Africa Insight - latest Issue

This paper analyses the China-Africa trade and investment cooperation. It mainly focuses on the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). Both primary and secondary data are deployed to solicit viable information. The findings indicate that the China-African cooperation can be traced back to the Bandung Conference and was primarily focused on building ideological solidarity to enhance the Chinese model of communism. However, after the introduction of FOCAC, China-African cooperation was transformed at all level of cooperation, including trade, investment and other related areas of cooperation. China becomes one of the biggest trading partner in Africa and also a huge business and investment opportunities in the continent.

The increase in Chinese outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) in Africa over the last decade has met with concern and criticism, especially with respect to its resource-seeking motive. Though few studies have done so, this paper aims to evaluate the role of natural resources in Chinese OFDI in Africa with the aim of ascertaining whether this resource role in Africa is different for the rest of the world. This paper uses a different methodology and measure of natural resources: Employing an investment gravity model and Generalised Method of Moments (GMM), we estimated the effect of natural resources on Chinese OFDI in Africa. The study finds Chinese investment to be natural-resource seeking in both the African and non-African sample. Also both the foreign direct investment (FDI) source and host countries gross domestic product (GDP) are found to have a significant positive effect on Chinese OFDI in both study samples. The results also illustrate the importance of institutional and political factors in Chinese OFDI and suggest policies to boost Chinese OFDI in Africa.

With an interdisciplinary approach, this paper reviews Islamism within the social movement theoretical framework. The paper attempts a conceptual clarification of the concept of Islamism and uses it to interpret collective behaviour within Muslim groups. It argues that Islamism is a consciousness created by Islamic ideology and principles, used by Muslim adherents as an ‘identity’ under the pseudonym Ummah (community) for collective action. The paper finds that within the framework of the social movement, Islamism has been used to spread the religion of Islam across the globe, but it has also become the tool some Muslims use manipulatively to promote personal agendas that could undermine security. Drawing from observation of unfolding events within global politics, the paper suggests that Ummah should be quick to repudiate Muslims who cast the religion of Islam in a bad light in the eyes of the general public. The paper finally posits that media categorisation of Islamists as terrorists will continue to create grievances that will further lay the foundation for violent collective action across the world. The paper suggests that mainstream media must desist from categorising all Islamists as terrorists.

This article examines good governance-mediation nexus in peace processes and its role in leading to the creation of a peaceful society and sustainable peace. After defining the concepts of mediation, governance and good governance, and examining their interaction, the article critically assesses the African Union’s (AU’s) peace agreement for Burundi to explain that the failure of good democratic governance in the country is actually resulting from the failure of African mediators to understand the role of good governance when conducting the mediation process. The article shows that post-mediation phases in Africa are characterised by the recurrence of armed conflicts and electoral violence because of the failure to bring principles of good governance to the negotiation table. It proves that African mediators are former African leaders whose democratic good governance while in power was lacking; therefore, they are unable to understand the interaction between good governance and mediation when involved in the mediation process. Hence, deploying such leaders to conduct a mediation process is a fatal mistake amounting to burying a conflict alive. The article shows that African conflicts are intrastate in nature, and are triggered by the presence of uneven institutions that protracted bad governance and by the rebels who fight the governments, which state of affairs is exacerbated by a lack of understanding of what good governance means. The article concludes by asserting that it is vital for the deployed mediators to understand the interaction between good governance and mediation, and to teach the parties to understand the principles of good governance, and persuade them to be bound by those principles. Unless this interaction is understood and brought on-board at the negotiation table, conflicts in Africa will remain an unfinished business.

The last four decades have witnessed a growing literature on the Biafra question in Nigeria. Still, the trauma of the Nigerian Civil War continues to spill over into contemporary Nigerian politics. No ethnic group feels this trauma more than the Igbo. Although the accounts of the war are well documented, the link between the traumas of the time vis-à-vis the prolonged Biafra secessionism remains underexplored in literature. Building on the theory of trauma as memory retrieval, this article argues that Biafra secessionist agitations persist because the federal government of Nigeria continues to resonate the experiences of the Civil War through some calculated actions. The findings of this article have implications for both the progress of the Igbo people and the stability of the Nigerian state.

As the global stage prepares for the many benefits and new opportunities brought about by the advances in information and communications technology (ICT), particularly in the context of the fourth industrial revolution, there is little doubt that these new opportunities will usher in new challenges and threats deriving from the growing misuse of ICTs for criminal activities and the increasing malicious use of ICTs by state and non-state actors. Against this backdrop this paper provides a snapshot of cybersecurity ‘preparedness’ on the part of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, (BRICS) countries, to mitigate these challenges. This has been obtained through discussion of literature and media reports written on the topic and through content analysis of some critical policy documents that govern cybersecurity frameworks in the BRICS countries. The paper makes recommendations for the BRICS Think Tanks Council (BTTC) to play a more significant role in shaping policy initiatives collectively, while maintaining sovereignty, should it see a role for itself in shaping a new world order.

Lesotho, like other members of the United Nations, is committed to implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as its post 2015 development agenda up to 2030. The objective of this paper is to assess Lesotho’s experience with the SDGs through an analysis of the prospects and constraints it encounters in their implementation in the country, using desktop methodology. The paper argues that the SDGs have, inter alia, enabled Lesotho to strengthen its development planning through the alignment and integration of the National Strategic Development Plan II 2018/2019–2022/2023 with the SDGs framework. The SDGs have also facilitated a participatory stakeholder engagement in the conduct of the voluntary national review of 2019, which was done in a bottom-up process from community to national level. Moreover, the SDGs have made it easier for the country to promote economic and social inclusion and environmental integration in a more articulate manner than before. However, the paper also notes that more success is hindered by challenges of poor governance, led by weak economic management, corrupt financial management, social exclusion, and unstable as well as non-accountable political governance. The paper recommends that transformative, comprehensive, and inclusive national reforms have to be put in place and practiced in order to facilitate the successful implementation of the SDGs in Lesotho en route to 2030.

The use of Amharic as a sole federal language has been a debatable issue from the start. The main objective of this study is thus to reveal divergent views of federal language use in Ethiopia. To this end, qualitative data was gathered through interviews from 28 purposefully selected key informants and analysed through thematic analysis. Results indicate that the use of Amharic as a single federal language encompasses divergent discourses. It has become a source of conflict, in which the proponents of ‘Amharic only’ are seeking to preserve its status, whereas its opponents are pressing for change. Controversies over the use of one federal language in Ethiopia might, therefore, lead to fierce conflict if a well-designed solution is not provided.

To talk globally about the African continent, as it was articulated during the Conference of Intellectuals of Africa and the Diaspora of 2004 and in the second conference in 2006, Africa will not be able to find its salvation in terms of political, economic, and social development if it does not gather all her living forces around African governments. Thus, intellectuals and academics of Africa must be at the forefront of African political, social, and economic debates to make a real contribution to building a strong African continent in a globalised world. Wherever they come from, intellectuals and academics of the diaspora are also expected to contribute, alongside their colleagues in Africa, to the continent’s influence, while promoting the African renaissance.