East Africa Archive

In late April, Stephen Dhieu Dau, South Sudan’s finance minister, visited his counterpart in Turkey to sign a trade and cooperation agreement. As the young country’s civil war drags on and relations with the U.S. and other traditional backers remain tense, South Sudan’s officials are pursuing ties with new diplomatic partners. In an email interview, Brian Adeba, associate director of policy at the Enough Project, describes that outreach and explains why the U.S. is still in a position to exert pressure on South Sudan’s government. WPR: How have relations between South Sudan and its traditional backers, especially the United States, […]

The annual Fragile States Index was released last week, and no one will be surprised by the presence of South Sudan and Somalia, which remain the most fragile states in the world. By contrast, the indicators that middle powers, and even the United States and the United Kingdom, show some troubling signs of governance weakness might raise some eyebrows. Diplomats, military officials and development economists have yet to crack the code on what to do about weak and failing states. State fragility is a chronic reality of international politics, and the responses to it have only rarely produced success stories. […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss the potential pitfalls of Donald Trump’s first overseas trip as U.S. president. For the Report, Andrew Green talks with Peter Dörrie about how Uganda is struggling to maintain its progressive approach to refugees as more than 2,000 South Sudanese cross into the country each day. If you’d like to support our free podcast through patron pledges, Patreon is an online service that will allow you to do so. To find out about the benefits you can get through pledging as little as $1 per […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. France’s new president, Emmanuel Macron, visited Africa for the first time as head of state on Friday, traveling to northern Mali, where France led an intervention to drive out Islamist extremists in 2013. Greeted by Mali’s president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, in the northern city of Gao, where French troops are still stationed, Macron offered a vision largely in line with what he espoused during the campaign: tough talk on terrorism and an emphasis on the need for development so that […]

Uganda has been celebrated for its progressive approach toward refugees. But its open-door policy is being tested by the ongoing flood of arrivals from neighboring South Sudan. The conflict in South Sudan has been raging for more than three years, but it has proliferated after a tentative peace deal collapsed in July 2016. Since then, more than 841,000 South Sudanese have fled the country, raising the total number of refugees to nearly 1.7 million, according to the United Nations. Roughly half of them have headed to Uganda. Listen to Andrew Green discuss this piece on WPR’s Trend Lines Podcast: On […]

The drought affecting the Horn of Africa has aggravated conflicts over land use in northern Kenya this year, leading to dozens of deaths. Since March, security forces have been trying to evict herders who have occupied ranches and conservancies. The situation briefly received global attention last month when Kuki Gallmann, a celebrated conservationist and author, was shot during an altercation with armed herders. In an email interview, Murithi Mutiga, Horn of Africa senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, describes the recent history of resource conflict in the area and what role politics might be playing in the violence this […]

Uganda recently began withdrawing troops from the Central African Republic that had been tasked with hunting Joseph Kony, the notorious leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group. Kony founded the LRA in 1987 in northern Uganda, and his fighters became notorious for abducting children and forcing them to serve as soldiers and sex slaves. The rebel leader remains at large, but Uganda’s military recently said the group’s “means of making war against Uganda have been degraded” and that LRA commanders had “been killed, captured or surrendered.” Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, the commander of U.S. Africa Command, offered a similar […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series about China’s One Belt, One Road infrastructure initiative, also known as the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. In January, Chinese Foreign Minster Wang Yi started his annual Africa tour with a stop in Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo—a sign of the importance Beijing places on Madagascar’s role in the One Belt, One Road initiative. Last month, during Malagasy President Hery Rajaonarimampianina’s state visit to Beijing, the two countries signed several agreements to accelerate Chinese investment in energy, aviation, transportation, ports and airport construction. In an […]