The Policy Center for the New South (PCNS) has just published its annual report on “The Geopolitics of Africa 2022”, a work which takes stock by major sub-regions and addresses security and defence, politics and governance, as well as society and culture.
Written (in French and in English) by 29 researchers associated with the think tank or invited, under the direction of Abdelhak Bassou, Senior Fellow at the PCNS, this report is in line with the philosophy of Policy Center, which defends the he idea of a “new South” and advocates intergenerational dialogue, specifies the PCNS in a press release.
Two authors of this report took part in the “Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders” (ADEL) program, which each year invites young professionals from all walks of life to Marrakech to take part in the international Atlantic Dialogues conference, organized by the Policy Center. Rich in its pan-African expertise, the annual report on the Geopolitics of Africa 2022 is distinguished by contributions that bring the voices of the continent to bear, notes the PCNS.
The report opens with an analytical panorama by Abdelhak Bassou on the “persistence of crises and destabilizing factors” in 2021, the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic marked by unequal access to vaccines. “The pandemic has accentuated Africa’s vulnerabilities in its struggles against structural phenomena such as terrorism, corruption, degradation of the natural environment, poor governance and conflict,” he notes. The report sifts through the situation in 20 countries in an “Africa in brief” section, before presenting analyzes by sub-regions, including a chapter by Senior Fellow Rachid El Houdaigui on the “distension of ties” in the Maghreb, or that of Khalid Chegraoui on “West Africa between war and peace”, which includes, among other things, a critical analysis of the relationship with France, a former colonial metropolis.
In each section of the report, original contributions offer “focus” on specific themes, such as the United States’ foreign policy in West Africa and the Sahel, analyzed by Rida Lyammouri, Senior Fellow of the Policy Center, or again “The coup d’etat in Guinea and its consequences”, by Oumnia Boutaleb, researcher at the Policy Center. Economist and Senior Fellow Larabi Jaïdi explains why “Covid-19 invites us to rethink human development in Africa”, while guest researcher Alioune Ndiaye signs a documented chapter on “the Covid-19 crisis as an accelerator of reforms in Nigeria” .