Events

The Policy Center for the New South recently partnered with the Atlantic Council Africa Center on a pair of reports exploring the evolving roles of both traditional and emerging external powers in Africa in the post-COVID era. In its report, Emerging Powers in Africa: Key Drivers, Differing Interests, and Future Perspectives, the PCNS outlines how emerging powers are muscling their way into African markets, crowding a region already beset with security challenges. The complementary Africa Center report, African Agency in the New Cold War: Traditional Power Competition in the Post-COVID-19 African Landscape, focuses on Africa’s traditional external powers breaking down the economic and security flash-points that a “new Cold War” could precipitate, while noting with optimism the significant room for African agency even in sensitive fields like Chinese debt and global tech competition. 

In this framework, the Policy Center for the New South, in partnership with the Atlantic Council Africa Center, will organize on Monday, December 14 from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. (GMT+1) and Wednesday, December 16 from 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. (GMT+1) two regionally-focused launch events. The first session will focus on the Horn of Africa and Red Sea, where conflict in the Tigray region of Ethiopia is winding down alongside a pre-existing scramble for economic and security influence. The second session will feature a discussion of the Sahel, where a US draw-down is rumored despite an uptick in violence. 

Session I: External Power competition in the Red Sea

Foreign powers are grappling for influence across the African continent, but competition has been particularly fierce in the Red Sea. With Ethiopia, long viewed as a bulwark against instability in the Horn of Africa, emerging from conflict, there is a new opportunity to cement the peace with Eritrea. Increased access to the sea could provide an immense peace dividend to the region—and especially to the people of Tigray. How will key external actors, especially the UAE and China, react to this moment of transition? And will the United States and Europe attempt to repair relations with the region, or risk being left out in the cold? 

Session II: External Power competition in the Sahel 

President Trump may not enact his threatened US drawdown of troops from the Sahel, but President Biden will still face pressure to end America’s “forever wars” and reduce the number of American lives and treasure lost to fighting terrorism in Africa. If the United States pulls back from the Sahel, terrorist groups active there may seek to export unrest to more-secure coastal countries like Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Benin, and Togo. Can Europe fill the void? And will Russia, China, or other actors try to move in and assert their own influence in the region?