East Africa Archive

Last month, at the world’s largest mining investment conference, held this year in South Africa, Ethiopian officials emphasized their priority of developing their country’s mining sector, which currently contributes less than 1 percent to GDP. By 2025, they hope to boost that to 10 percent. If successful, Ethiopian officials believe that the mining sector could become the “backbone” of Ethiopia’s industry as early as 2023. In 2016, the Ethiopian government entered the second phase of its so-called Growth and Transformation Plan, an ambitious economic initiative that envisions Ethiopia becoming a middle-income country by 2025. A key component of the plan […]

On Monday, a court in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, ordered the release of a Rwandan-British woman accused of forming an armed group and plotting against the state. Violette Umawahoro, whose husband is an activist in the opposition Rwandan National Congress, was held incommunicado for more than two weeks after her arrest in mid-February. Her friends and family maintain she has no personal involvement in politics, and the court, in letting her out on bail, said prosecutors had presented no evidence to back up their claims. Umawahoro’s release could be viewed as a positive example of the judiciary placing an important check […]

Here are two excerpts from relatively recent remarks by U.S. officials on United Nations peacekeeping. One is from the Obama administration. One is from a Trump appointee. Can you work out which is which? Exhibit A: “If you look at the peace missions in Africa, it has been devastating to see the sexual exploitation, the fraud, the abuse that’s happening. And we have to acknowledge that some countries are contributing troops because they are making money off that.” Exhibit B: “Examples abound of peacekeepers not fulfilling their rudimentary responsibilities, such as not responding when citizens only five miles away from […]

On March 1, Bakri Hassan Saleh was named prime minister of Sudan, the country’s first since 1989. The move immediately ignited talk of potential scenarios for a leadership transition in a country ruled by the same man since that same year. In an email interview, David Shinn, adjunct professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University and former deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum, discusses the appointment’s political implications. WPR: What does the selection of a prime minister suggest for President Omar al-Bashir’s future? David Shinn: The selection of Bakri Hassan Saleh […]