Africa

Although he wrote only two novels specifically on Africa, David Cornwell, pen name John Le Carré, who died on 12 December, was a colleague of and friend to...

Closer agreement on development assistance and its goals between the European Union and Africa was one of the first foreign policy initiatives to come out of President Ursula...

African governance is in decline and Covid-19 is likely to make it worse, according to The Mo Ibrahim Foundation's 2020 Index of African Governance published on 17 November.*...

One year after the International Monetary Fund predicted that sub-Saharan Africa's economies could expand on average by over 3% this year, the economic outlook is far worse. At...

Back in March, it was the lull before the storm, with predictions of three million deaths from Covid-19 in Africa. Thankfully, the storm never came. Today, it is...

The shadow-boxing over Covid-19 in Africa appears to be over. While retaining measures to protect public health wherever possible, the priority is now shifting to opening up economies...

With Covid-19 positive cases doubling in the last two weeks, Africa is expected to notch up its millionth patient in the coming days. 'We are at a pivotal...

As the World Health Organization warns of rapidly rising Covid-19 caseloads in Africa, its top official for the continent says that poor and crowded urban areas in South...

The message from African finance ministers is that while the overall picture facing the continent is bleak in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, many economies are resilient...

Economists in the international financial institutions have been updating their assessments of the damage the lockdown and pandemic are having on African economies on a weekly basis, we...

Across Africa, lockdowns are loosening even as Covid-19 continues its inexorable journey across the continent. As Johannesburg, Cairo and Lagos feel the heat, other cities and countries that...

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's announcement that the Department for International Development (DFID) will be subsumed into the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in September prompted equal measures of...

Covid-19 is serious enough, but in Africa the unintended consequences of diverting health service resources may be even worse. 'The knock-on effects of Covid-19 on the fight against...

The great hopes of strong growth for Africa's oil and gas producers this year, particularly in East and Southern Africa, have been crushed as companies scramble to cut...

When Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta addressed the nation on 4 June, he outlined a dilemma facing many governments. The scientists were telling him to maintain the lockdown while...

Botswana, Ghana and Zimbabwe have joined Mauritius on the European Commission's list of high-risk third countries which Brussels says are deficient in their fight against money-laundering.

This month farmers across Africa are due to start planting for the main growing season. But the lockdown measures imposed to curb the Covid-19 pandemic risk derailing the...

Radical measures for a restructuring of Africa's commercial debt and the cancellation of some official debt are under way after the offer of a limited standstill on bilateral...

Serial financial crises and political meddling have weakened the operations of the World Health Organisation for decades but the rivalries between the United States and China over the...

Top African and UN officials are desperately lobbying a divided international system for a US$100 billion emergency fund to combat what they fear will be a third wave...

As cases of Covid-19 grow exponentially across the world, so do the public health and economic threats to African states as governments take action. With over 20 countries...

Despite the lower numbers of people infected by the coronavirus in the region, Chikwe Ihekweazu, head of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, warns of the need for...

In a last-ditch bid to remain secretary-general of the London-based Commonwealth Secretariat, Dominica-born British national Baroness Patricia Scotland of Asthal claims she is being unfairly treated because of...

An internal draft of the European Commission's 'Comprehensive Strategy with Africa', seen by Africa Confidential, is strong on rhetoric about a new era of partnership but lacks both...

Africa will be thrown back on its own resources and internal revenue-raising capacity, at least for the short term, as the economies of major trading partners in Asia...

Two developments in the past year will be of seismic importance in 2020: the revolutionary movements in Algeria and Sudan and the start of the African Continental Free...