Blue Lines
Wealthy governments have been promising to donate surplus Covid vaccine doses to Africa and other developing regions since the start of the year. The fact that very few of those jabs have arrived – only 1% of Africans have received at least one jab – has ...
Blue Lines
Morocco's decision to open its usually tight border controls in mid-May, allowing thousands of migrants into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, showed two important things: how African states can weaponise migration in their dealings with Europe and the double...
Blue Lines
A small group of regional leaders flew in to see President Yoweri Museveni's inauguration for his sixth term of office on 12 May following January's disputed general elections. After sanctions from the United States State Department and censure from the E...
Blue Lines
The synchronicity of two headlines on 27 April – 'Boko Haram two hours from Abuja' and 'Buhari calls on US to move Africa Command HQ to continent' – paints an alarming landscape of the security breakdown in Nigeria and the region. Almost as unsettling is ...
Blue Lines
Foreign aid from governments rose to an all-time high of €161.2 billion (US$192.1bn) in 2020, a 3.5% real terms increase, according to data published this week by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Aid to Africa as a whole increas...
Blue Lines
After the opening of the International Monetary Fund's spring meetings on 5 April, its leading shareholders look set to fire a big bazooka: a US$650 billion issuance of new 'Special Drawing Rights', the IMF's reserve currency. In quantitative terms, this ...
Blue Lines
The Integrated Review of Britain's Foreign and Defence policy, announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson on 16 March, carries mixed messages for Africa. Beyond its tilt towards south-east Asia, Britain wants to boost relations with a narrow band of Africa...
Blue Lines
After a month in which the Gulf monarchies saw the new United States administration in action, with sanctions against top security officials in Saudi Arabia, airstrikes on Iranian-backed militia in Iraq and pressure on United Arab Emirates' expansionism i...
Blue Lines
Clashes between Yoruba and Fulani youths in Ibadan, one of the biggest cities in west Africa, escalated over the weekend of 13-14 February amid local reports that some 20 people had been killed and thousands driven from their homes. Seyi Makinde, governor...
Blue Lines
Do sanctions ever stop grand corruption and human rights abuses? The question is worth asking as Britain slaps asset freezes and travel bans on Zimbabwe's top securocrats – a spy chief and a police chief, and commander of the presidential guard – all of w...
