrir aux pays sahéliens enclavés un accès à l’océan Atlantique via le territoire marocain, promet de redessiner en profondeur la relation bilatérale entre Rabat et Nouakchott. Cet article examine comment ce projet inédit crée de nouvelles opportunités stratégiques tout en soulevant des défis partagés pour le Maroc et la Mauritanie. Sur le plan diplomatique, le rapprochement autour de l’Initiative A ...