With less than a year to go until South Africa’s next national election, several opposition parties have joined forces, hammering out a preelection coalition agreement in an attempt to unseat the ruling ANC. But despite the ANC’s slipping popularity, the opposition has struggled to make significant inroads into its electoral majority.
Amid the fanfare surrounding BRICS’ expansion last month, the longstanding tensions between Egypt and Ethiopia over the latter’s mega-dam project on the Nile went largely unnoticed. In offering both countries membership, BRICS has absorbed a complex regional conflict, raising questions over its potential to shape global affairs.
The first Africa Climate Summit concluded with significant momentum for the continent’s approach to climate diplomacy. For many observers, though, these achievements were overshadowed by concerns over the endorsement of market-based schemes like carbon credits as a way out of the continent’s climate finance quandary.
One hundred days into his term, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu—who won a disputed presidential contest in February—has mostly lived up to expectations, with few surprises. That might be because, amid a struggling economy and pervasive insecurity, not many Nigerians had high hopes for his presidency to begin with.
Depictions of Niger, Sudan and other African states as mere backdrops to geopolitical conflicts between distant outsiders neglect the role played by regional institutions, neighboring states and nonstate actors, while distracting from wider regional trends that will ultimately have a global impact of their own.
A group of five will soon be a concert of eleven. At last week’s summit of the BRICS nations, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa agreed to invite Ethiopia, Argentina, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates to officially join the group on Jan. 1, 2024. The expanded BRICS shows its members’ dissatisfaction with the Western-led economic and political order.