Debating Ideas
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Who Wins from Ukraine’s Drones in Mali?
On 12 September, CNN reported that around fifteen Ukrainian drone specialists are working with the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) in northern Mali. According to ... -
A Child’s Fifth Birthday Should Not Depend on a Foreign Budget
A fifth birthday should be unremarkable. For too many African families, it is not. An estimated 4.9 million children died before reaching the age ... -
Ethiopia’s Foretold War Arrives
No one can claim that a return to war in Tigray and northern Ethiopia is a surprise, but it makes it no less horrifying. ... -
Breaking the Pretoria Architecture: How Ethiopia’s Fragmented Wars Converged into a Single Existential Threat
When the Pretoria Cessation of Hostilities Agreement was signed in November 2022, international observers prematurely celebrated the end of one of this century’s most ... -
China’s Humanoid Robots: A New Test for African Technology Sovereignty
For African governments, the significance of China’s humanoid-robotics programme is not that robots may one day appear on African battlefields. It is a diagnostic ... -
Reading Okot p’Bitek through eyes taught to look away
In 1931, Okot p’Bitek was born in Gulu, northern Uganda. It is perhaps fitting that a man who would spend much of his life ... -
Türkiye’s Security Export: Why Africa’s New Air Force Costs Less Than a Fighter Jet’s Spare Parts
Drones have become a primary mechanism of warfare on many fronts around the world. Those fronts range from the war between Russia and Ukraine ... -
There’s No Conspiracy in the Sahel — There’s a Gap, and Bamako Knows How to Use It
A familiar claim keeps surfacing in the rhetoric of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger’s ruling juntas, echoed enthusiastically by Russian state media: the West ... -
The Rivalry Between Ethiopia and Eritrea Is Reshaping Tigray
On 1 August 2026, Ethiopian federal and Tigrayan forces clashed in western Tigray, a northern Ethiopian region bordering Eritrea and Sudan. By 3 August, ... -
What South Sudan’s mothers teach us about political authority
South Sudan is approaching a critical moment in its political transition. Elections are scheduled for December 2026, while questions around constitutional reform, political inclusion ...
