08/9/2022
New British prime minister Liz Truss has never said much in public about Africa. But, in my view, her administration must pay more attention to its relationship with Africa. African countries are increasingly important partners both in geostrategic and material terms. Neglecting them will weaken Britain itself and diminish its global role. Britain’s relations …
RAS Director, Dr Nicholas Westcott, who is also currently a Visiting Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, has just published an ECFR policy note on Shared Fortunes: Why Britain, the EU, and Africa need each other. It highlights the i...
03/5/2022
The Republic of Congo (also known as Congo-Brazzaville to avoid confusion with the Democratic Republic of Congo whose capital Kinshasa lies just across the river) came to town in London last week. The investment promotion road show was a very pro...
14/3/2022
African leaders, forty of them at Head of State or Government level, returned from the EU-AU Summit in Brussels on 17-18 February. Big issues were discussed – and I will return to them below – but scarcely had they landed back home when the world was turne...
28/2/2022
Another day, another coup in the Sahel. Within 12 months, Chad, Mali and Burkina Faso have all fallen under the de facto control of the military, as has Guinea on the coast. Democracy seems in retreat. Jihadists appear to be advancing. And destabilised states ...
31/1/2022
All wars end. It is just a question of how long it takes and how many people die in the process. Ethiopia is turning into Africa’s forgotten war, partly because so little reliable information is available, with the authorities reluctant to allow indep...
17/12/2021
On 14 September 2021, Africa Confidential, International Crisis Group and the Royal African Society co-hosted a high-level conference on Climate, Conflict and Demography in Africa. An audience of over 1,000 people from the UK, North America, Europe and Africa ...
20/10/2021
In Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove, a hapless British RAF officer (played by Peter Sellers) tries to prevent a maverick US general precipitating nuclear Armageddon. Spoiler alert: he fails. So did Boris Johnson in trying persuade President Biden to delay hi...
01/9/2021
Introduction This year is the 120th Anniversary of the Royal African Society. This is worth celebrating, but also examining. Relations between Africa and Britain have changed dramatically in that time, as has the Society itself. In some ways, they reflect each...
14/6/2021