Blue Lines
Multilateralism might get another lease of life if some of Africa's top bureaucrats have their way. One of the few advantages of Africa's balkanisation into 54 states is the voting power that this gives the continent in such organisations as the UN Genera...
Patrick Smith
This week we are covering South Africa's budget, Botswana's election, the repercussions of the killing of the Islamic State leader, a mooted referendum in Kenya, talks on the dam on the Nile between Egypt and Ethiopia and the World Bank's Doing Business r...
Blue Lines
Although he pulled in dozens of Africa's leaders to the first Russia-Africa summit in Sochi on 23-24 October, Russia's President Vladimir Putin is years behind the competition in courting Africa. Russia-Africa trade has doubled to US$20.4 billion over ...
Patrick Smith
We start this week with knife-edge negotiations over Britain's attempts to leave the European Union and their implications for Africa. And then to Nairobi where President Kenyatta is taking on parliament over interest rates. Russia says that 47 African...
Patrick Smith
This week we start with the boost for Ethiopia and Kenya before looking at the gloomy growth forecasts ahead of the IMF and World Bank's meetings in Washington this week. Calls for the British, United Arab Emirates and Indian governments to impose sanctio...
Blue Lines
Batten down the hatches. Shorn of its economic diplomat-speak, the World Bank's latest update for Africa sounds a loud warning about rising poverty, the debilitating effects of discrimination against women and galloping government debt, especially to comm...
Patrick Smith
This week the news agenda starts in Pretoria, where despite a successful summit with Nigeria's President Muhammadu
Buhari, South Africa's President Cyril
Ramaphosa is under mounting pressure to set out a radical new
strategy to get his country out of the ...
Patrick Smith
As many of the African delegations leave the UN's summit in
New York – some are preparing for the IMF and World Bank's annual
meeting in Washington DC in two weeks' time – officials are assessing
the wins and losses. Egypt's President returns to
face deep...
Blue Lines
The opening of the UN General Assembly this week brought out some unlikely commonalities. Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari and Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson both used their speeches to the assembly to rail against tech companies. 'They cannot...
Patrick Smith
This week we start in New York at the UN General Assembly where African and Asian leaders are pressing governments in Europe and North America to do more to combat climate change and contribute more to measures to mitigate the damage that it's causing to ...
