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Sub-Saharan Africa

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Sub-Saharan Africa is not monolithic. While crises in the Sahel have attracted a great deal of attention, other regions also need to be monitored, and not just through the prism of security.

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Sub-Saharan Africa
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Publications
Date de publication
May 2025

The Contradictory Impacts of Western Sanctions on Economic Relations between Russia and Sub-Saharan Africa

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First Russia-Africa Summit, in Sochi, Russia, October 2019
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First Russia-Africa Summit, in Sochi, Russia, October 2019
Credits : GCIS/Flickr.com
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How does Russia maintain economic ties with Africa despite Western sanctions? An analysis of investments, trade, and the circumvention strategies deployed by Moscow.

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France's Macron Set For Four-nation Tour Of Africa

01 March 2023
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President Emmanuel Macron kicks off a tour of Central Africa on Wednesday in a diplomatic drive to test out a new "responsible relationship" with the continent as anti-French sentiment runs high in some former colonies

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Nigeria’s 2023 Election: Democratic Development and Political Fragmentation

Date de publication
20 February 2023
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Nigerians will go to the polls on February 25 to elect a new president and members of the National Assembly. This marks the 7th in an unbroken sequence of presidential elections held since the country’s return to democracy in 1999. 

Sa'eed HUSAINI
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The Politics of New Cities: Diversification of Actors and Recentralization of State Power in the Case of Diamniadio

Date de publication
17 January 2023
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The construction of new cities on the African continent is in vogue. From multifunctional urban hubs to eco-districts, the images that accompany the announcement of these projects promote an African urban future based on modernity and technology.

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Self-defense Groups, the Pyromaniac Firefighters of Sahel

Date de publication
14 December 2022
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Since 2012, the proliferation of jihadist groups across the Sahel has monopolized the attention of the authorities.forced by the threats they represent and the weakening of their regal power, states are gradually withdrawing from their peripheral rural territories. As a result, populations have organized themselves to become local security providers.

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The Roots of a Quarter-Century of Violence Lie to the East of Congo (Kinshasa)

Date de publication
07 December 2022
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Almost thirty years after the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda, the entire region remains unstable. After Paul Kagame came to power, 1.5 million Hutus fled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. For the Rwandan president, they represented an unacceptable threat. There then followed the First and Second Congo Wars, the consequences of which are still apparent. The recent attacks perpetrated by  the M23 rebels are a new episode in this tragic story.

Colette BRAECKMAN
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How Rwanda Became Africa’s Policeman

21 November 2022
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From Benin to Mozambique, President Paul Kagame is flexing his small country’s military muscle—and transforming the continent’s security landscape.

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China in Madagascar: Between Quiet Politcal Oppurtunism and Intense Trafficking

Date de publication
04 November 2022
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In the context of growing regional rivalries between major powers in the Indian Ocean, the stakes of Sino-Malagasy relations are major. 

François GIOVALUCCHI Juvence RAMASY
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Chinese Influences in Africa 2. Myths and Realities in Economic Relations

Date de publication
06 October 2022
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China and Africa share a strong relationship since the wave of African independences in the 1960s. Nevertheless, China-Africa trade has experienced an unprecedented surge since the late 1990s and has been accompanied by the rise of a discourse of "win-win" partnership between China and Africa. 

Alain KARSENTY Alicia GARCIA HERRERO Johanna MALM Thierry PAIRAULT
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Japan’s Africa aid rivals China in terms of ‘quality over quantity’: analysts

02 October 2022
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Japan has been investing in the continent for longer than China and applies international standards to its infrastructure financing, analysts said. Its pockets may not be as deep, but its support of good governance and democratic principles makes it a tempting development partner for African states.

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New Paradigm for Electrification in Sub-Saharan Africa: How Are Decentralized Hybrid Systems Changing the Game?

Date de publication
23 September 2022
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After several decades of reforms, the situation in centralized power sectors has hardly changed. The sub-Saharan power sector remains underdeveloped, and power sectors are experiencing significant financial difficulties that have been further exacerbated first by the effects of the pandemic and then the war in Ukraine.

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Fragility Factors and Reconciliation Needs in Forest Guinea

Date de publication
31 March 2015
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In December 2013 the first Ebola cases surfaced in Guéckedou district, near the Liberian and Sierra Leon borders in the Forest Region of Guinea. The outbreak quickly spread from Forest Guinea to the rest of the country and, through the borders, to neighbouring countries. It took three months to identify the Ebola virus as the causative agent of the burgeoning epidemic, longer for the Guinean government to understand the importance of treating the outbreak as a national emergency, and even more time for everyone involved to appreciate the great social toll of Ebola.

Béatrice BIANCHI

France and the Fight against Terrorism in the Sahel: The History of a Difficult Leadership Role

Date de publication
28 June 2013
Accroche

Except for its extreme poverty and the disastrous effects of a series of droughts, the Sahel region has been largely out of the spotlight of international attention in the past. Yet the rise of terrorism and especially the creation of Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in 2007 brought the region into the focus of world politics. Initially, AQIM"s activities in the Sahel mainly posed a threat to the stability of the Sahelian states themselves. In an effort to internationalize its agenda, however, AQIM also started targeting Western countries.

Tobias KOEPF

A Class Defined "by Consumption": The Grocery-Shopping Practices of the Lower-Middle Classes in Johannesburg, South Africa

Date de publication
25 April 2013
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The black middle class in Johannesburg is a much debated but ill-defined phenomenon, treated more often by economic players than by social scientists. Far from static and clear, the concept of the middle class is for us relevant insofar as it reveals crucial dynamics of the society. 

Elodie ESCUSA

The Sahel: A Crossroads between Criminality and Terrorism

Date de publication
04 November 2012
Accroche

Besides the ongoing political conundrum in Mali, it is the entire West African region, from Guinea Bissau to Mali, which is under threat of destabilization. Indeed, for many years now, terrorists and drugs traffickers have been synergizing their respective illegal activities, transforming the Sahel into a narcoterrorist zone. As a result, the Sahel has become a dangerous crossroads for drugs, crime, terrorism and insurgency.

Abdelkader ABDERRAHMANE

How to Create a Public Policy in a Failed State: The Challenge of Securing Land Rights in Eastern Congo

Date de publication
22 October 2012
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In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) 32 years of dictatorship and almost ten years of war have bled the country dry and left its administration incapable of providing the population with basic services and the government incapable of applying or even formulating public policy.

Thierry VIRCOULON Florence LIEGEOIS

Is Africa's Recent Economic Growth Sustainable?

Date de publication
11 October 2012
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Hardly a week goes by without an African investors’ conference or growth summit. 

Shantayana DEVARAJAN Wolfgang FENGLER

A Victorious Anti-insurrection Strategy? The Insurrections of 2010 in the Jonglei State of South Sudan

Date de publication
27 March 2012
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On May 16 2010, a few weeks after its first elections, the government of the semi-autonomous province of South Sudan (GoSS) had to confront two rebellions in the Jonglei Province. South Sudan may appear unified behind the banner of the SPLM/A, but in fact it is nothing of the kind.

Marc-André LAGRANGE

The Recent Blossoming in Relations between China and Madagascar

Date de publication
20 February 2012
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The question of the Chinese presence in Madagascar is very accurate. It is an opportunity for us to portray the sino-madagarscan relations.

The Politics of Amnesty in the Niger Delta : Challenges Ahead

Date de publication
22 December 2010
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Armed groups, many affiliated to the Niger Delta-wide political organisation MEND, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, proliferated throughout the oil producing states, particularly from early 2006 onwards. In January 2006, MEND declared war on the oil industry pending the resolution of long term political grievances relating to poverty and underdevelopment, the poor regulation of an environmentally polluting oil industry, and the alienation of local people from rights to land and resources in the Niger Delta.

Kathryn NWAJIAKU-DAHOU

Arabs and Tuaregs in Colonial and Malian Armed Forces: A Story in Trompe-l'Oeil

Date de publication
24 June 2010
Accroche

This contribution consists in analyzing the unifying or opposing relations between the central State-power and the southern part of central-Saharan populations, mainly Arabs and Tuaregs, within the relational framework of colonial and Malian armed forces. The French Colonial State and the Malian independent State (from the 1960 independence movement) are both considered by Arabs and Tuaregs as external entities, whatever the form of their relation, good or bad.

Charles GREMONT

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Related centers and programs
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Macro view of a political map of Ethiopia
East and Central Africa Observatory
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The East and Central Africa Observatory is a 3-year research project (2023-2025) that Ifri is carrying out jointly with the French Institute of Research in Africa (IFRA) in Nairobi for the French Ministry of Defense, and more specifically its International Relations and Strategy Division (DGRIS). This observatory focuses on the main political, security and geopolitical developments taking place in the geographical areas covered by itself. This is achieved through the regular production of research notes, in English or French and the organization of an annual seminar around a key theme. For our research notes and conferences, we call on internationally acknowledged experts in the topics covered. This Observatory began in 2016, under the title of Observatory of Central and Southern Africa within Ifri's Sub-Saharan Africa Center. 55 notes were drafted between 2016 and 2020.

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Subsaharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa Center
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Founded in 2007, Ifri's Sub-Saharan Africa center produces an in-depth analysis of the African continent and its security, geopolitical, political and socio-economic dynamics (in particular the phenomenon of urbanization). The Center aims to be both, through various publications and conferences, a space for disseminating analyzes intended for the media and the public but also a decision-making tool for political and economic actors with regard to the continent.

The center produces analyses for various organizations such as the Ministry of the Armed Forces, the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the French Development Agency (AFD) and even for various private supports. Its researchers are regularly interviewed by parliamentary committees.

The organization of events of various formats complements the production of analyzes by bringing the different spheres of the public space (academic, political, media, economic and civil society) to meet and exchange analytical tools and visions of the continent. The Sub-Saharan Africa Center regularly welcomes political leaders from different sub-Saharan African countries.

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Sub-Saharan Africa
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