In Uganda, climate change is leading to longer dry seasons, lowering crop yields and threatening the livelihoods of farmers and pastoralists. A surge in violent cattle rustling at the height of planting season exacerbated the situation. Now competition over increasingly limited natural resources could potentially lead to more conflict.
The U.N. COP27 Climate Change Summit concluded Sunday in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, with a breakthrough in negotiations to set up a “loss and damage” fund. For countries in Africa, the agreement to allocate loss-and-damage financing is hopefully the first of many necessary steps toward a fairer climate transition.
As the United Nations COP27 Climate Change Conference closed Sunday, Egypt, this year’s host, hailed the agreements brokered there as a success. But there continues to be a gap between the climate-change commitments most countries in the Middle East and North Africa have formally expressed and their actual behavior.
Senegalese President Macky Sall, who also serves as the African Union’s rotating chairperson, announced on Twitter that the AU has applied to join the G-20. Many other African leaders pushed for more representation at the forum, but it’s unclear that an AU seat at G-20 table would offer the benefits they seek.
The U.N. COP27 Climate Change Conference kicked off in Egypt this week, capping off a year of contrasts when it comes to climate action. On one hand, several states dramatically increased their climate ambitions. On the other, a series of extreme weather events reinforced the sense of urgency over the climate crisis.
African delegates arrived at the U.N. COP27 Climate Change Conference with little patience for more pledges that they believe will likely go unrealized, especially as many African countries experience extreme climate events while rich, industrialized nations are responsible for the lion’s share of historical global carbon emissions.
In June, the Zondo Commission submitted the final volume of its report on state capture, which laid bare the scale of corruption presided over by the ruling African National Congress throughout the 2009-2018 presidency of Jacob Zuma. In doing so, it also placed a number of uncomfortable issues in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s inbox.
For African populations and governments, the uncertainty and instability on display in both the U.K. and Chinese political systems highlight the bankruptcy of two competing visions of governance that have been held out as models to ensure better development outcomes. Now, it seems like no one system is applicable in Africa.
Kenyan President William Ruto officially announced the deployment of Kenyan troops to eastern Congo as part of an East African regional force tasked with protecting civilians and bringing peace to the region. But there has been little consideration about the length of the deployment and what its main strategic objectives are.
Of all the autocrats who have managed to secure their survival by providing “stability” in a volatile region, Cameroonian President Paul Biya has arguably proven the most skilled. But the structural pressures currently building up around Biya indicate how misguided it is to rely on authoritarian systems to sustain political stability.
The highest-level negotiations between the two sides in Ethiopia’s civil war began last week in South Africa, amid low expectations they will end the two-year war. Nevertheless, the African Union-led talks have been extended, suggesting that, if both sides are not ready to stop fighting, neither are they ready to stop talking.