Yet despite Saied’s apparent opposition to joining the Abraham Accords, his decision in November 2023 to halt the Tunisian parliament’s controversial bill criminalizing normalizing ties with Israel provided a glimpse into the president’s cost-benefit analysis over measures that could alienate the West completely. It signaled an opening, even if a very narrow one, that the possibility of Tunisian—Israel rapprochement might not be as far-fetched as experts predict, and that even a rogue actor like Saied sees the benefits in joining a Westernized coalition during times of war.  Yet in the long run, especially after the war in Gaza, Tunisia’s historical openness to the West might present an opportunity to advance normalization between the two countries.

Stubborn challenges: Israel and Tunisia’s rocky relations

Israel and Tunisia do not currently maintain any kind of formal relations, but this has not always been the case.

Beginning in the 1950s, under former Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba, limited ties developed between the two countries. These included informal connections and meetings between politicians from both sides, initiated by diplomats from each country. The relationship served mutual interests—Israel sought recognition from an Arab state, while Tunisia aimed to secure support for its development, particularly in sectors such as agriculture and tourism. Consequently, in the nineties, Tunisia and Israel established low-level diplomatic relations (culminating in the opening of “interest sections” in each other’s countries, serving as de facto embassies), making the relations between the countries formal.  

However, the Palestinian issue has long been a central element of Tunisia’s foreign policy, causing attrition between Israeli and Tunisian diplomatic relations. Tunis has long expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people and their struggle for self-determination and has historically defended the two-state solution. More importantly, Tunisia hosted the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) headquarters from 1982 to 1993 after Yasser Arafat was forced to flee Beirut, Lebanon, then under siege by the Israelis during the first Israel-Lebanon War. Tunis hosted the PLO headquarters until the Oslo Accords, when it relocated to Gaza and the West Bank.  

This period helped cement closeness between Tunisians to the Palestinian cause, a sentiment further solidified by Israel’s deadly aerial attack on Hammam Chot on the PLO headquarters in 1985, killing a number of civilians and causing further resentment among Tunisians. Tunisians never forgave Israel for what they perceived to be an illegal incursion on their territory.

In 2000, with the outbreak of the Second Intifada in Israel and Palestine, relations between Israel and Tunisia entered a period of further crisis, leading to the suspension of official ties. While the relationship had deteriorated significantly already, the outbreak of violence between Israelis and Palestinians rendered diplomatic efforts virtually impossible.

A continuation of the deteriorating relations underpinned the decades that followed. During Tunisia’s Jasmine revolution, Israel remained on the fence about improving ties with the new political forces, fearing the rise of an anti-Israel posture. Meanwhile, the Tunisians passed a new Constitution in 2014, underscoring its commitment to the Palestinian cause, and open letters signed by academics and researchers calling for criminalizing ties with Israel circulated among political forces.

Under Saied’s current rule, these tensions have escalated significantly, including when he rejected Israel’s 1948 borders and called for the “full liberation of Palestine,” while avoiding any overt condemnation of Hamas after its October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. On some occasions, Saied adopted an overtly antisemitic posture, accusing “the Zionists” of plotting the deadly 2023 floods in  Libya that killed some four thousand people, a trope linked to the long-held antisemitic prejudice that Jews somehow control the world. His remarks sparked outrage across Israeli media.  

Tunisia’s foreign policy has recently shifted markedly into a more anti-Western stance, cozying up to Iran in the process.

In May 2024, Saied visited Tehran to pay respects to the late President Ebrahim Raisi, marking the first-ever visit of a Tunisian president to  Iran. That same month, rumors swirled in Italian and French news outlets of unusual air movements by Russian aircraft in the coastal city of Djerba, raising eyebrows at a potential Tunisia-Russian alignment. In August of the same year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Tunis for the second time in over a year, pledging to help the country grapple with its wheat drought.

Why would Tunisia choose to normalize ties with Israel?

But there is even historical precedent to disrupt this trend.

Historically, Tunisia has tended to align more with the West than with the broader Arab world. However, its geographic location has made it essential to maintain strong relations with neighboring countries, particularly Algeria and Libya. While Tunisia has strategic interests in its ties with Algeria, especially in the areas of energy, trade, and finance, former Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali sought to moderate the country’s financial connections to Arab countries and aimed to avoid the kind of reliance on crude oil revenues seen in other Arab states in the region.

Beyond the more apparent economic and trade incentives for Tunisia to normalize relations with Israel, Tunis could also gain from reigniting this closer alignment with the West, particularly as Iran and Russia, with whom it has recently signaled an openness to closer ties, face mounting setbacks that may force them to turn inward. Both Moscow and Tehran have faced major setbacks on the international stage. The former is dealing with the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and an exorbitant number of human losses, and the latter is temporarily retreating after receiving a significant blow from Israel during the ongoing regional war between Israel and Iranian proxies. Tunisia is far from being a strategic priority for either power, and these setbacks should worry Tunisia, which might be left on its own to deal with an increasing migration threat from sub-Saharan Africa and an impending economic crisis.  

Another factor that might lead Tunisia to normalize ties with Israel is the potential for hedging between regional powers. Tunisia is particularly susceptible to external influences from countries with greater international stature, particularly when looking at its ongoing relationship with Algeria. Algeria, for its part, has steadily been courting Tunisia by supporting Tunis economically and politically, including a 2022 grant worth 200 million dollars from President Abdelmadjid Tebboune to help with the country’s struggling economy, and offering leniency and cheaper prices on electricity and gas from the Transmed pipeline. Tunisia, grappling with high public debt and stagnant growth, and with the economy desperately reeling since the Covid-19 pandemic, has had little choice other than to accept Algeria’s offerings. Algeria’s rationale for influencing Tunisia stems from a need to counter perceived external Western interference—exacerbated by the signing of the Abraham Accords between its regional rival Morocco and Israel—which has heightened its sense of isolation and vulnerability.

Normalizing ties with Israel could allow Tunisia to hedge between regional powers to avoid full alignment with Algeria and maximize its personal gains. It would reduce Tunis’ risk of overdependence on Algeria, and limit the risk of collateral damage should the relationship sour and challenges emerge for Algeria itself.

Israel’s interest

Normalization between Israel and Tunisia could offer Israel several potential advantages. These include contributing to regional stability and peace, expanding international recognition and support, and possibly encouraging other countries to engage more openly with Israel. Additionally, normalization could pave the way for stronger ties in trade, tourism, and investments, especially in the field of agriculture and irrigation. It would also promote Israeli legitimacy in the region, reducing international efforts to isolate it, increasing its international standing, and opening new business opportunities in Arab markets.

From a strategic perspective, improved relations with Tunisia might also help limit Tunisia’s cooperation with countries hostile to Israel, such as Algeria, Libya, and Iran. It could even reduce the potential for renewed activity by terrorist groups operating in or from the region.

That said, many of these benefits are not unique to Tunisia—they reflect the broader advantages Israel could gain from normalizing relations with any additional Arab country.

Threats and pathways to improvement

On the other hand, normalizing with Israel poses a severe threat to Tunisia, which Saied may not be apt to overlook. Firstly, it will inevitably fracture its relationship with Algeria, alienating Tunis’ primary economic backer. Algeria has had no qualms in stressing its disdain for the Abraham Accords, recently reiterating its historic backing of a full Palestinian state, the support of which is enshrined in its constitution. Algeria would certainly take it personally and would do everything in its power to retaliate, including rescinding its economic partnership, nullifying diplomatic ties, and reinstating tighter controls on late payments.

Secondly, Saied will face severe internal backlash. Tunisians have been at the forefront of pro-Palestinian demonstrations, the likes of which the country has not witnessed since the 2011 revolution. In a time when Saied is tightening control over the country, he still understands the importance of maintaining public support, and normalizing ties with Israel may pit the population against him, lessening his power and legitimacy.  

While Israel perceives normalization with Tunisia as naturally beneficial, the same cannot be said in reverse, and normalization between the two does not seem feasible as long as the war in Gaza continues.

If the West wished to see normalization between these two countries prevail, it would have to provide Tunis with significant concessions. These could take the form of economic support through International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans with fewer austerity measures, or simple economic bailout packages with few strings attached.

However, such a decision carries significant risks, namely the potential erosion of the IMF’s credibility and legitimacy on the international stage. Additionally, the West, particularly the United States, can seek to leverage its ongoing military partnership with Tunisia to retain strategic influence.  This could involve conditioning Tunisian aid to agreements such as the obligation to maintain secrecy over military knowledge and capabilities, especially when dealing with enemies such as Iran. This could restrict Tunisia’s movement while placing greater value on Washington’s ongoing support.

Normalization between Arab countries and Israel is still a top foreign policy agenda for US President Donald Trump’s administration. While Israel’s war rages on in Gaza, Trump has made no secret of his wish to see Saudi Arabia join the Abraham Accords, a feat which will undoubtedly help him reach his objective of becoming the peacemaker of the century.

While the potential for these two countries to normalize may seem farfetched, there are many strategic benefits for both that go beyond what meets the eye. Analysts may do well to keep an eye out for potential signs of rapprochement, as even small shifts may signal deeper political changes in the region.

Alissa Pavia is the Associate Director of the Atlantic Council’s North Africa Program.

Maayan Dagan is a visiting research fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs.

The post Beyond the gridlock: The case for Tunisia-Israel normalization appeared first on Atlantic Council.

With growing instability in North Africa and the Sahel, and intensified geopolitical competition in the Mediterranean, the United States, Morocco, and Israel have an opportunity to spearhead a forward-looking joint investment fund and coordination forum that would transform diplomacy into durable infrastructure that delivers on tangible results.

Jointly governed by Morocco, Israel, and the United States, this fund would both directly and jointly coordinate finance strategic projects in energy, digital infrastructure, advanced industrial, and regional security. An instrument like this would be a perfect marriage between US financial and political convening power, Morocco’s industrial platforms, and Israel’s innovation ecosystem to collectively enhance competitiveness, create jobs, and secure regional supply chains. For a Washington calling on partners to stand up, establishing a fund would help empower the three countries to support long-term regional stability and collective prosperity that both showcases and deepens the benefits derived from the Abraham Accords. 

The problem and the solution for an alliance without strategic leverage

Since the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020, the normalization of relations between Morocco and Israel has opened a new era of cooperation. Politically and economically, signs of rapprochement are evident: increasing bilateral visits, sectoral agreements, business initiatives, and emerging technological partnerships. Yet this momentum remains fragile, fragmented, and incomplete.

Without a shared mechanism, cooperation between Morocco and Israel remains vulnerable to political fluctuations, lacks visibility for long-term investors, and fails to reach the scale needed to reshape regional dynamics. While isolated successes exist—such as joint innovation programs or sectoral agreements—they remain disconnected and difficult to replicate. A structured platform would allow the three parties to consolidate trust, pool resources, and define common priorities across security, energy, industry, and technology. This is a major missed opportunity to move beyond ad-hoc engagements at a time of rapid transformation across the geopolitical and geoeconomic landscape, while strategic challenges are proliferating, particularly from instability in the Sahel, increased geopolitical competition in the Mediterranean, and rising migration pressure toward Europe.

A convening forum and trilateral investment fund, jointly governed by Morocco, Israel, and the United States, would be an effective tool to give the strategic alliance deeper geopolitical weight. This central body would be tasked with coordinating disparate lines of effort across each country’s respective public and private sectors and providing direct financing for high-impact strategic projects in key divisions, including energy, critical infrastructure, industrial transformation, security technologies, defense industry, maritime industry, and logistics innovation.

The forum would be designed not as a development aid mechanism but rather as a sovereign investment tool that could generate measurable returns. Its operational model would be based on shared governance between the three states, including having representatives from the private sector and diaspora communities, and a rigorous, transparent selection of projects based on economic viability, strategic relevance, as well as clear investment return for the forum’s backers.

What the United States gains through a trilateral fund

As global power dynamics continue to shift, the United States must go beyond supporting traditional bilateral alliances and reimagine its most important growing strategic partnerships, as with Israel and Morocco. Intentionally curated regional platforms are capable of producing tangible and lasting outcomes that would also reliably return real value from investments. Therefore, the proposed trilateral investment forum would constitute an important innovation in both regional Mediterranean policy for the United States and offer important lessons for new mechanisms for US engagement that combine traditional diplomacy, economic strategy, and direct returns on mutual interests.

The model would ensure that the United States improves its long-term standing through a durable, coherent, transparent, and scalable architecture. This fund is especially timely and relevant for three primary reasons.

First, the fund would serve as a counterweight to the growing influence of rival powers—namely, China, Russia, and Iran. All three players are advancing their agendas across North Africa, the Sahel, and the Mediterranean through major investments in infrastructure, energy, ports, and security. If designed with proper financial resources, this proposed trilateral forum would provide a credible alternative for financing and competitive projects that would promote US interests and support local innovation ecosystems.

Second, the fund would deliver value that would help publicize the “normalization dividend” that was expected from the Abraham Accords. Five years after their signing, few concrete mechanisms have emerged to convert diplomatic momentum into long-term economic prosperity, largely due to the absence of a standard operational vehicle to coordinate and scale projects. Since the Accords were signed, most engagement has remained bilateral and unstructured, often driven by individual ministries, private actors, or external partners without a shared vision or platform. Moreover, in the absence of a dedicated fund or permanent forum, many successful initiatives—particularly in business, innovation, and security—remain under the radar and disconnected from broader strategic messaging. A trilateral forum could lay a model that could support the overall expansion of the Abraham Accords, demonstrating Washington’s ability to support strategic and enduring projects with key regional partners, advancing regional security and prosperity.  

And third, the fund would give the United States a results-driven tool of influence and a mechanism to return value to the American taxpayer. Unlike one-off aid programs or broad diplomatic commitments, this fund could generate measurable benefits, including local job creation, inclusion of American companies in regional initiatives through the requirement for US primes, growth in trilateral trade, and supply chain security, all while integrating American partners into the overall ecosystem of the Abraham Accords.

Roadmap and success indicators

The implementation of the trilateral investment fund should follow a three-pronged and phased implementation strategy, with the ultimate goal of achieving a well-structured governance architecture and a clear remit for the new body:

1. The initial phase focused on political agreement and framework design, including trilateral deliberations on the working level across all three parties.
2. The secondary phase focused on deploying high-impact pilot projects in priority sectors, potentially through the Development Finance Corporation or other appropriate funding mechanisms.
3. The final long-term structuring phase aimed at scaling the mechanism and embedding it within an enduring institutional architecture, such as a jointly governed trilateral fund.

To ensure credibility and effectiveness, the fund must deliver measurable outcomes based on clear criteria, including economic impact (mobilized investment, job creation, industrial upgrading), tangible strategic alignment (political engagement, intergovernmental coordination, diplomatic returns), and proven replicability (ability to adapt the model to other regional cooperation frameworks).

A new trilateral forum that delivers on the promise of the Abraham Accords is a unique opportunity to support American engagement in an area of critical geopolitical importance.  By aligning capital, innovation, and market access, this forum would not only reinforce the foundations of the Abraham Accords but also project a stabilizing influence across the Afro-Mediterranean space at a time of intense competition and uncertainty. It would offer the United States a modern, agile, and measurable tool of engagement that would competitively address the core sovereignty, security, and economic concerns its partners face in the Global South.

Aïssa Christophe Agostini is a strategic economic advisor and founder of Prosper Atlas, a consulting firm focused on trilateral partnerships between the United States, Israel, and Morocco.

The post A blueprint for a trilateral Morocco-Israel-US investment fund appeared first on Atlantic Council.

“The Secretary reiterated that the United States recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara and supports Morocco’s serious, credible, and realistic Autonomy Proposal as the only basis for a just and lasting solution to the dispute,” reads the statement issued by the State Department after the visit. Nevertheless, one obstacle persists: Dismantling the obsolete and dysfunctional United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO).

This time, the United States went further by urging the parties to engage in discussions without delay, stating that Morocco’s Autonomy Plan is the only acceptable framework for dialogue. Rubio even stepped up to offer to facilitate the process, signaling that the only way out of this fifty-year colonial impasse may be outside the United Nations and its legacy of failure to secure a sustainable solution for the Sahraoui people.

A mission without a mandate

As its name stipulates, the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara was initially established in 1991 by Security Council resolution 690 to prepare for a referendum in which the people of Western Sahara would choose between independence and integration with Morocco. However, the mission failed to deliver on its mandate and only served to maintain a state of paralysis throughout the years. It is essential to clarify that while the MINURSO monitors the ceasefire, which still holds for nearly thirty-five years between Morocco and the Polisario Front separatists, it is in no way an active peacekeeping mission, and Morocco continues to administer de facto over 80 percent of the Western Saharan disputed territories since the Spanish exit in 1975. MINURSO staff remained spectators, even during the rare skirmishes that were reignited along the sand wall, when Morocco decided to retake the strategic Guerguerat crossing in November 2020 to open trade routes with Mauritania.

Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations Secretary-General envoy to Western Sahara, was set for defeat from the start. Since 2022, de Mistura has felt out of place in a fast-moving international context, shifting in favor of Morocco.

First, the United States recognized Rabat’s sovereignty over Western Sahara in conjunction with re-establishing diplomatic ties between Morocco and Israel in December 2020, knocking down the chessboard in a fragile geopolitical context where MINURSO had maintained the status quo between Morocco and Algeria.

Then came the coup de grace by the two former colonizers of Morocco and Western Sahara, who are at the source of the current superfluous borders, when Spain sided with Morocco in 2022. France followed in 2024, and over twenty-nine countries decided to open diplomatic representations in Western Sahara as a sign of support for the Moroccan stance.

The Italian diplomat himself indicated in October 2024 his intention to step down, alluding to his inability to mediate between a Morocco emboldened by overwhelming international support and an Algeria obstinate in supporting the mirage of Sahraoui self-determination until the very end. In his latest faux pas, Staffan de Mistura proposed the partition of Western Sahara, suggesting that the envoy and the MINURSO are neocolonial instruments from the past, wasting a sixty-one million dollar annual budget, funded in majority by the United States.

Another flagrant example of MINURSO’s irrelevance is how the disputed Western Sahara borders have been, for decades, uncharted territories for terrorist activities from al-Qaeda to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and, more recently, a fertile ground for Iranian and Russian influence. Besides gathering intel and filing situation reports, the Mission has done very little to address the flourishing drug and human trafficking business in the disputed territories, leaving this task to the Moroccan and Algerian military.

The diversion of humanitarian aid destined for Sahrawis in the camps in Tindouf, Algeria, also continues to raise concerns, especially with evidence showing that much of the aid is subject to corruption and reselling in open markets like Nouadhibou in Northern Mauritania.

The impracticality of a Sahraoui referendum

Several founding myths surround the Western Sahara file, making a referendum a preposterous and impractical solution—a reality that Western allies like the United States started grasping in recent years.

Contrary to other conflicts, where Indigenous people claim the right to self-determination based on their distinct cultural identity, the Saharaoui people are not native to North Africa. The Arab tribes of Beni Hassan, who trace their ancestry to the Yemeni tribe of Maqil, started moving westward to the Maghreb around the thirteenth century, invited by the Almohad empire of Morocco that needed to reinforce its rule by balancing the Amazigh tribe with the Arab warrior populations. If anything, the Hassani people were the ones who pushed the Indigenous Amazigh tribal confederation of Sanhaja out of the Sahara after the massacre of Char Bouba War in the seventeenth century.

The Hassani people today are transnational communities inhabiting large sections of Mauritania, Algeria, Morocco, and Western Sahara—hence the impossibility of carrying out a census of who gets to participate in a referendum. To complicate things further for the MINURSO, the Alaouite sultan Moulay Ismail had established the “Guich System”, a feudal system where these very Hassani tribes were used to counter Amazigh rebellions in exchange for land up to the nineteenth century. The descendants of these fighters still live around the capital, Rabat, Marrakech, and Sidi Kacem, and still assert their Sahraoui roots.

In the Moroccan-administered portion of the territory, the central state had additionally provided generous incentives, including double salaries and subsidized gas and essential subsistence items, since the seventies for those willing to relocate to the Sahara, and two generations at least have been in the disputed land. Even in the five refugee camps in Algeria, where about 173,600 individuals still live, it is extremely hard to determine who is a Saharaoui and who came to Tindouf as a result of a multitude of other conflicts in the Sahel. Due to all these complexities, the MINORSO has consistently failed since its establishment to come up with voter lists that would be acceptable to all parties, thereby nullifying the prospects of a referendum and the relevance of a UN Mission entrusted to organize it.

What many Sahraoui people want

In a recent field study in July 2024 to Dakhla, Laayoun, and Boujdour, I covered nearly four hundred miles and spoke to dozens of civil society activists, journalists, officials, and ordinary Sahraoui people from my own tribesmen of Oulad Dlim. Most interviewees in the Moroccan-administered portion of Western Sahara (about 1.1 million inhabitants according to the September 2024 census) expressed extreme fatigue from five decades of conflict and a desire for normality and prosperity. They seemed more hopeful for a sustainable resolution through the Moroccan federal advanced regionalization plan proposed in 2006, which preserves their cultural identity and gives them sovereignty over local governance and natural resources under the Moroccan flag.

It was interesting to observe the shift in the Moroccan strategy toward the Sahara conflict, transcending the purely security approach under Driss al-Basri in the 1990s, beating and arresting demonstrators, to a vision focusing on regional development, a dynamic tourism sector, and the looming hope of the $1.2 billion Dakhla Atlantic harbor megaproject—the cornerstone of the kingdom’s Atlantic Initiative. This recent economic boom made some interlocutors confident in the future, although many stated that Morocco hasn’t provided any details of how the autonomy plan will work in practice and how much control they will have over their natural resources. It’s important to note that the research didn’t include Sahrawis in the camps, who may remain attached to self-determination after five decades on a different trajectory.

For the past thirty-four years, MINURSO has consistently deceived the Sahrawi people by failing to deliver on its mission, promoting a laissez-faire culture, and holding hundreds of thousands hostage to complicated geopolitical calculus. Now, the time is up, and the Sahrawi communities can no longer afford another fifty years of political stalemate. The parties to the conflict, along with US and trans-Atlantic allies, will need to defund, dismantle, and terminate it so the autonomy plan can start taking shape.

In The Revenge of Geography, Robert D. Kaplan said that “borders are not just lines on a map; they are a reflection of power dynamics,” and today’s dynamics are calling for greater accountability for UN programs like the MINURSO and for out-of-the-box decisive solutions under Trump’s leadership.

Sarah Zaaimi is a resident senior fellow for North Africa at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East programs, focusing on the Western Sahara conflict. She is also the center’s deputy director for media and communications.

The post Why it’s time to terminate the UN’s dysfunctional mission in Western Sahara appeared first on Atlantic Council.

France’s departure is indicative of a larger shift in the region. The Sahel’s geopolitics have changed dramatically in the last five years. Since 2020, military juntas have seized power in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. They have gradually driven out thousands of Western troops, including troops from France, the European Union, and the United States. These troops were performing capacity-building missions and conducting counterterrorism operations. They have since been replaced, in large part, by Russian paramilitaries. The existing regional security architecture is in shambles, following Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger’s withdrawal from the G5 Sahel Joint Force and, more recently, from the Economic Community of West African States.

The Sahel is in the middle of a transformative process that has ushered in new leaders, military strategies, and foreign alliances. It is imperative that the United States rethink the bipartisan assumptions that have underwritten its Sahel policy. The region is experiencing profound change, and US policy must adapt accordingly.

Outdated assumptions, new realities

US policy toward the Sahel has rested on these four unspoken assumptions, all of which must be updated if Washington aims to help stabilize the region and improve its standing there.

1. Western allies’ involvement can achieve US regional security objectives.

For at least a decade, US policy has taken for granted that allies’ involvement in the Sahel would generate access, bolster influence, and help achieve US regional security objectives. This is evidenced by the fact that US resources were marshalled in support of partner-led efforts. Under Operation Juniper Micron, for example, which began in 2013 and lasted for roughly a decade, the US military provided logistical support, as well as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, to enable French operations in Mali. Most Western troops deployed within the Sahel were not American.

There is nothing wrong with burden sharing or deconfliction. These measures can eliminate redundancy, reduce the cost of defense engagement, and amplify operational effects. That said, it would be wrong to assume that ally involvement translates directly into US gains. Perceptions of foreign powers vary, and it is not clear that Western investment earns the United States any additional influence. In fact, aligning itself with France, an unpopular former colonial power, may have inadvertently harmed US interests. The United States has steadily lost soft power on the continent since 2021. After Niger’s junta expelled French troops, Washington hoped to avoid a similar fate. The US military ultimately failed to differentiate itself and withdrew.

Moreover, relying on allies to advance its security objectives exposes the United States to risks if its they depart. The United States had few options to address rising instability in Mali after French and European Union troops withdrew in 2022. The situation has only worsened in the years since. Mali is currently ranked third among the countries most impacted by terrorism. Terrorists attacked the capital city this fall, indicating that they are capable of operating in large portions of Mali’s territory. This could pose a threat to US interests, facilities, or personnel.

2. An “outside-in” approach can prevent the spread of instability beyond the Sahel.

US policy has also assumed that investments in defense, economic development, and good governance can prevent the spread of instability from the Sahel to coastal West Africa. Some experts contend that Washington should adopt an “outside-in” approach, shifting focus from the Sahel to its southern neighbors. Proponents of this approach argue that very little can be done to improve stability in the Sahel, and that the United States would be better served partnering with peripheral states to bolster their defenses. The “outside-in” approach involves dramatically increasing assistance to coastal West Africa while reducing US assistance to the Sahel.

To this end, US leaders emphasize the importance of the Global Fragility Act, a law passed in 2019 that provides funding to curb instability in Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, and Togo, among others—but does not address its origins in the Sahel. If it is not addressed directly, however, Sahel-based instability is likely to intensify.

The data speaks for itself. Last year was the deadliest in the Sahel’s history. The effects of this instability are evident in the coastal states of Benin and Togo, where al-Qaeda-affiliated Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) has begun to consolidate its presence. Terrorist groups, especially JNIM, are poised to continue their push southward into coastal West Africa.

The “outside-in” approach rests on the assumption that, with sufficient assistance, coastal West African states can build institutional capacity faster than terrorists can expand operations southward. Unfortunately, there is limited evidence to support this claim.

3. States would forgo partnerships with US adversaries if they knew the consequences.

A third assumption embraces the idea that Sahel states would forgo partnerships with US adversaries if they appreciated the consequences. The United States has largely relied on messaging to dissuade states from expanding cooperation with its adversaries. US officials point out that the support offered by Washington’s adversaries is ineffective. “It’s self-evident that a Russian role, whether it’s Wagner or it has a GRU label, has not demonstrably improved the lives of Africans,” said Molly Phee, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, during an interview in March 2024. That same month, an interagency delegation cautioned Niger against deepening its ties to Russia and Iran.

Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have all ignored these warnings, partnering with Russia on counterterrorism in the past few years. Their leaders are rational and likely aware of the potential consequences, but they faced a difficult choice. The United States is legally restricted from providing these states assistance, as each experienced a coup d’état. Sahel leaders were not persuaded by US messaging. Absent competing offers, and facing an acute threat, these leaders opted to pursue ineffective security assistance from US adversaries.

4. The loss of forward-deployed positions in Chad and Niger critically threatens the United States’ ability to achieve its regional security objectives.

Last year, officials warned that withdrawals from Chad and Niger would prevent the United States from achieving its security objectives in the region. “If we lose our footprint in the Sahel, that will degrade our ability to do active watching and warning, including for homeland defense,” said General Michael Langley, the commander of US forces in Africa. From Niger, the US military was able to monitor threats in neighboring countries, such as Libya and Mali. 

Langley has a point. The US military must remain engaged in the Sahel if its goal is to provide strategic warning of threats to the United States. Proximity to the threat is important to this mission, but so are partnerships. The United States needs strong relationships with African partners, built on coordination, information sharing, and strategic access. In both Chad and Niger, the greatest loss was arguably that of willing and capable local partners.

The United States could still secure its vital national interests if it pursued light footprints and distributed security assistance across several African partner countries. This approach may also obviate the need for big base operations, offering a cost-effective and flexible solution.

What comes next

US policy options are constrained by the situation on the ground. The United States is legally restricted from providing certain forms of defense and development assistance to countries that experience military coups d’etat, a category that includes Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. This presents challenges, but it does not mean the United States is entirely without options. US leaders must still assess whether the risks of inaction outweigh those of engagement, but, at the very least, this exercise should foster a more thoughtful, constructive debate on the issue.

The United States could still pursue legal, limited, and nonlethal security cooperation with these states. It could provide critical enablers, such as force protection, military medical assistance, or logistical support. It could provide training on how to respond to improvised explosive devices or deliver humanitarian aid. Assistance could gradually be expanded if these states move toward democratic governance, reduce extrajudicial killings, and enhance military accountability—or curtailed if they fail to do so. The best way for the United States to promote regional stability and credibly compete against its adversaries is to address Sahel countries’ security concerns.

Finally, while maintaining investments in the Sahel, the United States could focus on building partner capacity in coastal West Africa. The “outside-in” approach constructs a false dichotomy, in which US policy can prioritize either the Sahel or coastal West Africa. The two regions are inextricably linked, and instability in one inevitably threatens the other. Investing in both affords the United States the greatest opportunity to prevent terrorism’s spread and secure its own interests. 

The challenges facing the Sahel are immense, but they are not insurmountable. By reevaluating long-held assumptions and adapting policy to the rapidly changing geopolitical environment, the United States can play a vital role in the region. Amid adversaries’ encroachment and terrorist groups’ expansion, the United States must adjust its approach to maintain its relevance and protect its interests. There are opportunities to do so, but success will depend on a willingness to pursue new policies, with a clear-eyed consideration of the risks and rewards that lie ahead.

Jordanna Yochai is a defense analyst, whose portfolio includes the West African Sahel. She is currently on leave from the US Department of Defense, pursuing a master’s degree at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).

The positions expressed in this article do not reflect the official position of the US Department of Defense. The US Department of Defense does not endorse the views expressed in hyperlinked articles or websites, including any information, products, or services contained therein.

The Africa Center works to promote dynamic geopolitical partnerships with African states and to redirect US and European policy priorities toward strengthening security and bolstering economic growth and prosperity on the continent.

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On February 1, AFRICOM conducted airstrikes targeting a local branch of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) in the remote Golis Mountains in northern Somalia. AFRICOM later announced that the airstrikes managed to kill their main target: Ahmed Maeleninine, an ISIS recruiter, financier, and leader responsible for the deployment of jihadists to the United States and Europe. Following that strike, there have been a series of strikes against both al-Shabaab (a branch of al-Qaeda) and ISIS-Somalia, firmly placing the region at the forefront of the new administration’s kinetic military activities.

While most of the conversation about US military presence around the world has focused on paring back, in Somalia, the United States appears to be taking the opposite approach. The approach surprised some, in part because US President Donald Trump had withdrawn seven hundred US troops from Somalia during his first term. But the shift shouldn’t come as such a shock. It shows a broader understanding of a new reality: That combating terror globally starts in Africa.

Africa is at the forefront of the war on terror; in 2024 alone, the African Union reportedly recorded more than 3,400 terrorist attacks and 13,900 resulting deaths on the continent. And what is happening on the continent affects the wider world—Somalia in particular is an unfortunate showcase of that.  

ISIS-Somalia, for example, shows how terrorist groups have become embedded in the continent. Since breaking away from al-Shabaab in 2015, the Somali branch of ISIS has been growing exponentially. AFRICOM reported that just last year, the group had doubled in size. What’s more, rumors persist that Abdul Qadir Mumin, the leader of ISIS-Somalia who reportedly became the global leader of ISIS in 2023, survived a US strike last year. Thus, it’s clear why the United States is placing such attention on the group. While unconfirmed, the mere possibility that the leader of ISIS is not of Arab decent and is based in Africa signifies just how terror and the continent have become intertwined.

The involvement of terrorist groups on the continent is by no means limited to Somalia. From the Great Lakes of Central Africa to Mozambique, terrorist groups are prevalent—as are their financiers. Nowhere, however, are terrorist groups more prevalent than in the Sahel, where they have been expanding and strengthening for years. An array of groups—including Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, the Islamic State in West Africa Province, and Boko Haram, among others—now call the Sahel home. They even battle each other for territory and power.

In the past several years, a series of coups have driven out democracies from the Sahel and sought to replace US and European Union support with Russian mercenaries. But, as has been seen across the region, Russian support has hard limits. For example, in Mali—where leaders turned to Russia for military support—al-Qaeda jihadists briefly took over Bamako’s airport last year and posed for photos with the presidential jet. Even away from the hotbed of the Sahel, the limits of Russian mercenary support were made clear in Mozambique, where the Wagner Group was pulled from an operation targeting al-Shabaab after twelve mercenaries died. As this broader dynamic changes in the Sahel, jihadists groups are still gaining power.

So, what’s next?

Expect increased US attention toward Africa from a counterterrorism perspective. From what has been displayed so far, the United States’ tactics are looking quite muscular. Will this attention include rapprochement with the Sahelian juntas? That is still unclear. In weighing rapprochement, the Trump administration is sure to remember the lessons of the 2017 Tongo Tongo ambush in Niger, in which a joint US-Nigerien mission pursuing a leader of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara was attacked, resulting in the deaths of four US Special Forces soldiers. At the time, the ambush was the deadliest attack against the US military in Africa in decades. 

In recent years, global attention has focused on Eastern Europe and conflict in the Middle East rather than African conflicts. Yet, with international terror and jihadist groups now entrenched in the continent and pursuing global aspirations greater than carving out territory in Africa—presenting a major threat to the United States and its allies—attention is needed. The war on terror will be fought in Africa, and whatever direction that takes, the United States will need to be involved.

Some involvement is already underway. Notably, at a time when discourse about US global deployments is focused on withdrawals and wind-downs, discussions over US presence in Africa are taking the opposite direction. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, whose first visit overseas conspicuously included the AFRICOM base in Germany, said, “Africa is very much the front lines of a fight from Islamists . . . We’re not going to allow them to maintain a foothold, especially to try to strike at America.” Notably, it was in a meeting with AFRICOM leaders that Hegseth signed a directive easing restraints and executive oversight on foreign US airstrikes and the deployment of US commandos.

Last month’s airstrikes in Somalia are likely the first of many. And while many analysts are loath to guess what this US administration will do on the foreign affairs front, the fact remains that combating terror in the modern era will require action in Africa.

Alexander Tripp is the assistant director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.

The Africa Center works to promote dynamic geopolitical partnerships with African states and to redirect US and European policy priorities toward strengthening security and bolstering economic growth and prosperity on the continent.

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Executive summary

Africa is increasingly asserting its participation in the advancement of emerging technologies by engaging in active dialogues and devising roadmaps for the development, deployment, and regulation of these technologies. However, strategies to employ emerging technologies vary widely both in levels of progress as well as regulatory mechanisms. This report explores how five African countries—South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, and Zambia—are strategically navigating the governance of new technologies to enrich their citizens’ lives while mitigating potential risks. It focuses on three key emerging technology domains, namely: connectivity, digital public infrastructure, and artificial intelligence (AI).

Beginning with an analysis of the foundational digital technology policies around data protection and governance and cybersecurity, the country reviews highlight the current landscape of laws, and strategies governing each of the emerging technologies of interest. By exploring the strengths and weaknesses of each country’s policy landscape across these technology domains, the report offers insights into prospects and challenges in harnessing emerging technologies for societal good.

The report finds that governments are generally optimistic about the potential impact of emerging technologies on economic development in their respective countries. This is reflected in the large public investment in technology infrastructure, promotion of innovative ecosystems, and the integration of information and communication technologies (ICTs) into e-governance and e-services toward a holistic digitalized economy and society. The countries’ multistakeholder approaches highlight the need for responsible governance while promoting active private-sector engagement for the public good.

Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, and Ghana were found to have comparatively robust policies for each emerging technology examined, or at least—as is the case with Kenya—documentation or drafts in the form of gazettes and public consultation documents. Government efforts are more prominent in the AI domain, given the increased attention it has garnered lately. However, these frameworks are hampered by limited implementation capacities, poor infrastructure, policy fragmentation and overlap, low digital literacy levels, and a growing digital divide. Zambia on the other hand, while having strong aspirations to become an ICT-enabled knowledge economy, lacks dedicated policies pertaining to emerging technologies. Although the country’s data-protection laws, intellectual property, cyber security, and consumer protection provide a foundational framework, more updated regulations are required to keep pace with the speed at which emerging technologies are playing an increasingly pivotal role in citizens’ daily lives.

A SWOT (i.e., strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis of the broader digital-technologies sector across these countries reveals some universal themes. Strengthwise, governments are generally proactive and enthusiastic about engaging new technology issues, and ICT authorities tend to adapt quickly to new developments by publishing subsidiary laws, releasing draft statements, or convening multistakeholder workshops, where national policy frameworks are absent. An overarching rather than specific sectoral or technology-domain approach also drives national technology pursuits, where for example, all the five countries examined have a national ICT/digital economy strategy which predates and already makes foundational provisions for emerging technology policies. Policy-formulation processes were driven by stakeholder engagement and public consultations, as seen in regular calls for contributions and multistakeholder convenings leading up to policy enactment. Yet huge disparities were observed within countries, where rural and marginalized urban communities, as well as women, are left behind by governmental technology ambitions. This calls for updated policy frameworks and strategies that emphasize inclusion and other sociopolitical considerations to avoid deepening inequities.

For Africa to leverage emerging technologies for socioeconomic development while maintaining accountable and transparent systems, legislative frameworks must be streamlined alongside strong institutional integration to ensure effective enforcement. It is imperative that policymakers develop a strong understanding of emerging technologies to enhance their capacities for developing comprehensive policies to address them. Equally important is raising public awareness to protect the African people’s digital rights and foster safe digital environments.

Ayantola Alayande is a Researcher at the Global Center on AI Governance. There, Ayantola works on the African Union Continental AI Strategy and the African Observatory on Responsible AI. He is also a researcher at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, where he focuses on industrial policy and the future of work in the public sector.

Samuel Segun, PhD is a Senior Researcher at the Global Center on AI Governance. He is also an AI Innovation & Technology consultant for the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), where he works on the project ‘Toolkit for Responsible AI Innovation in Law Enforcement’.

Leah Junck, PhD is a Senior Researcher at the Global Center on AI Governance. Her work explores human-technology experiences. She is the author of Cultivating Suspicion: An Ethnography and Like a Bridge Over Trouble: An Ethnography on Strategies of Bodily Navigation of Male Refugees in Cape Town.

The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) has operationalized the study of disinformation by exposing falsehoods and fake news, documenting human rights abuses, and building digital resilience worldwide.

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Almost a year since his election, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye now has a clear mandate to carry out reforms, following his party’s resounding victory in November’s legislative elections. He must now turn his focus to continuing along the democratic track, lifting the constraints associated with credit rationing and leveraging commodity-based industrialization, and setting Senegal up for robust economic growth and welfare improvements.

By the end of the presidential election early last year, outgoing President Macky Sall—who had attempted to postpone the election, a move that led to deadly protests—congratulated Faye, calling the elections the “victory of Senegalese democracy.” Such a victory is important for Senegal, as democracy (contrary to what Chirac suggested) is not a luxury but a necessity for national reconciliation, the legitimacy of national institutions, and, ultimately, shared prosperity.

The presidential election was a victory not only for Senegal’s democracy but for democracy globally, rekindling confidence internationally in a system of government that has come under strain in Africa, especially in West Africa, where military coups have surged. That boost in confidence comes as people in even Western democracies grow dissatisfied with how democracy works in their countries. For example, an Ipsos poll in 2023 conducted across seven Western countries (including France, the United Kingdom, and the United States) found that most respondents believed the economy is rigged to the advantage of the rich and powerful and that “radical change” is needed to improve the political system.

In that poll, 70 percent of American respondents and 73 percent of French respondents—whose countries are seeing rising political polarization—said they believe that the state of democracy has declined in their countries in recent years. Moreover, the 2024 Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index ranked both the United States and France as “flawed democracies.”

While massive amounts of campaign financing are considered a prerequisite (and perhaps the most important attribute) for winning an election, Senegal’s presidential election was a reminder that conviction and ideas still matter. Faye—who secured 54.28 percent of the vote as an independent after his party was banned—defeated candidates who had far more financial firepower and ample time to rally support on their campaign trails. Despite being released from prison just a little over a week before the presidential election, Faye’s message and program were in sync with people’s aspirations and garnered broad-based support at the ballot box.

Faye promised to improve the living conditions in Senegal. For too long, the country has contended with widespread poverty, especially in rural areas where as many as 57 percent of people are considered poor. Furthermore, Senegalese youth continue to face high unemployment. The informal economy—which is generally associated with low productivity and endemic poverty—has become a major piece of the economy, accounting for nearly 37 percent of Senegal’s gross domestic product (GDP). Recently, the rising cost of living and income inequality have exacerbated Senegal’s socioeconomic challenges. Inflation has proven particularly sticky and is eroding household purchasing power. Amid these challenges, increasing numbers of Senegalese migrants are risking their lives to sail the seas en route to Europe in search of better opportunities.

Faye has also promised to fight corruption, promote good governance, and strengthen the rule of law and democratic institutions. For years, a “strongman” culture across Africa has enabled collusion between politicians and multinational companies, which has weakened agency and popular ownership of policies to undermine economic opportunity and exacerbate income inequality. This is especially the case in countries rich in natural resources, which are more vulnerable to corruption due to the significant revenues generated by resource exploitation, management, and trade.

Departing from the norm, Faye declared his assets in the lead-up to the presidential election. Upon becoming president, he announced he would conduct an audit of Senegal’s oil, gas, and mining sectors to rebalance them in the national interest. These moves establish baselines against which the people of Senegal can assess the president’s work toward tackling corruption and enhancing efficiency in the allocation of resources, with an ultimate goal of achieving more inclusive growth and shared prosperity in the country.

These are important steps in the right direction. Improving welfare for the Senegalese people requires a fundamental transformation of the economy. Expectations in Senegal are high following the discovery of major oil and gas reserves a few years ago. There are similarly high expectations for Africa as a whole. Despite its immense natural-resource wealth, the continent has, over the last several decades, become the world’s epicenter of poverty: Africa has the largest share of extreme poverty rates globally and is home to twenty-three of the world’s poorest twenty-eight countries.

This starkly contrasts with Nordic countries and the Gulf states, which have successfully leveraged their natural-resource wealth to boost prosperity in a span of a few decades. This contrast is partly due to the fact that rather than processing its own natural resources, Africa instead largely exports them overseas, increasing the prevalence of macroeconomic shocks and the risk of poor governance—both of which adversely affect the investment climate and heighten growth volatility.

But Senegal, arguably a latecomer to the hydrocarbon world, can learn from other African countries’ management (and mismanagement) of natural resources.  

Considering the experience of the most successful oil-rich countries, Faye should look to alter the structure of value chains to retain more production and refining processes locally. If Senegal can nurture these industries, it will set up the country for commodity-based industrialization that expands employment opportunities, enhances technology transfer, and accelerates integration into the global economy. This will help Senegal avoid a deterioration in commodity terms of trade, which is fueling internal and external imbalances. Last October, Moody’s downgraded Senegal’s long-term credit rating, citing a significantly weaker fiscal and debt position.

There are mechanisms and conditions in Africa that would help Faye in localizing natural-resource production and refining processes. The African Continental Free Trade Area’s rules of origin (which prioritize made-in-Africa goods) should help catalyze the production of intermediate and manufactured goods and the development of robust regional value chains. The scale of the continental market should help Senegal offset the potential losses of international trade associated with expanding protectionist barriers in a geopolitically fractured world.

The rise of globally competitive African businesses necessitates large-scale, long-term investment, so reforming the banking system will also be important. Affordable patient capital is particularly critical in Senegal, where domestic credit to the private sector remains very low (31.3 percent of GDP, versus 126.8 percent in Norway) and overwhelmingly short term. According to a report by the Central Bank of West African States, more than 80 percent of loans issued in 2022 had a maturity within less than two years.

Faye has an opportunity to achieve the systemic change he promised. Democracy has provided a path to greater ownership of policies that equalize access to opportunities and raise living standards in Senegal and more generally across Africa, a continent rich in resources and where the people are no longer prepared to accept intergenerational poverty as an inevitability. But democracy must not be regarded as an end; it must be seen as a means to greater security and prosperity. Thus, Faye must actively use the opportunity provided by the rekindling flame of democracy to usher in a new era—one that yields huge democratic and economic dividends.

Hippolyte Fofack, a former chief economist at the African Export-Import Bank, is a fellow with the Sustainable Development Solutions Network at Columbia University, a research associate at Harvard University, a distinguished fellow at the Global Federation of Competitiveness Councils, and a fellow at the African Academy of Sciences.

The Africa Center works to promote dynamic geopolitical partnerships with African states and to redirect US and European policy priorities toward strengthening security and bolstering economic growth and prosperity on the continent.

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Doing so will require facing the roots of the tension. There are deep-seated elements of discord between the two governments. These elements relate to Algeria’s colonial past, Algerian migration to France, and the divergence of their positions over Western Sahara. The shared history between Algeria and France is complex. That history is marked by more than a century of France’s colonization of Algeria, which ended with a bloody war of liberation. The two countries’ shared history has also witnessed successive waves of migration from Algeria to France. The relationship between the two governments has been rather rocky over the past decades with occasional periods of reconciliation.

For a while, the close relationship between the two heads of state, Abdelmadjid Tebboune and Emmanuel Macron, seemed to have brought about a hopeful rapprochement between the two countries. In 2021, Macron announced the creation of a “memory and truth commission,” involving both Algerian and French historians to mend wounds from the history of French colonial rule. Discussions were underway on the return of Algerian cultural artifacts and archives from the colonial period. That rapprochement came to a halt after Macron officially affirmed Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in October 2024.

A diplomatic route to resolve the discord is not only still possible but imperative. There is a lot more at stake than just the welfare of Algeria and France. Considering the shared history and the deep ties between their populations, the pair is at the center of a matrix of relationships between Europe and Africa and between the Global North and Global South more generally.

The tensions between Algeria and France are flaring up in the context of deepening rifts among Global North and Global South countries over trade, migration, energy, environmental and climate cooperation, and the rules-based international order. But these unfavorable geopolitical circumstances are all the more reason for the two neighbors on both sides of the Mediterranean sea to resolve their differences and provide a model for how other nations can reconcile North-South divides. For example, France and Algeria could cooperate to combat wildfires in the Mediterranean basin, which continue to kill hundreds people, destroy hundreds of thousands of hectares of land, and to devastate biodiversity and people’s livelihoods.

More and more, “sovereigntist” waves both in the North and South are pushing countries to close their economies. There is also a growing trend of politicians scapegoating the “other.” That said, if Algeria and France could resolve their differences, it would open new avenues to help partner further not only on combating wildfires, but also on security, energy projects, and finding new pathways to solve migration issues. The two countries must bear in mind their joint responsibility to ensure stability in the Mediterranean Sea and beyond, as well as to look forward to develop further economic and security cooperation.

The Mediterranean Sea has served as the crossroads between civilizations in the east and the west for millennia. Yet, it has become the backdrop for thousands of tragic journeys by refugees and migrants heading north toward Europe. A reinvigorated relationship between Algeria and France would serve to rekindle the potential for commerce and prosperity in the Mediterranean and beyond. Algeria is the doorstep to Africa, as France is for Europe. Yet, the economic ties between the two countries are well below what they could be. Total trade was just under twelve billion dollars between the two countries in 2023 and the stock of direct investment from France in Algeria that year was well below three billion dollars. Building common ground between these two countries could boost trade and investment, increasing both nations’ prosperity.

Just as France and Germany have become the engine of European integration after having fought bloody wars, France and Algeria could become an engine for partnership between Europe and Africa. For instance, as green technologies are becoming economical not just in solar but soon perhaps with hydrogen, the partnership between Algeria and France could help with the transfer of technology that will spur investment and trade in energy across both sides of the Mediterranean. Similarly, in agriculture and agribusiness, there is an opportunity for increases in investment and trade that can mutually benefit of not just Algeria and France but the whole of Africa and Europe.

The galloping demography of the African continent far outweighs that of Europe, which should lead investment to flow massively from the North to the South. There are, of course, important frictions that prevent that. To be sure, deeper investments, including in infrastructure, require further progress on the investment climate in Algeria, as well as removing nontariff barriers to economic integration in Africa. But increasing investments between Africa and Europe also requires a new way for the two continents to view and treat each other.

Something else is required, too: Europe should move away from the paternalism of former colonizers, which has alienated many Africans. That may sound remote from economics and business, but that is likely a major reason why the relationship between Africa and Europe is stuck. Algeria and France’s relationship epitomizes this tension. Small but symbolic steps were taken to bridge the gap in perspectives between Algeria and France over their colonial past. These steps should continue to take place.  

The geographic proximity and societal ties between Algeria and France should allow the two countries to reinvent the relationship between Africa and Europe and, more broadly, between the Global North and Global South. A successful reinvention of France-Algeria relations could serve as a model for Europe-Africa relations based on mutual respect that face up to the wounds of the past while looking to the opportunities of the future.

Rabah Arezki is a former vice president at the African Development Bank, a former chief economist of the World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa region and a former chief of commodities at the International Monetary Fund’s Research Department. Arezki is now a director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Studies and Research on International Development, and at the Harvard Kennedy School.

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Evolution of freedom

The Freedom Index illustrates well two important aspects of Nigerian institutional development in the last three decades. First, the transition to democracy explains the sharp increase of the Index score in 1999, which closes the gap with the average of the Sub-Saharan Africa region. Second, the often volatile evolution in the subsequent decades is a sign that the liberalization process has not been free of challenges and inconsistencies. Politically, the country has consistently held elections since the turn of the century, even though these have often fallen short of high levels of fairness and transparency. In terms of economic policy, while the successive governments have enacted varying degrees of reforms, these efforts have been somewhat inconsistent and not often coherent depending on the sector we analyze.  

The economic subindex exemplifies well this latter point, with really high short-run fluctuations throughout the period of analysis, mainly driven by the trade and investment freedom components. To be sure, the oil industry is central for Nigeria’s economy, representing 90 percent of its exports, and the fluctuations in both measures is, to an important extent, driven by the situation and the legal framework governing this sector. For about twenty years, the country has had internal debates about new oil industry legislation, and a new law was enacted in 2021, which has generated a climate of uncertainty, causing investors to be reluctant to pursue new investments in the country. In fact, Nigeria is producing less oil today than it did in 2010.  

Another factor that can explain some movements, such as the substantial fall in trade and investment freedom in the first decade of the century, is the introduction of different local content policies. Obviously, these kinds of policies are favored by domestic investors and can support a country’s broader development agenda, but they can often affect the degree to which foreign capital finds the country attractive for investment. Finally, the relevance of the oil industry in generating government revenue and foreign reserves has many times led the government and central bank to heavily intervene in the exchange rate market, sometimes in non-orthodox ways. This was particularly the case after the oil price collapse of 2015, which may explain the fifteen-point fall in trade freedom in the following years.  

It is fair to say that the liberalizing effort has been robust in some other sectors of the Nigerian economy. The telecoms industry was liberalized in the early 2000s, as well as the banking sector, which certainly helped unlock growth and productivity. But trade policy has at best been erratic, with the country pursuing an import substitution strategy in sub-sectors such as beverage products, sugar, flour, and cereal. As a result, it is clear that the country has not yet been able to establish a stable and secure framework for international trade and investment.  

Nigeria’s score on property rights protection is relatively low, compared to the regional average, and does not seem to vary much along the period 1995–2023. Nonetheless, this score has less to do with a risk of government expropriation of property than may be the case in some other economies with such low scores. The score may be reflecting the strict local content policies implemented across different sectors, which in some ways impose limits on the capacity of companies and owners to manage their assets.  

The women’s economic freedom component seems to have improved in the last three decades, but is still lower in Nigeria (66.3) than in other comparator countries in the region like Kenya (83.8), Ethiopia (80), or South Africa (88.1). Some important laws regarding gender equality are probably weaker in Nigeria. For example, there are no quotas for parliamentary participation for women, nor specific legislation incentivizing women’s economic participation, although there are a variety of customary and religious laws at the subnational level that have varying impacts on women’s acquisition of assets. Overall, there might be a significant gap between formal legality and actual practice on this matter, because women in the country are highly entrepreneurial, and girls’ school enrollment has increased substantially since the 1990s, which favors their labor force participation and overall economic activity outside the home.  

Moving on to the political subindex, the democratic transition of 1999, that situated the country together with other democracies in the region, is evident in the graph. All components of the subindex sharply improve, with the notable exception of civil liberties. This indicator is the average of two variables, one measuring private civil liberties (freedom of movement, religion, etc.) and another the degree of physical violence (freedom from torture and political killings). When looking at the disaggregated data, it is clear that the very low level of the civil liberties component is generated by an extremely poor performance in the latter, while private civil liberties have consistently scored above 80 in the last two decades. Violent insurgencies are likely influential in the low level of the physical violence variable, with Islamist Boko Haram in the northeast, the separatist movement Indigenous People of Biafra in the southeast, and the rising levels of violent crime including kidnapping for ransom in various parts of Nigeria. The declining quality of the police forces may also be an important factor. There have been protests against police brutality around the country, most recently in 2020, and individual rights relating to detention and imprisonment are not always adequately guaranteed.  

The rest of the components of the political subindex reach standard levels for young democracies in the developing world, at least until 2016, even though there are some small fluctuations that can be discussed. The component measuring the quality and fairness of the electoral process suffers a five-point drop in 2003, and does not recover the initial level until 2011. This fits well with the generalized view that the 2003 and 2007 elections held in the country suffered clear deficiencies. Subsequent elections in 2011 and 2015 were visibly more credible, and the data reflect it well with a ten-point increase.  

Legislative constraints on the executive have been historically strong in Nigeria. Two episodes illustrate this fact fairly well. First, in 2007, the first post-military president tried to extend his tenure to get a third term in power, but he was successfully thwarted by the legislature. Second, in 2010, the successor president fell ill and his inner circle tried to prevent the handover of power to his vice-president. The legislature stepped in again, ensuring a legal transition of power. However, the data show a clear fall starting in 2015, exacerbated in 2019, and only reversed in 2023. It is not clear that any important piece of legislation was passed during this period that could have reduced the power of parliament to control the executive, so the scores may just be capturing the fact that, in the 2015 elections, the opposition party won a decisive majority in the legislature, and thus in the following years legislative checks on the executive may have been relatively soft as a result of both being of the same political party.  

Finally, the seven-and-a-half-point drop in political rights in 2020 can be explained by a combination of the emergency situation generated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the security concerns due to the insurgencies in the Niger Delta, the northeast, and the southeast of the country. It is undeniable that the government became increasingly intolerant with some forms of freedom of speech, for example limiting the use of social media. Nonetheless, the Nigerian situation is not necessarily comparable to other parts of the world that are experiencing deeper and more extended democratic regressions, and the partial recovery in 2023 seems to confirm this intuition. 

Turning to the legal subindex, it is very clear that judicial independence and effectiveness and clarity of the law receive significantly higher scores than the rest of the components of the subindex. This is comparable to the regional average, at least since the democratic transition of 1999. In the last twenty years, there have been numerous disputes between different branches of power (legislative versus executive, federal versus the thirty-six states, etc.) which have been decided in high courts, often times against the powerful federal government. A good example is the decision of the Supreme Court in the case between the federal government and the Lagos state over local government funds, which was decided in favor of the latter, a strong indication of Nigeria’s judicial independence. In most cases, judicial decisions are accepted, respected and abided by.  

Security, as well as bureaucracy quality and control of corruption, are the components dragging the legal subindex score down, generating a substantial gap with respect to the Sub-Saharan Africa regional average. These scores reflect realities on the ground. As commented earlier, the various insurgent movements around Nigeria, together with the spread of organized violent crime and banditry, generate a generalized environment of insecurity. The government appears to have made some progress in fighting insurgents in the last few years, pushing them back and dismantling their strongholds in both the oil-rich Niger Delta in the south and with regards to the Islamist Boko Haram in the northeast. However, there are high levels of violent crime, kidnapping for ransom, and banditry that the government—both at the federal level and across the thirty-six states—has struggled to address, with significant implications for the continuing development of the country.  

Last but not least, the recurrent and discouraging low score on bureaucracy and corruption is very real. The Nigerian civil service desperately needs a total overhaul, and the country’s successive political leaders are fully cognizant of this fact. But such reform could affect tens of thousands or even millions of public employees, who are politically powerful, which makes it politically very costly for any government. The crucial anti-corruption agencies created in the early 2000s, such as the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, were somewhat effective initially, in the first decade of the century, but soon became politicized. Thus, widespread and grand corruption in public administration can only be tackled with a holistic reform, which does not seem to be imminent. 

Evolution of prosperity

Despite the sustained growth of Nigeria’s score in the Prosperity Index since 1995, it still finds itself among the lowest prosperity group, ranking 136 out of 164 countries covered by the Indexes. However, there are some encouraging trends worth noting. First, the income component was influenced by the oil boom, in terms of high global oil prices in the 2002–15 period. Yet, as my own research shows, the oil boom was only a small part of the story. Other sectors of the economy also thrived since the early 2000s, such as banking and financial services and the telecoms industry, which were liberalized, smaller industrial services adjacent to oil production, and other non-oil exporting sectors. As a result, the data clearly show that oil’s contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) growth has been declining—from around 40 percent in the year 2000 to less than 10 percent today—with respect to the rest of the economy, denoting that Nigerian growth was not only based on the commodity boom. Nevertheless, the commodity price crash of 2015 affected the country’s overall growth trajectory, as Nigeria relies on oil exports for the bulk of its foreign exchange reserves, and thus many non-oil industries and sectors suffered increasing difficulties in accessing foreign imported inputs. The global effects of the COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated the situation, and Nigeria has not yet been able to recover the 2015 level of real GDP per capita. 

The promising evolution of the inequality component is probably capturing the substantial decrease in poverty rates within the country. Yet it must be noted that there is a clear regional divide in Nigeria, and the inequality and poverty reduction has not been homogenous across the country. The majority Muslim regions in the north of Nigeria are significantly poorer than the south, explained by much lower levels of educational attainment, higher prevalence of informality, and lower levels of industrial production, etc. Therefore, interregional or horizontal inequality is certainly deep and pervasive, and public policy should be directed to reduce the north-south gap.  

By far the most striking data come from the health component, where Nigeria ranks 162 among 164 countries, and the gap with respect to the Sub-Saharan Africa average has been widening in the last two decades. Nigeria’s life expectancy is much lower than its income level would predict, close to that of much poorer countries in West and Central Africa like Niger, Central African Republic, and others. This is a combination of two factors. First the already mentioned violence across the country, with its associated high levels of mortality of young fighters. Second, a precarious healthcare system that is significantly underfinanced, lacking professionals and personnel, especially in rural areas, a problem that will only be aggravated in the coming years given the high levels of population growth.  

The similarly low score regarding equal access and absence of discrimination for minorities also has important regional differentiations. The imposition of Sharia law in some northern states in the early 2000s did not favor Christian and other religious minority groups, or secular-oriented Muslims, in these states. However, since the mid2010s, the popularity of Sharia law in these states has declined significantly because the political leaders who championed its implementation were largely underperformers in terms of the actual quality of governance.  

Finally, the score on the environment component of the Prosperity Index is clearly low, but seems to show a positive trend in the last twenty-five years, with important caveats. On the one hand, pollution related to oil production is high, and there is uncertain commitment on its decisive reduction, which necessarily worsens air quality in the areas where oil extraction and refineries are prevalent. On the other, indoor air quality may have improved since the year 2000, when less than 1 percent of the population had access to clean cooking technologies, but even today that share is below 20 percent, which is very low. Deforestation, particularly in the north, is pervasive because many households still rely on biomass, wood burning, and other sources of domestic energy that are highly detrimental for their health. 

The path forward

Developments within Nigeria, within the African continent, and around the world will contribute to the country’s freedom and prosperity trajectory within the medium term. There are likely to be continuities and changes in the various dimensions that constitute Nigeria’s Freedom Index. The consolidation of the country’s electoral democracy will continue even if progress is not linear—it is very unlikely to experience a military coup or other such drastic setbacks to its democracy as was recently the case in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso in West Africa. Yet, the quality of Nigeria’s elections will continue to vary by election cycle, contingent on the nature of the electoral competition and the profile of candidates running.  

The pace, consistency and scope of Nigeria’s domestic economic reforms, as well as global economic conditions, will have a determinative impact on Nigeria’s economic subindex. While the country’s debilitating challenge of depending on fuel subsidies will remain prominent in the short term, efforts to increase the domestic refining and supply of refined fuels, including the completion of the Dangote refinery complex, will eventually address this challenge in the medium to long term. Nigeria will also continue to implement local content policies across various industries due to the demand coming from the country’s large and vibrant private sector. In addition to the oil and gas sector, creative industries (entertainment, movies, music), and the f inancial sector, where these local content policies have been most visibly enforced, information and communications technology and the digital economy could be the next frontier. A dynamic trade policy will certainly help propel Nigeria’s economy to greater heights, including helping to further advance important elements of small business development and women’s economic empowerment, but its design and implementation is not yet on the radar of the country’s top decision makers.  

There are likely to be both significant advancements and notable setbacks in the components of Nigeria’s political subindex. The exercise of effective checks on the executive by Nigeria’s National Assembly (i.e., federal legislature) may increase in the next election cycle, especially if opposition parties are able to leverage the current popular discontent and gain more seats in the two legislative houses. Progress on this front in the subnational legislatures—state houses of assemblies—is perhaps less certain. Without drastic and concerted efforts at addressing Nigeria’s security challenges, including a wholesale overhaul of the national police force, the significant levels of violent crime are unlikely to abate in the medium term.  

So much about Nigeria’s legal subindex will continue to be weighed down by the absence of comprehensive civil service reform. While this does not have direct bearing on the country’s notable levels of judicial independence, it directly impacts Nigeria’s bureaucratic quality. It remains to be seen whether any government can shoulder the political costs of overhauling Nigeria’s civil service by implementing the recommendations of the Oronsaye report to reform the public sector. 

In the short term, Nigeria’s per capita income will continue its declining trend as a result of COVID-19 shocks as well as the inflationary impacts of recent exchange rate and subsidies reforms. Consequently, Nigeria’s per capita income will continue to trail its regional peers including South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, and Côte d’Ivoire. However, the pace of this income decline could be halted and even reversed in the medium term with the design and implementation of pro-productivity economic policies on the supply side but also on the demand side. Addressing Nigeria’s electricity, transportation and digital connectivity infrastructure gaps will be crucial on this front. Reducing the incidents of violent crime, especially banditry plaguing rural farming communities, is also necessary. Effective coordination of trade, investment and industrial policies focused on labor-intensive industries, particularly agriculture and manufacturing, will be essential. 

In the near term, Nigeria’s social indicators are likely to deteriorate before they stabilize and, contingent on the rollout of mitigating policies, experience a trend reversal. Due to domestic factors, such as, the impacts of the removal of subsidies, harmonization of exchange rates, and inflation, as well as exogenous factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the incidence of poverty is very likely to increase inequality. Findings from a new round of the Nigeria Living Standards Survey when released—the last round was conducted in 2018–19—will likely confirm this trend. However, a comprehensive rollout of income-smoothing social protection interventions could support households and even small businesses to navigate the adverse impacts of liberalization policies. Increased health spending as well as workforce training could further bolster Nigeria’s health and mortality indicators.  

Finally, Nigeria’s environment-related indicators may stabilize and take an improving turn as relevant policies take effect. Progress in the implementation of Nigeria’s natural gas masterplan, in the medium term, could help reduce gas flaring and the associated environmental pollution. Political outreach by the federal government to aggrieved groups in the oil-producing Niger Delta could help reduce some types of small-scale oil theft and illegal oil refining that often result in oil spills and aggravate environmental degradation. Extensive support being provided by multilateral development banks and other international organizations to support clean cooking solutions could help reduce biomass use by households and thereby slow down the pace of deforestation in the country. 

Zainab Usman is the founding director of the Africa Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. Usman’s enduring area of expertise is identifying the policies and institutions to enable low- and middle-income economies to harness their natural resources to achieve sustainable economic development. She is author of the book Economic Diversification in Nigeria: The Politics of Building a Post-Oil Economy, which was selected as one of the best books of 2022 on economics by the Financial Times. 

The Atlantic Council and its staff, fellows, and directors generate their own ideas and programming, consistent with the Council’s mission, their related body of work, and the independent records of the participating team members. The Council as an organization does not adopt or advocate positions on particular matters. The Council’s publications always represent the views of the author(s) rather than those of the institution.

2024 Atlas: Freedom and Prosperity Around the World

Twenty leading economists and government officials from eighteen countries contributed to this comprehensive volume, which serves as a roadmap for navigating the complexities of contemporary governance. 

Read the Book

Trackers and Data Visualizations

Jun 15, 2023

Freedom and Prosperity Indexes

The indexes rank 164 countries around the world according to their levels of freedom and prosperity. Use our site to explore twenty-eight years of data, compare countries and regions, and examine the sub-indexes and indicators that comprise our indexes.

The Freedom and Prosperity Center aims to increase the prosperity of the poor and marginalized in developing countries and to explore the nature of the relationship between freedom and prosperity in both developing and developed nations.

Learn more

The post More stable trade and investment policies can bolster the Nigerian economy appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Evolution of freedom

Indexes are only as good as the data they use and the methodology they follow. However, for Africa, indexes are an important determinant of how citizens perceive progress in the country, how bilateral donors make decisions on when, where, and how to extend support, and, lately, they are a fundamental component of rating agency assessments. As African countries seek to improve access to more affordable capital and crowd in more foreign direct investment, it is crucial that they pay attention to these indexes. Cameroon is no exception. In addition, indexes can provide rare insights into the linkages between issues such as environmental freedom and gender prosperity. The data on Cameroon suggest a strong link between economic freedom, health, education, and gender empowerment. This essay will focus on that and draw lessons for the future. 

Cameroon’s score in the Freedom Index (47.6) is well below the average for the African continent (64.03) and many similar countries such as Senegal (68.7) and Côte d’Ivoire (61.7). The overall freedom measure is a composite score of the legal, political, and economic subindexes, where Cameroon ranks 133rd, 120th, and 144th respectively, out of 164 countries covered by the Indexes.  

Cameroon’s poor performance in the Freedom Index since 1995 is mainly determined by the political and legal dimensions. The political subindex includes four main components: elections, political rights, civil liberties, and legislative constraints on the executive. Political power is centralized in Cameroon, unlike Senegal, for example, and as a result there is no effective system of separation of powers, with both legislative and judicial branches being dependent on the executive power. The level and trend of different components of the Index capture this general assessment.  

The low levels of legislative constraints on the executive and judicial independence, compared to Côte d’Ivoire, for example, reflect the high level of concentration of power in the executive. The judiciary is subordinated to the Ministry of Justice, and the president is entitled to appoint judges (this is not unlike the United States but the degree of independence of the judiciary is also about implementation of policies) and only the president can request the Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of a law. Regarding the legislative, the formation of political parties has been permitted since 1997, and political rights are protected by law. Parliament is also highly dependent on the presidency, which appoints thirty out of the one hundred members of the Senate, the second legislative chamber established in 2013.  

Strong executive power could and should actually benefit women’s economic freedom but currently does not. There are spillovers from the political subindex to other aspects of the institutional framework of Cameroon. This is visible in the economic subindex, which measures trade and investment openness, protection of property rights, and economic opportunities for women. Regarding the latter, Cameroon’s score in the women’s economic freedom component (60) is—surprisingly—among the lowest in the world, ranking 140th among the 164 countries covered by the Indexes. Despite a ten-point increase in 2018, reflecting the introduction of legislation dealing with workplace nondiscrimination and sexual harassment, Cameroon’s performance in this component is still significantly lower than that of other countries in the region, such as Côte d’Ivoire (95), Senegal (72.5), Nigeria (66.3), Gabon (95), and Kenya (83.8).  

Important areas affecting gender equality, where Cameroon does not yet grant legal protection similar to the countries mentioned above, include civil liberties such as freedom of movement and marital rights, and financial inclusion legislation regarding access to banking services, asset ownership, and administration. While implementation of some of the more restrictive legislation may differ from the reality on the ground—for example, women can own property in their name today—the lack of changes to the legal documents opens the door for predatory compliance and legal battles in some cases.  

Having women in government leadership positions has led many countries in the region to advance significant improvements in women’s rights and opportunities. One illustrative example is the case of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in Nigeria, who introduced several policies aimed at empowering women during her periods as finance minister (2003–06 and 2011–15), such as the Growing Girls and Women in Nigeria (G-WIN) program. This created a gender-responsive budgeting system that ensured a certain share of public procurement went to female entrepreneurs. Similar legislation can be identified in Kenya, with the Access to Government Procurement Opportunities program introduced in 2013, as well as in Côte d’Ivoire and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Adopting some of these tried and tested programs in Cameroon could help improve women’s economic freedom de jure and de facto.  

Cameroon’s commitment to open and free trade is ambiguous, despite its very strategic location. Total trade to gross domestic product (GDP) has decreased substantially in the last decade, from 50 percent in 2014 to 39 percent in 2023, well below the average for Africa (74.49 percent). On the one hand, the country imposes relatively high tariffs on imports besides primary necessity goods, established at 10 percent for raw materials and equipment goods, 20 percent for intermediary and miscellaneous goods, and up to 30 percent for fast-moving consumer goods, implying an average tariff rate around 18 percent, more than double the average for Africa. With women being the most active small and medium entrepreneurs in cross-border trade, 20 percent tariffs have the potential to disproportionately affect them as a group.  

On the other hand, Cameroon has signed trade agreements with the European Union, United States, China, Japan, and several other nations. In 2020, the country also ratified the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement, the signature African trade agreement. Cameroon is also a member of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa, which aims a common market among Central African countries. Nonetheless, Cameroon has a negligible trade relationship with Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the other five member states. More generally, inter-Africa trade is still marginal, with only 12.7 percent of Cameroon’s export earnings coming from African partners, and less than 10 percent of total imports in 2023. For example, Cameroon’s trade with Nigeria—the largest economy in Africa—was less than 1 percent in 2021. The two countries having difficult and high tariffs undermines their collective prosperity. Policies to improve trade between the two countries will also disproportionately support small women-owned businesses.  

The most relevant factor regarding investment and capital movement regulations in Cameroon is the fact that the national currency, the Central African CFA franc, is shared by the five neighbors mentioned above, and is pegged to the euro at a fixed exchange rate. This has the benefit of providing stability and predictability but also constrains Cameroon’s capacity to autonomously determine its monetary, investment, and capital flows policies. Another factor certainly influencing the investment climate in Cameroon is the security situation in the country and the region. With low tariffs in the sector, foreign capital continues to focus on extractive industries and infrastructure, and the repeated efforts of the government to expand international investment to other sectors have not borne the expected fruits.  

Two other features of Cameroon’s institutional framework stand out in the legal subindex components, namely, the high levels of corruption across all levels of the administration, and the low level of security. Both of these unduly penalize women, who are generally the most affected by conflict and petty corruption. 

Cameroon is host to a large number of refugees as a result of the conflict in the subregion, and this has impacted civil liberties. With respect to security, relatively high levels of small criminality have combined with a surge in terrorist attacks, especially in the last decade, with the emergence of Boko Haram and other Islamist groups, as well as the unrest in the north and southwest of the country. These different violent conflicts, together with the substantial immigration flows coming from Nigeria, Libya, Central African Republic, Chad, and other neighboring countries, have increased the need for tighter security within the country. 

Evolution of prosperity

On the Prosperity Index, measured as the average of six constituent elements (income, inequality, minorities, health, environment and education), Cameroon performs better than its peers but still remains below the African average. The country has outpaced the low regional average in prosperity growth at least since 2005. Education, health, and environment seem to be the areas where improvements have been most palpable, and will be the focus of the following paragraphs. 

The health component of the Prosperity Index, based on life expectancy data, shows a change of tendency around the late 1990s. This is not a feature unique to Cameroon; a similar inflection point from decreasing to rapidly increasing life expectancy is also observable in other African countries such as South Africa, Gabon, and Côte d’Ivoire. An important push in the fight against AIDS, substantially financed by programs led by the international donor community such as the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, was instrumental in this case. Additionally, the increased availability of vaccines for different diseases and some progress in terms of infant and maternal mortality have contributed to this positive evolution.  

Nonetheless, there is still huge room for improvement. First, total public expenditure on health has been below 4 percent of GDP since 2001 (3.82 percent in 2021, the last year of available data), not yet close to the necessary level to ensure substantial and sustained betterment in health outcomes, usually estimated between 5 and 7 percent. For comparison, the average for Sub-Saharan Africa in 2021 is 5.1 percent, and for the Middle East and North Africa region reaches 5.76 percent. Similarly, health expenditure per capita in Cameroon was in 2021 just $155.56, substantially lower than in Nigeria ($220.40), Gabon ($411), or the average of the Sub-Saharan Africa region ($203.70). 

Not only is aggregate spending relatively low, but also the destination of healthcare investment is not optimal. In the last decades, Cameroon has consolidated a series of big training hospitals, mainly located in big cities. On the contrary, investment in primary and preventive healthcare has been deficient, especially in rural areas, creating wide inequalities across the country. Recent disease outbreaks underscore the need for improved strong healthcare systems at the local level. As for other least developed countries, the potential gains of basic health interventions to ensure generalized access to vaccination and maternal and infant care are enormous, as the experience of other African countries has shown.  

Turning to education, the data on school enrollment show a very significant acceleration since the early 2000s, when Cameroon started to grow faster than the regional average. It is important to note the very low initial level of this indicator, but the progress is still remarkable. Free primary education was introduced in the year 2000, and this is probably one important factor explaining the trend in the last two decades.  

Nonetheless, families still need to cover the costs of uniforms and books, which is a significant barrier for an important share of the population. Recall that, according to the World Bank, 23 percent of Cameroon’s population is today living in extreme poverty (under US$2.15 a day), and thus such costs are very significant for them. Moreover, secondary school tuition and fees are not subsidized, which constrains educational attainment for a much larger fraction of children.  

Two areas requiring substantial improvement are, first, the poor quality of the education received, which undermines actual learning outcomes of Cameroonian students. Learning poverty, the share of children not able to read and understand an age-appropriate text by age ten, is estimated by the World Bank at a high 71.9 percent, with girls especially disadvantaged.  

Second, there are important sources of educational inequality, particularly gender and regional based. School enrollment rates are significantly lower for girls than for boys at all levels of the educational system, heavily influenced by high rates of child marriage and early childbearing among girls.  

The attempt to impose French curricula across the whole country led to heated debate, protests, civil unrest, and ultimately, violent clashes in some parts of the country. As a result, schools closed for two years (2018–19), and before they had fully reopened, the COVID-19 pandemic hit and schools were closed again. This combination of shocks has probably generated a very significant slowdown in educational attainment that is not yet captured by the data used in the Prosperity Index.  

Cameroon’s score on the environment component is heavily influenced by one of the variables used to compute it: access to clean cooking technologies. Although this indicator has improved consistently in the last twenty-five years, from barely 10 percent of the population to almost 30 percent today using clean technologies, once again we observe striking spatial differences across the country and between rural and urban populations. Cameroon produces gas and therefore could rapidly improve on this indicator. New cooking stoves are widely available and easily diffused. The executive has the power to improve on this indicator and save lives while improving livelihoods.  

Most importantly, the Prosperity Index does not include any indicator on deforestation, which is extremely relevant for Cameroon, which has the second largest forest area in the Congo Basin, from which many women earn an income.  

The evolution of tree cover areas reveals a loss of 1.53 million hectares between 2001 and 2020, of which 47 percent was in primary forests. As a result, forest as a percentage of land decreased from 47.6 percent in 1990 to 43.03 percent in 2020. In 2021, Cameroon was seventh on the list of the world’s top deforesters, with 89,000 hectares of forest lost. This trend not only threatens to significantly alter weather and crop patterns in the country, affecting women disproportionately, but may lead to deteriorating health conditions as nature and Cameroon’s biodiversity are altered significantly.  

This situation is by no means unavoidable but requires a clear policy commitment if it is to be averted. Cameroon has important gas reserves, and the low usage of wood by households in cities proves that there are possible alternatives. Obviously, providing access to gas and other forms of energy to rural areas requires an important investment in infrastructure and creation of logistic networks that are not yet in place, but certainly should be a priority for the government and the international community in the near future. Cameroonian women not only suffer from a very unequal legislative environment, but also due to structural conditions on these areas that further hamper their personal development compared to men. 

The path forward

The strength of data lies in its capacity to tell stories and be scrutinized. The data on Cameroon need more attention and the authorities should work with the groups that collect the original data used to build these Indexes, along with the Cameroon National Statistics Office, development institutions, and other research institutions that collect data, to ensure representation of Cameroon is accurate, especially since these data are often used by market players to inform investment decisions.  

In the interim, one crucial conclusion from the data is the interdependence between the health, education, and environment components and the women’s economic freedom component. This interconnectedness is a double-edged sword, as weak legislative focus undermines women’s economic empowerment, which leads to poor health and education outcomes and in some cases may also lead to environmental degradation.  

Bottom-up or top-down policies could help move these indicators, building on the successes already achieved in these domains, first by focusing on laws that provide women with better economic empowerment. This essay has cited several examples of initiatives in other countries which could be adapted to fit the national context and implemented in Cameroon.  

Education remains the fastest way to economic empowerment of populations and women in general. In the long run it can help reduce costs of healthcare as educated women tend to adopt more preventive approaches for themselves and their children, reducing the cost of healthcare which is not only high but still comprises lots of risks for women. To this end, the policy of free primary education must be coupled with robust teacher quality and performance indicators to ensure that children are actively learning. A year of lost learning, even if it appears free, is costly for teacher, student, and parent. This kind of waste undermines the economy in the long run as an unskilled population is an economic cost to the country over time.  

Cameroon’s environmental resources, if well managed, could represent an important source of revenue for local populations and women in particular in an economic environment where carbon markets are growing, protection of fauna and flora is valued, and organic production commands a premium from markets. Support by government to reforestation projects could help generate resources for rural populations while promoting more nature tourism, building on the strengths of the country. An important component of the women’s health and environment nexus, however, would be policies which help women use cleaner cooking practices, as unsafe technologies claim the lives of many women.  

Overall, the policies needed to improve the economic freedom components for women are well within reach of the Cameroonian government, as many are policy-based first and foremost. In addition, it would serve the government well to work with the Indexes to scrutinize the data and scoring so that they can provide a more accurate report on the economic freedom of women in Cameroon. 

Vera Songwe is a nonresident senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development practice at the Brookings Institution and chair and founder of the Board of the Liquidity and Sustainability Facility. Songwe is a board member of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and previously served as undersecretary-general at the United Nations and executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. Songwe’s expertise includes work on Africa’s growth prospects in a global context, with a focus on improving access to sustainable finance. 

The Atlantic Council and its staff, fellows, and directors generate their own ideas and programming, consistent with the Council’s mission, their related body of work, and the independent records of the participating team members. The Council as an organization does not adopt or advocate positions on particular matters. The Council’s publications always represent the views of the author(s) rather than those of the institution.

2024 Atlas: Freedom and Prosperity Around the World

Twenty leading economists and government officials from eighteen countries contributed to this comprehensive volume, which serves as a roadmap for navigating the complexities of contemporary governance. 

Read the Book

Trackers and Data Visualizations

Jun 15, 2023

Freedom and Prosperity Indexes

The indexes rank 164 countries around the world according to their levels of freedom and prosperity. Use our site to explore twenty-eight years of data, compare countries and regions, and examine the sub-indexes and indicators that comprise our indexes.

The Freedom and Prosperity Center aims to increase the prosperity of the poor and marginalized in developing countries and to explore the nature of the relationship between freedom and prosperity in both developing and developed nations.

Learn more

The post Cameroon’s future relies on empowering its women  appeared first on Atlantic Council.

French authorities have this month arrested several Algerian citizens living in France for allegedly inciting violence and hatred online targeting opponents of the Algerian government. One such Algerian national, Boualem Naman, was arrested on January 5 and promptly expelled from France. But upon his arrival at Algiers airport, authorities refused his entry, reportedly arguing that Naman should be offered the opportunity to defend himself in France, thus ordering his return. This all led to a diplomatic crisis between the two countries, with the French interior minister accusing Algeria of “trying to humiliate” his country.

In addition, just before the new year, Algerian political activist Abdelwakil Blamm was also arrested for allegedly taking part in a terrorist organization and publishing false and malicious news through his social profile on Facebook. Critics argue that these arrests are targeted and part of a crackdown campaign to silence opponents, a move that worries European authorities for the potential reversal of what is left of Algeria’s freedom of expression. 

Blamm is an activist, well known in the country for his fierce criticism of the government. Meanwhile, and as reflected by the charges brought against Blamm, authorities accuse him of being linked to a foreign terrorist network, in whose favor he allegedly spreads false information.

Earlier, on November 16, Algerian authorities arrested French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, who is known for being critical of Algeria’s political leadership and has been accused by local authorities of threatening Algerian national security. He was arrested shortly after arriving in Algeria, and he is being prosecuted under an article of the penal code on terrorist or subversive acts against the constitutional order and state security. Algerian President Abdelmajid Tebboune himself has spoken on the subject, calling Sansal an impostor sent by France to destabilize the country’s public order. According to some reports, Algerian authorities may have been offended by Sansal’s comments to a French news outlet about Western Sahara being part of Morocco.

But even beyond this recent escalation of tension, however, the bilateral relationship has been progressively deteriorating in other areas.

The two countries’ positions on both the bilateral relationship and regional politics have increasingly diverged. Last July, France signalled for the first time that it would recognize an autonomy plan for the Western Sahara region, albeit under Moroccan sovereignty, leading to outrage and strong condemnation from Algeria, with a formal statement from the government calling the decision “unexpected, ill-judged, and counterproductive.”

Several members of the Algerian political system believe that the relationship has also deteriorated due to the increasing political assertion of the far right in France, whose anti-immigration policies heavily impact Algerian citizens. At the same time, however, some French officials and politicians—including members of Macron’s government—have criticized Algeria and its increasingly anti-French drift.

Yet, the deterioration of the relationship extends even beyond recent tensions and issues related to Western Sahara and Morocco. The nature of the crisis between Algeria and France seems to have much deeper roots, which lie in the failure to define a real postcolonial reconciliation process and in France’s persistent refusal to engage in a critical reinterpretation of its role in the country. For example, recent studies suggest that the French school system still refers to the colonial period as having positive effects in addition to negative consequences, angering Algerians. 

With France and Algeria apparently unable to engage in constructive dialogue on the substance of their bilateral relations, it seems quite unlikely that they will be able to manage a positive turnaround of the current state of crisis in the short term. Algeria’s fear of growing international isolation, coupled with growing internal tensions in French domestic politics, risk aggravating misunderstandings between the two countries. If left unchecked, these disputes could push France and Algeria toward an irrevocable rupture in their relations reminiscent of Paris’s diplomatic breaks with its former allies in the Sahel region.

Karim Mezran is director of the North Africa Initiative and resident senior fellow with the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council.

Nicola Pedde is the director of the Rome and Brussels-based Institute for Global Studies.

The post The roots of recent Algeria-France tensions are deeper than it may seem appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Like other Arab countries with existing diplomatic ties with Israel, Morocco needed to appease its local public opinion by reducing its public-facing appearances with its newly gained ally and raising the tone of its official speeches calling for a ceasefire and a two-state solution as the war continued to escalate. Yet, far from the crowded streets of Tangier or Casablanca, where pro-Palestinian demonstrators gather, another reality persists in the country’s security and intelligence spheres. In reality, security cooperation between Israel and Morocco is flourishing and has never been stronger, driven by a common Iranian threat and a shared vision for regional integration.

Countering Iranian Neo-Sasanian imperialism

Since 2018, Morocco has warned about Iranian expansionist ambitions in Western Sahara following its severance of relations with Tehran over alleged military and financial support for the Polisario Front separatists through Lebanese Hezbollah. Reports have confirmed increased Iranian interference in the disputed territories of Western Sahara, which Morocco has claimed sovereignty over since its independence from Spain in 1975. This interference has involved Iran supplying lethal unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), surface-to-air missiles, and HM-16 mortar shells, along with training that has emboldened the separatist group. Consequently, Polisario forces began shelling towns within the Moroccan-administered areas of Western Sahara, specifically in Smara and Mahbes, alongside the Gaza war. This is a troubling development, as these actions violate the ceasefire established in September 1991.

The recent fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime may have uncovered the depth of relations between the Polisario Front and Iran, with Syria acting as the intermediary. Amid the chaos following the fall of Damascus, an unverified document emerged that revealed correspondence between the Syrian Ministry of Defense and the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Republic regarding the training of 120 Polisario soldiers in armed combat at Iran’s request. During the capture of Aleppo in Northern Syria, at least thirty Sahrawi mercenaries were apprehended by rebel forces, while Fahad Almasri, the head of Syria’s National Salvation Front, disclosed that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had dispatched about two hundred Polisario members to Thaala military airport, the Sweida army base, and rural Daraa over the past three years. Recently, Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina (R-SC) also briefed the US House about the situation, stating that “war criminal Putin, Iran & Cuba are actively destabilizing West Africa by supporting Polisario Front, a threat to the Kingdom of Morocco—an essential US partner.”

The partnership between Morocco and Israel is inspired and reinforced by their shared interest in opposing Iran’s expansion and its anti-Western, Neo-Sasanian ideology, which traditionally saw Arabs as vassal kingdoms like the Lakhmids. Iran is looking to recreate this pattern through its regional proxies in countries like Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and—if the international community doesn’t address this pressing threat—in Western Sahara. However, the kingdom failed to persuade its own population that its alignment with Israel is not against the Palestinian cause but against Iranian malign expansionist ambitions in the region.

The Moroccan population has long-standing and established ties with the Palestinian people—with whom it shares culture, language, and religion—and a large portion has become increasingly vocal in demanding an end to normalization with Israel amid the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza. Recently, a Moroccan citizen who permanently resides in the US even carried out atrocious terrorist attacks, stabbing four people at the heart of Tel Aviv—an incident likely motivated by a deep discontent towards the events in Gaza. This stance, however, is not shared by the political and security apparatus in Rabat, which understands that countries can’t be ruled by sentimentalism, particularly after the collapse of the last of the pan-Arabist regimes in Damascus.  

The annals of Morocco-Israel security cooperation

While the Moroccan government publicly attempts to appease the sentiments of its population and strike a balance between Morocco’s Arab-Islamic duties and its higher security interests, in private, security cooperation with Israel is thriving thanks to the intimate relationship between the two allies’ military and intelligence communities.

These institutions have a history of secret cooperation dating back to the 1960s and more formal relations since the late King Hassan II met Prime Minister Shimon Peres in Rabat in 1986. In 2020, the Royal Moroccan Armed Forces reportedly acquired three Israeli-made Heron drones, developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), for some $48 million. The systems, which were long-endurance models, were intended to be used in reconnaissance missions along the wall of sand in Western Sahara. Rabat’s appetite for Israeli weapons has grown since, with the purchase of the SkyLock Dome anti-drone systems in 2022 for $500 million and the Barak MX missile systems in 2023 for another $500 million, and the announcement in 2024 of the opening of a drone manufacturing facility by Israeli BlueBird Aero Systems in Morocco.

Business has continued to strengthen since the onset of the Gaza war. On the defense side, Morocco is poised to acquire a spy satellite from IAI in a $1-billion deal. Rabat recently faced backlash from local human rights groups when it extradited Nassim Khalibat, a Palestinian holding an Israeli passport who is suspected of being behind the 2021 bombing of the Nazareth Health Ministry. Trade cooperation has also increased, with bilateral exports reaching $53.2 million during the first six months of 2024, a 64-percent increase from the same period last year. 

Beyond the practical benefits of cooperation, deeper historical and cultural ties are also at the foundation of this intimate relationship. Indeed, many Israeli security leaders have roots in the once-Jewish kingdom of Morocco. Meir Ben-Shabbat, the former Israeli national security advisor and a Moroccan Jew, once famously performed the allegiance bow before King Mohamed VI, repeating, “May God bless your age, my master” in Arabic. Another key figure is Amir Perez, the architect of the Israeli Iron Dome, who—like Yassine Manssouri, the head of the Moroccan intelligence services—was born in the small mountainous town of Boujad. One in ten Israelis today have Moroccan ancestry, including influential politicians like Speaker of the Knesset Amir Ohana, Aryeh Deri, and Yaakov Margi, to name only a few.  Moroccan-Israeli relations have become stronger than ever since the recent events in the Middle East, and those relations are here to stay.

Though the United States brokered it, this critical alliance transcends Washington’s mediation and will be sustained by shared history and common geostrategic interests. Morocco has no intention of closing its liaison office in Tel Aviv like it did in 2000 during the Second Intifada, no matter how loud the popular opposition in Rabat becomes. Recently, a high-level Moroccan official told me it was “a regrettable decision that the kingdom is not prepared to repeat in light of a regional threat that may cost us half of our territories and the security of our children.” He added, “We share with the Israelis a common destiny and a vision for a peaceful and prosperous future.”

Sarah Zaaimi is a resident senior fellow for North Africa at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs, where she also serves as the deputy director for communications.

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Evolution of freedom

Morocco has substantially improved in all institutional dimensions during the last three decades, as measured by the progress in the Freedom Index. The Kingdom navigated the Arab Spring, which rocked certain countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. As a result, a diverging trend has emerged between the sustained improvement in Morocco and the deterioration in MENA’s regional average since 2013, resulting in a gap of more than eleven points in their respective Freedom Index scores. As this chapter will detail, there are many areas in which Morocco still needs to continue its reform effort toward fully free and open institutions, building on recent positive trends.

The economic subindex shows a very sharp discontinuity in the year 2004, where Morocco’s score jumps more than eight points, opening a very substantial gap with respect to the rest of the region. A closer look at the components included in the economic subindex evinces that it is primarily driven by an extensive improvement in women’s economic opportunities, produced by the implementation of a new Family Code, known as Moudawana, in 2004. This piece of legislation is seen as one of the most progressive of the region, expanding women’s rights and protections in relation to civil liberties like marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance; as well as labor and economic aspects such as workplace protection, equal pay, maternity leave, and access to credit.

Morocco has historically been fairly open to international trade and foreign investment. The European Union-Morocco Association Agreement that entered into force in the year 2000, creating a free trade area with the European Union, has certainly expanded exporting opportunities. Yet, the concentration of trade relations with Europe may have slowed down economic integration with neighboring countries in the Middle East and Africa. The signing of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement in 2018, and its ratification in 2022, will likely favor the expansion of Morocco’s trade and investment flows with the rest of Africa in the coming decades.

The different components of the economic subindex are not wholly capturing domestic aspects of free and fair competition. Like in most countries in the Middle East and North Africa, Morocco is subject to an important level of market concentration in many sectors, especially non-tradable sectors. That is despite progress made in the competition policy framework. Leveling the playing field will be paramount if Morocco wants to ignite productivity and job creation.

The political environment in Morocco is complex, as evidenced by the large differences in the scores of the four components of the political subindex. Following the Arab Spring, a new Constitution was adopted which aimed at fostering more democracy, reinforcing the independence of the judiciary, combating corruption, and better protecting women and minorities. As a result of the new Constitution, judicial independence and effectiveness scores increased by ten points. While the Constitution brought important strides, critics argue that the concentration of power has not changed. Political rights in Morocco are better protected than in most other countries in the region, but the overall level is still far from the most advanced countries of the world. Freedom of expression is fairly protected, but it is limited. As a result, the press cannot fully fulfill its role as a public watchdog, including on issues of corruption. Morocco performs poorly in the bureaucracy and corruption component of the legal subindex.

The positive trend in terms of reduction of informality reflects efforts by the authorities to formalize the economy. The enrollment of informal workers into the public health system is, however, proving difficult. The trend in informality is linked to progress toward poverty reduction in Morocco. Yet poverty remains pervasive, especially in rural areas. The informal sector serves as a shock absorber, Evolution of Prosperity and as such, adopting a more inclusive approach as opposed to coercion is desirable. Reduction in barriers to entry into the formal sector is the way to go to reduce informality.

Evolution of prosperity

The evolution of the Prosperity Index since 1995 illustrates the sustained improvement in standards of living in Morocco, which has reduced the gap with the average of the MENA region. It is important to note that the regional average includes several low-population, oil-rich countries, namely the Gulf monarchies, which partially explains the persistent gap.

An important factor that increased the cohesiveness of Moroccan society, and certainly improved the recognition and protection of minorities, is the acceptance of the Berber language as official in 2011. This historic step has produced positive spillovers in terms of cohesiveness but it remains to be seen whether this will translate into reduced regional inequality in the medium term.

Regional inequalities are significant in several components included in the Prosperity Index, The Path Forward such as income, education, and health. Increasing economic prosperity in the last decades has disproportionately benefited urban populations in cities, which have also been the destination of most investments and growth-enhancing public policies. As a result, there are still sizable pockets where poverty is severe.

The performance of the educational system reflects that duality. While access to primary education has become universal, the quality of education is uneven. Indeed, the quality of education is much lower in rural than urban areas, further exacerbating spatial inequalities. The situation of the healthcare system is not very different, and suffers from several issues already mentioned, like the large disparities along the urban-regional divide.

The path forward

Overall, Morocco has made notable progress toward economic transformation, but further efforts to balance its economic development are needed. Morocco’s experience with economic development is unbalanced. On the one hand, there are pockets of rapid development, and on the other, pervasive poverty remains, especially in rural areas. In 2021, Morocco has started to implement a “new development model” to improve human capital, boost productivity, and foster inclusion. Despite the progress, economic growth remains tepid and poverty is pervasive. What is more, Morocco is faced with a relatively high level of debt. The lack of fiscal space constrains government spending to reduce spatial disparities and support poorer households.

The danger for Morocco is that it could remain stuck in a so-called middle-income trap with low growth and high poverty, which could further ignite social tensions. To reignite growth and transform its economy, Morocco must level the playing field. To do so, issues of market structure and competition must become more central. That would help jumpstart productivity and create good jobs. Take the example of the telecom sector, where anti-competitive practices have long made the quality and cost of digital services expensive.

Barriers to the adoption of so-called general-purpose technology such as quality and affordable internet are an important factor keeping Morocco in the middle-income trap, and also could further the divide between urban and rural areas. The pervasive lack of contestability, and the slow pace of technology adoption, help explain why Morocco is stuck in low growth. Governments play a key role in the regulation of entry in key “upstream” sectors such as telecom. Meanwhile, the lack of availability of frontier technology may have forced firms into low-productivity activities and limited their trade and economic growth.

More generally, unfair competition that results from markets dominated by connected firms deters private investment, reducing the number of jobs and preventing countless talented youngsters Rabah Arezki from prospering. This lack of fair competition is the underlying reason that Morocco, like other Middle East and North African economies, is unresponsive. The lack of contestability leads to cronyism and what amounts to rent-seeking activity, including, but hardly limited to, exclusive licenses, which reward their holders and discourage both domestic and foreign competition.

Morocco has adopted a competition framework to champion open competition, but the limited independence of the competition authority reduces its ability to decisively shape the market structure of the economy. An integral part of the competition and contestability agenda is transparency and data availability. Morocco, like other countries in the Middle East and North Africa, trails behind other similar middle-income countries on government transparency and the disclosure of data in critical areas on the degree of competition in sectors. Greater transparency would help build a consensus over the need for more competition to stimulate growth and job creation.

Rabah Arezki is a former vice president at the African Development Bank, a former chief economist of the World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa region and a former chief of commodities at the International Monetary Fund’s Research Department. Arezki is now a director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Studies and Research on International Development, and at Harvard Kennedy School.

The Atlantic Council and its staff, fellows, and directors generate their own ideas and programming, consistent with the Council’s mission, their related body of work, and the independent records of the participating team members. The Council as an organization does not adopt or advocate positions on particular matters. The Council’s publications always represent the views of the author(s) rather than those of the institution.

2024 Atlas: Freedom and Prosperity Around the World

Twenty leading economists and government officials from eighteen countries contributed to this comprehensive volume, which serves as a roadmap for navigating the complexities of contemporary governance. 

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Trackers and Data Visualizations

Jun 15, 2023

Freedom and Prosperity Indexes

The indexes rank 164 countries around the world according to their levels of freedom and prosperity. Use our site to explore twenty-eight years of data, compare countries and regions, and examine the sub-indexes and indicators that comprise our indexes.

The Freedom and Prosperity Center aims to increase the prosperity of the poor and marginalized in developing countries and to explore the nature of the relationship between freedom and prosperity in both developing and developed nations.

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Freedom and democracy are in decline globally, according to the Atlantic Council’s Freedom Index. Political freedom in particular has slumped sharply since 2019, bringing the world to a twenty-four-year low. The biggest backsliders—the places with the sharpest declines in political freedom—span every major geographic region and many are particularly relevant to US national security.  

There are several fundamental reasons for the United States to support strategies that aim to halt such backsliding and foster democratization, including ones that go beyond the moral obligation to support humanitarian values. For instance, research shows that democracies are less prone to enable and export transnational crime or terrorism, and democracies are better at adapting to adverse economic events and avoiding large-scale disasters, and are more reliable trading partners, offering better business opportunities by upholding the rule of law and protecting investments from the arbitrary predation of political elites. Most notably, the vast majority of people around the world continue to prefer to be governed democratically.

Democracy support also strengthens the US position more broadly in the strategic contest against the autocratic rivals of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Robust democratic institutions—transparent judiciaries, capable legislatures, responsive political parties, an active civil society, and a free press—make it harder for the rulers in the autocratic bloc to co-opt elites in other countries and advance their malign agendas.

But with the world experiencing a global democratic recession, questions arise as to whether supporting democracy is a losing battle. Despite the bleak recent data on global democratic progress, democracy assistance is still crucial, not only in countries undergoing political openings and democratic consolidation but also—and perhaps even more so—in countries that are backsliding.  

Case studies in the Middle East, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and sub-Saharan Africa suggest that using foreign assistance (in addition to and in concert with diplomacy and investment) to support democracy champions wherever they are is an effective strategy, even if the payoff is not immediately apparent at the level of a country’s political system.  

Report Sep 5, 2024

Supporting credible elections to advance democracy globally in 2024 and beyond

By Katherine Ellena, Mario Mitre, and Patrick Quirk

The US and its allies support free and fair elections to strengthen democracy, ensuring global stability and security. This paper explores how US foreign aid for elections is a wise investment, highlighting priority elections in 2024 and 2025 where focused assistance can uphold democratic values and foster citizens’ trust in the democratic process.

Africa Elections

Report Jul 3, 2024

Advancing freedom, defeating authoritarianism: A democracy agenda for 2025-2029

By Patrick Quirk

This report provides actionable and measurable policy recommendations for the upcoming administration’s foreign policy to advance democracy and strengthen the US position in international development.

Economy & Business Freedom and Prosperity

Issue Brief Sep 19, 2023

Less freedom, weaker states, more conflict: can that cycle be broken?

By Patrick W. Quirk and Owen L. Myers

Why and how advancing freedom (political, economic, and judicial components) is the surest way to advance sustainable stability and associated prosperity.

Democratic Transitions Freedom and Prosperity

The Freedom and Prosperity Center aims to increase the prosperity of the poor and marginalized in developing countries and to explore the nature of the relationship between freedom and prosperity in both developing and developed nations.

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Faced with rising macroeconomic pressures and the aftershocks of global crises, many nations are scrambling to stay afloat. Unsustainable debt has too often prevented my country—Ghana—from achieving its full potential. Recently, Ghana has successfully restructured thirteen billion dollars in international debt, offering important lessons for countries facing such issues and the wider international financial community.

Lessons for debtor countries

Successful debt restructuring cannot be achieved until a country puts its house in order. An IMF-supported reform agenda that stabilizes the economy and lays the foundation for sustainable, inclusive, and long-term growth is essential. In Ghana, this meant restructuring domestic debt, bringing inflation down, strengthening social safety nets, increasing the flexibility of exchange-rate policies, and tightening monetary policy. Ghana has also used this debt restructuring to refocus our medium-term policy vision on green investments and development projects that will help us meet our climate goals while driving sustainable growth and the creation of new, well-paying jobs for the Ghanaian people. This will ensure that Ghana not only leaves debt challenges behind for good but reemerges in international markets stronger.

Second, Ghana’s proactive approach to negotiating with the IMF, bondholders, and the official creditor committee allowed for swift progress under the Group of Twenty (G20) Common Framework. The negotiation took just two years, making it the fastest to date. We adapted to move at the speed of the market and aligned Ghana’s internal bureaucracies to respond to creditor feedback and proposals more quickly. The involvement of African advisers with a deep understanding of financial markets, local knowledge, and key stakeholders, as well as the ability to navigate Ghana’s bureaucracy, was essential in getting the deal across the finish line—an important lesson for other countries.

Lastly, countries must prioritize transparency to regain the trust of their creditors, investors, and international partners. In Ghana’s case, we committed to regular disclosures of the public debt portfolio, increased our surveillance on debt issuance by public entities, and are digitizing debt management to enhance transparency and efficiency. These are all policies that have been supported and recognized by the IMF. These reforms helped boost the confidence of our private and international partners and show that Ghana is planning for long-term fiscal stability and sustainable growth. Ghana’s priority now is ensuring we do not need a future restructuring, which would damage the market confidence we’ve worked hard to restore.

Lessons for the international financial community

Ghana’s case shows that the G20 Common Framework is working out its growing pains. The Common Framework has come a long way in improving coordination between traditional and nontraditional creditors and accelerating the pace of restructuring. However, the international financial community must continue to increase these coordination efforts to further improve the Common Framework’s speed and efficiency. Waiting two years to regain access to international markets may not seem long, but it still hampers economic progress. Swift, transparent, and fair processes in the international financial system benefit not only debtor countries but also the global economy.

Additionally, many African nations are actively reforming and building stable, growth-focused economies, but they are limited by international perceptions. While political and geopolitical dynamics naturally influence credit ratings, as recognized by the United Nations Development Programme, it is imperative that these standards are applied fairly and consistently.  Credit agencies should ensure that they have sufficient on-the-ground resources to understand the complexity of the continent for their qualitative assessments of policies and geopolitical dynamics. The international financial community must reassess whether risk evaluations reflect today’s realities accurately or are influenced by misperceptions.

Ghana is a stable democracy and serves as an important trading partner on the global stage. Despite that, skewed risk perceptions continue to hinder access to capital, driving up interest payments and stifling development. These biases are costing Africa billions—funds that could be otherwise invested in infrastructure, healthcare, education, and economic growth.

The international financial community can foster a more equitable financial environment by working together to address these disparities. This will benefit African nations and, more importantly, contribute to a more robust and fair global economy. It is my hope that Ghana’s case can serve as a catalyst to continue accelerating the pace of restructurings and improving the international financial system so that it can be a driver of inclusive growth, poverty reduction, and global innovation. 

Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is the president of the Republic of Ghana.

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European leaders, beyond their congratulatory messages, have shown concern about tariffs and the fate of Ukraine. Many Middle Eastern leaders have welcomed Trump’s return. African leaders in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, and beyond quickly congratulated Trump following his election victory, but more broadly, they could take a wait-and-see approach on the new administration.

Nevertheless, there is one African country in particular whose position in Washington and globally could be strengthened by the new Trump presidency.

Morocco is one of the United States’ oldest allies, having been among the first to recognize the independence of the young nation in 1777 when Sultan Mohammed III opened Morocco’s ports to US ships. In 1786, that implicit recognition became formal with the signing of a treaty of peace and friendship, which is still in force today. Designated a major non-NATO ally in 2004, Morocco also plays an important role in the United States’ activities, including in the international fight against terrorism.

Trump recalled these ties in December 2020 when, a few weeks before the end of his first term, he recognized Western Sahara as part of Morocco. A month later, the US ambassador to Morocco visited the Saharan city of Dakhla to begin the process of opening a consulate. But US President Joe Biden never made this project a reality. France’s new backing for Morocco’s claim (announced before the Moroccan Parliament during a historic visit to Rabat last month) could help Morocco accelerate this agenda.

Israel is among the countries that have recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara—it did so in 2023. A few years beforehand, in 2020, Morocco had joined the list of countries in the Arab world to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel through the Abraham Accords. However, Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel and the resulting Israeli bombing and invasion of Gaza have provoked massive demonstrations in Morocco in support of the Palestinian population. Morocco also quickly sent aid to Palestinians trapped in Gaza and, at the United Nations, reaffirmed the need to respect Palestinian rights—but did not break off relations with Israel.

Undoubtedly, whatever Trump’s strategy in the Middle East, Morocco will have a central role. But under King Mohammed VI, the kingdom has established a future role for itself well beyond the Middle East.

To its south, Morocco, which returned to the African Union in 2017, continues to deepen its African footprint. France, taking note of Morocco’s role across the continent, has considered how it could rely on Morocco as a way to regain lost ground in Africa, particularly in the Sahel; Washington may follow suit. In November 2023, Mohammed VI announced a new initiative to “enable the Sahel countries [Mali, Niger, Chad, and Burkina Faso] to have access to the Atlantic Ocean” via large-scale development projects.

This plan has an ambitious Atlantic component that will undoubtedly require coordination with the United States. That can be accomplished through the Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation, which was launched in September 2023 and includes many African countries, including Morocco and Sahelian countries such as Senegal and Nigeria. There are other initiatives and challenges on which the United States and Morocco can collaborate, including addressing the drug trade that sweeps from South America and through the Sahel—and is becoming increasingly connected to the terrorist movements that have been sowing chaos in the Sahel for twenty years. How the Trump administration approaches these Atlantic projects will determine the direction of the United States’ relationship with Morocco because of Rabat’s central role in these initiatives.

What Trump does on the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) may also impact Morocco’s place on Washington’s map. The Moroccan economy has benefited from the IRA, which is based, among other things, on supplies from countries linked by free trade agreements with the United States. (Morocco has had a free trade agreement with the United States since January 2006.) With the IRA in place, Chinese companies have even turned toward Morocco, making investments there to maintain access to US markets. Meanwhile, for Morocco, it was a winning system that promoted job creation on its soil and technology transfers and strengthened its position as a key player in the green industry in Africa. Morocco is counting on its economy, one of the strongest in Africa, to achieve its regional ambitions and strengthen its impact—it is already the second-largest investor on the continent, after South Africa.

But Trump working with the Republican-controlled Congress to repeal the IRA or restrict the policy could make Morocco less tempting for China, and thus result in fewer investments. In the event of growing tensions between the United States and China, Morocco could review its strategy of equidistance between these two powers.

With China now Africa’s leading trading partner—China now has five times more trade volume with the continent than the United States does—how Trump approaches the Moroccan partnership will say a lot about his intentions for Africa.

The Africa that is awaiting Trump’s second administration is not the one his first administration left in 2021. The continent’s landscape has been profoundly changed by the pandemic, the energy crisis following the war in Ukraine, a series of coups in the Sahel, the civil war in Sudan, the strengthening of the BRICS group of emerging economies, and much more. On each of these issues, Morocco has a voice that will carry weight in Washington.

Rama Yade is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.

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While Morocco hopes to pick up where it left off in negotiations with the incoming administration, Trump’s more pragmatic and transactional approach to foreign policy indicates that he would look to Rabat for something in exchange for renewed support of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara and the opening of a consulate in Dakhla to seal the deal. The political climate in Morocco around normalization with Israel, however, has shifted since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, and the Abraham Accords seem to have lost momentum among most Arab states, which are fearful of angering their populations and have moved to a more discreet approach to their dealings with Israel. What deepening collaboration with Morocco can offer the United States, however, is the chance to thwart Iran’s ambitions in North Africa and the Sahel and unlock lucrative investment opportunities in the region for US companies.

What Morocco wants from the US

What Moroccan officials hope for in Trump’s second term is an end to what they viewed as an ambiguous policy toward their country under the Biden administration. The Biden administration has attempted to balance historical US-Morocco ties and joint security interests on the one hand and, on the other, Washington’s transatlantic responsibility to ensure the continued flow of Algerian gas to Europe to substitute for dwindling Russian energy supplies. This has meant treading a careful line between the official US position on Western Sahara and Washington’s relations with Algeria, which strongly opposes Morocco’s claim to the region and hosts the Polisario Front separatist group on its soil.

The Biden administration reversed the Trump administration’s 2020 decision to open full diplomatic representation in Western Sahara, opting instead to open a virtual consulate. Biden also showed reticence toward the Moroccan proposal of hosting the second Negev Forum between Israel and its Arab partners in the disputed territories of Western Sahara. The forum was postponed multiple times until the eruption of the Israel-Hamas war, after which Rabat completely altered its public messaging on normalization.

The current administration’s approach of keeping Morocco at arm’s length risks prolonging the fifty-year-long Western Sahara dispute and allowing Iran to gain influence in the region at Morocco’s expense. Thus, the incoming administration should reinvigorate US-Morocco security and economic ties to bolster security in the Sahara.

Iran’s regional ambitions

Since reestablishing ties with Israel in 2020, Moroccan decision makers have struggled to articulate that this move was never meant as opposition to the two-state solution or a distancing from its support for the Palestinian people. Rather, it was intended as a strategic move to ally with other countries opposed to Iran to thwart the Polisario Front, the pro-independence movement in Western Sahara that receives funding and weapons from Iran. Iran’s backing for the Polisario Front—and Algeria’s role in transferring Iranian drones to the group, according to Moroccan officials—presents a security threat in the Sahara and the Sahel that threatens to destabilize the entire region and unleash unprecedented migration flows into Southern Europe.

After the Gaza war broke out, millions of Moroccans took to the streets in solidarity with the Palestinians, but officials in Rabat read the conflict differently. They saw the threat from Iranian proxies in the damage that Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis were able to inflict on Israel and on global maritime trade. Among Moroccan officials, these developments sounded the alarm of what a potential Iranian proxy militia in Western Sahara could do. This brought Israel and Morocco closer together and was translated into a one-billion-dollar satellite deal and a rare drone manufacturing collaboration, among other ambitious intelligence and security partnerships.

Nevertheless, the kingdom chose to temper public-facing exchanges with Israel because of the dissonance between Moroccan governing elites and an increasingly heated public opinion. This public sentiment is fed by the religious, historical, and linguistic affinities between the Palestinian and Moroccan people but also by the political opportunism of Islamist parties that are instrumentalizing the Palestinian cause to undermine the government of Moroccan Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch. Recent violent clashes between members of the Moroccan community in Amsterdam and visiting Israeli soccer fans are another worrying indicator that Moroccan popular sentiment remains largely against normalization.

Meanwhile, tensions in Western Sahara are rising. With the restoration of ties with Israel in 2020, confrontations escalated in Western Sahara, especially after Moroccan forces reannexed the Guerguerat checkpoint on the borders with Mauritania, which was becoming a worrying hot spot for smuggling, human trafficking, and terrorist activities, according to Moroccan officials. Emboldened by the Gaza conflict, Polisario militants tried to capitalize on the favorable public sentiment toward self-determination and started carrying out regular shelling in the Moroccan-controlled territories Smara and Al-Mahbes. Iran, meanwhile, found the Polisario Front to be a favorable ally to further its geostrategic ambitions to gain a foothold on the Atlantic and get closer to Western Europe and the Mediterranean.

A compelling case for US-Moroccan ties

The realignment of other US allies behind Morocco, such as Spain, Israel, and France, reaffirms the imperative of standing together collectively to end the possibility of a third front, in addition to Ukraine and the Middle East, with Russian- and Iranian-backed militias in North Africa and the Sahel. This would cause tremendous risks for regional escalation, especially as Algeria continues its rapprochement with Iran and repeatedly claims that there are parallels between the Palestinian and the Western Saharan causes—although historical and anthropological realities say otherwise. Some experts even declare the Western Sahara conflict over, with the two former colonizers, Spain and France, having supported the advanced autonomy plan that Morocco proposed (and which the United States also supports) as the only serious way to resolve the dispute.

The incoming Trump administration has a historic opportunity to turn the page once and for all on this conflict and thwart any ambitions of expansion by the “axis of aggressors” in North Africa. The incoming president’s skepticism for supranational institutions might provide enough firmness to forge a pathway for the United Nations (UN) to adopt a better approach to this conflict, especially after the proposal by the UN envoy for Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, to partition the territories between Morocco and the Polisario Front—a plan that is reminiscent of the very colonial “lines in the sand” approach that led to this conflict in the first place. The United States has an opportunity to veto the renewal of the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), which has proven to be ineffective, as well as to pressure the UN to change its overall policy toward the conflict, since a referendum on Western Saharan independence is no longer on the table.

It is also in the US interest to incentivize the countries of the region by joining France in investing in Morocco’s aspiring Atlantic Initiative, which aims to offer landlocked Sahel countries mobility and trade access to the Atlantic Ocean through the $1.2 billion Dakhla harbor megaproject to make the region more economically integrated and less prone to rivalry and conflicts. The economic opportunities for US companies are also immense, given Morocco’s longstanding free trade agreement with the United States and the country’s vibrant car and aeronautics industries, in addition to large deposits of phosphate and cobalt necessary for the mass production of lithium batteries. Likewise, the incoming administration might consider reviving Senator Dan Sullivan’s proposal to transfer the headquarters of US Africa Command from Stuttgart, Germany, to Morocco to deter any destabilization attempts and build on the military partnership initiated through the joint African Lion exercises, which take place in part in Western Sahara. Additionally, from a military perspective, Morocco’s history with the United States during World War II and its geographic proximity to West Africa, the turmoiled Sahel, and the Mediterranean offer a better geostrategic positioning compared to other contenders for the relocation of US Africa Command, such as Kenya.

The Western Sahara conflict might not be at the top of the new Trump administration’s list of priorities. Still, there are compelling reasons to reinforce the United States’ security and economic partnership with Morocco and help reach a resolution to this “forgotten conflict” before it comes to haunt Washington and its allies.

Sarah Zaaimi is a resident senior fellow for North Africa and deputy director for communications at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs.

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FOCAC was established in 2000 at the insistence of the African Union, which sought to increase and institutionalize China’s presence on the continent. The forum is held every three years, alternating between Beijing and an African capital city. FOCAC’s several sub-forums formalize cooperation across sectors like youth leadership, health, poverty reduction, and development, among others. Africa is always the first destination of the year for China’s foreign minister, a three-decade-old tradition. This year, Foreign Minister Wang Yi kicked off diplomacy with a visit to Egypt, Tunisia, Togo, and Côte d’Ivoire from January 13-18. Beijing’s presence in Africa is such that journalist and professor Howard French has described it as “China’s second continent.”

Within FOCAC are nine Arab League member states—Algeria, Djibouti, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Somalia, Sudan, and Tunisia—meaning the forum has an impact in the Middle East as well. Interestingly, these FOCAC participants also have institutionalized multilateral engagement with China through the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum (CASCF), which was established in 2002, following a framework similar to FOCAC’s. The most recent CASCF Senior Officials’ Meeting was held in Beijing on May 29. Several developments between China and North African participants were announced, and momentum has only increased since then.

At the CASCF meeting in May, China and Tunisia announced that they had established a strategic partnership. This Chinese diplomatic mechanism pledged to increase cooperation in areas of mutual interest without making any formal commitments beyond that. This type of partnership typically results in increased trade and contracting. Since the China-Tunisia relationship has never been especially significant—or strategic—there is much room to grow. For example, bilateral trade between the two countries in 2022 was relatively insignificant at just $3.94 billion, according to data from the International Monetary Fund’s Direction of Trade Statistics, with the bulk of that being $3.89 billion in Chinese exports. 

The American Enterprise Institute’s China Global Investment Tracker shows a similarly modest Chinese footprint, with only a single construction contract, worth $110 million, since 2005 and no investment. That Tunisia was deemed a strategic partner is puzzling. Iraq, for example, is also a strategic partner, and bilateral trade between Iraq and China in 2022 was valued at $52 billion. Since 2005, investment has totaled over $14 billion, while contracting has been worth $20 billion. Clearly, not all strategic partnerships are created equally, but conferring this status on Tunisia seems to indicate that Beijing wants a stronger diplomatic presence across North Africa.

Other developments at CASCF confirmed this. This year, Libya, which had seen little in the way of Chinese cooperation since Beijing had to evacuate 36,000 citizens in 2011, sent a delegation to participate in the first Libyan-Chinese Economic Forum, attended by eighty-four Chinese companies that were encouraged to return to Libya to help with reconstruction. Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah, the head of Libya’s interim Government of National Unity, met with Foreign Minister Wang on the sidelines of this year’s CASCF, and the two discussed activating eighteen bilateral agreements, including facilitating the return of Chinese companies.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was one of the four heads of state at CASCF—his eighth visit to China since he took office in 2014. While in Beijing, Sisi held a summit with Xi Jinping to mark the ten-year anniversary of the comprehensive strategic partnership between China and Egypt. The two declared 2024 the “China-Egypt year of partnership,” and discussed deeper cooperation in information and communications technology, artificial intelligence, renewable energy, food security, finance, and cultural exchanges. 

It would be easy to dismiss all of this as typical summitry, but since the CASCF, there has been serious momentum in China’s Maghreb relations in areas that indicate long-term regional ambitions. 

The bilateral relationship with Libya has also continued to expand. In June, Libya’s Economy and Trade Minister Mohamed al-Hwej announced that the Libyan-Chinese Joint Economic Chamber was being activated to “help build bridges and enhance investment communication between the two countries.” In August, Libyan official Badr al-Deen al-Toumi met with a delegation from China and described three priorities: cooperation with China on Belt and Road Initiative projects; the reactivation of contracts that were stopped due to conflict; and enhanced bilateral cooperation in renewables, infrastructure, industrial technology, and urban planning. Chinese companies have been invited to discuss infrastructure construction, with a delegation visiting al-Zawiya in August to pitch the development of a seaport. Given this momentum, it was unsurprising that during FOCAC, Libya became the most recent Arab country to announce a strategic partnership agreement with China.

Separately, Algeria has made inroads in economic and military cooperation with China. In August, the Chinese embassy in Algiers announced that three Chinese carmakers—JAC, Chery, and Geely—would be setting up factories in Algeria, producing cars for the domestic and African markets. The Chery factory’s capacity is projected to be 100,000 vehicles per year within three years, and the Geely factory is said to represent a $200 million investment that will be operational in 2026. On the military front, Algeria inducted Chinese YJ-12B anti-ship missiles in August, complementing the CX-1 ASCM cruise missiles it acquired from Beijing in 2018. It has since kicked the treads on Chinese VT-4 battle tanks, an action that “aligns with its broader strategy of incorporating various Chinese military assets into its defense arsenal.” 

Morocco has also seen substantial movement from China. There was a major infrastructure announcement in September, with China Railway Engineering signing a $350 million contract to develop a high-speed rail line between Kenitra and Marrakech. On the sidelines at FOCAC, a Chinese textile company, Sunrise, announced that it will invest $422 million to establish industrial complexes. Maghreb Agence Presse claimed the investment, projected to create 11,000 new jobs, will “revitalize the national textile sector.” It is in the auto industry where Morocco has been especially interesting, however.

In June, Gotion High Tech announced its plans to build an electric-vehicle (EV) battery gigafactory for $1.3 billion, an investment it says will eventually reach $6.5 billion. This came on the heels of several announcements in 2024 about Chinese EV battery factories in Morocco. Hailiang, Shinzoom, and BTR New Material Group have each announced plans to build plants near Tangiers, and CNGR Advanced Material has plans for one in Jorf Lasfar. CITIC Dicastal has established an aluminum alloy wheel manufacturing plant, the largest Chinese investment in Morocco. Taken together, Morocco’s goal of becoming a major EV producer, combined with its proximity to the European Union (EU) and its trade deals with the EU and the United States, make it an important location for Chinese EV firms to invest, potentially circumventing tariffs.    

Of the Maghreb countries, Egypt has been China’s most varied—and most important—partner. There has been an uptick in security-focused cooperation. In August, China and Egypt held a joint naval exercise in the Mediterranean Sea north of Alexandria, where they carried out training courses in communications coordination, formation maneuvering, and maritime replenishment positioning. Shortly after, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force sent eight planes to an air show in Egypt. In mid-September, China’s defense contractor ELINC signed a contract with Egypt’s Arab Organization for Industrialization to work with Egypt on manufacturing advanced defense systems. And, of course, there has been a wide range of economic and developmental bilateral cooperation. At FOCAC, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly was on hand for a billion-dollar signing ceremony for projects in the Suez Canal Economic Zone that involved manufacturing chemical products, food products, and energy components. On the sidelines, China announced it would inject $14 million into Egypt to invest in joint projects. Chinese forums are a godsend for a country with an economy like Egypt’s, which has appeared moribund at several points in recent years.

North Africa is frequently described as one of the least integrated regions in the world. However, when considering Chinese engagement across the Maghreb, it becomes clear how the seeds Beijing is planting today could result in intra-regional industrial chains and business clusters in the not-so-distant future.

Jonathan Fulton is a nonresident senior fellow for Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs and the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative and an association professor of political science at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi, UAE.   

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No Western partner is swooping in to assist Mali’s overburdened military, as France once did. Mali’s current approach, reliant on show-of-force air strikes and support from the Russian Wagner mercenary group, has failed to deliver a decisive victory. In late July, armed groups killed as many as forty-seven Malian soldiers and eighty-four Wagner mercenaries near the Algerian border, sparking a new round of fighting.

There is only one way to avert further loss of life and territorial contestation: mediation. Algiers, which has brokered multiple hostage releases and peace deals in northern Mali—including the 2015 Algiers Accord—is no longer a welcome interlocutor. Bamako has accused Algiers of meddling in its affairs by meeting rebel leaders. Mali’s neighbors to the east, Burkina Faso and Niger, are too consumed with their own domestic security challenges to play a meaningful role. But Mauritania, Mali’s neighbor to the west, is in a unique position to foster peace.

The case for Mauritania

Mauritania is a relatively stable country, whose historic neutrality in regional disputes has earned it generally positive foreign relationships. Previous attempts at mediation have failed to install an enduring peace in northern Mali, largely because they were not inclusive. But with its neutrality, Mauritania has the ability to talk to all conflict parties in northern Mali—nonterrorist armed groups, terrorists, and government-aligned forces. This offers distinct advantages.

Mauritania’s president, Mohamed Ould El Ghazouani, was recently inaugurated for a second and final term, which he is serving concurrently with the African Union (AU) chairmanship. The AU has substantial convening power, and Ghazouani is an ideal mediator because of Mauritania’s neutrality, making the timing optimal for a push for regional peace.

Peace would advance Mauritania’s interests, too. Mali’s widening conflict has destabilized its eastern border. More than 55,000 Malians fled to Mauritania last year, flooding refugee camps. Mauritania accused the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) and Wagner of crossing the eastern border and killing Mauritanians. Mediation offers Ghazouani an opportunity to stem the refugee flow and permanently end the violent cross-border incursions that have killed his constituents.

It won’t be easy

The two primary parties in the conflict, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Malian transition government, have opposing goals. JNIM is an al-Qaeda affiliate and aims to displace the government, whereas Bamako aims to eradicate terrorism and assert control over its territory. At the same time, an anti-government, nonterrorist armed group coalition—the Permanent Strategic Framework for the Defense of the People of Azawad (CSP-DPA)—is fighting for greater regional autonomy and economic opportunity. The CSP-DPA’s relationship with JNIM is unclear.

Regardless, none of the parties have given Mauritania consent to mediate, so Nouakchott will need to operate outside of a formal peace process, at least at the outset. This is risky but necessary. Bamako has gradually driven away French, European Union, and United Nations (UN) troops over the past few years, demonstrating its hostility to international stabilization efforts. The Malian transition government would probably reject a request to engage terrorist or nonterrorist armed group leaders.

The conflict still merits mediation. After months of fighting, no actor has achieved sustained momentum on the battlefield. There are clashes, of course, but the conflict is nowhere near over. The FAMa and Wagner have expended large amounts of munitions during offensive operations. These operations have displaced and killed northern civilians while failing to meaningfully degrade the capabilities of armed groups. Armed groups have withdrawn to more remote areas of the Sahara Desert, where they are expending scarce resources to survive. This cannot go on forever.

Ending the war

Here’s how Mauritania can bring all the parties to the negotiating table:

1. Open a direct line of communication with northern leaders

Mauritania is well-positioned to initiate contact with the leaders of terrorist and nonterrorist armed groups, given the historic relationship that its Beidane (White Moor) population has with Mali’s Tuareg population. The two ethnic groups have historically adopted similar migration patterns, and their personal, religious, and business connections persist to this day. Mauritanian citizens have maintained ties with populations in northern Mali by traversing age-old transhumance routes.

Mauritania should leverage these relationships and routes to initiate contact with leaders of terrorist and nonterrorist armed groups, many of whom are Malian Tuareg, without arousing suspicion. Once contact is made, Mauritania should arrange low-profile in-person meetings with select leaders of these armed groups to determine whether they are amenable to further engagement.

2. Persuade JNIM leaders to defect from al-Qaeda

Mauritania must clearly articulate the value of further engagement to leaders of terrorist and nonterrorist armed groups. JNIM is particularly important, as its members never reconciled with Bamako or laid down their arms. Their operations, as well as their continued recruitment of northern populations, made true peace impossible. JNIM’s leaders are thus critical to the installation of an enduring peace in northern Mali.

Mauritania can offer incentives for armed group leaders to engage in mediation. For example, it can offer to intercede with the Malian transition government on their behalf, push for pauses in military operations, and legitimize their bid for northern leadership.

JNIM’s Tuareg leaders may be receptive to the argument that, without this support, it will be impossible for them to evade persecution and exert true leadership over northern Mali, their homeland. Their ambition to secure leadership in their homeland predates JNIM’s establishment, after all. Ultimately, however, only engagement can reveal whether they are open to mediation.

Mauritania’s offer to mediate must come with conditions: JNIM’s Tuareg leaders must commit to disaffiliation with both al-Qaeda and JNIM. They must permanently cease all terrorist activity, and they must stop attacking civilians or permitting youth to serve as fighters. The leaders may choose not to accept these conditions; if that is the case, they must not be included in talks.

This step assumes that mass Tuareg defection from JNIM will not prompt conflict with one of its major factions, the Fulani-dominated Macina Liberation Front (MLF). Evidence suggests that the MLF will not instigate a violent conflict, as this would ultimately drain their resources. There is a strong incentive for the MLF to accept mass defection, and the risk of fratricidal conflict is thus low. It is far more likely that severing JNIM improves Mali’s long-term stability.

3. Solicit formal consent to mediate the conflict in northern Mali

Mauritania should make a formal bid to mediate this conflict. Ghazouani can arrange meetings with each conflict party and seek their consent to initiate multiparty talks. If the previous steps succeeded, leaders of terrorist and nonterrorist armed groups may have already agreed to talks. Ghazouani can thus “deliver” JNIM and the CSP-DPA to Malian officials. 

The Malian transition government will be difficult to persuade to enter multiparty talks. This year, the FAMa deployed and held territory in northern Mali. The recapture of Kidal in November 2023 was a major symbolic victory. Bamako may wish to continue fighting. If this is the case, the best strategy for engaging government officials would be to praise Mali’s strength.

Ghazouani should personally travel to Bamako to meet the interim president, Colonel Assimi Goïta. Ghazouani and Goïta are both military commanders who participated in coups d’état in their respective countries. Ghazouani is the elder of the two, and he has successfully navigated the transition from military to civilian leader. He can advise Goïta.

Ghazouani can praise Goïta’s leadership and make the argument that the Malian leader played a decisive role in bringing CSP-DPA and JNIM leaders to the table. He should also highlight the benefits of participating in multiparty talks. Settling the conflict in the north would allow the FAMa and Wagner to shift focus and dedicate more troops to the faltering counterterrorism campaign against the MLF in central Mali. The MLF recently launched a deadly attack against military facilities in Bamako. In light of this, Goïta may be receptive to this argument.

4. Seek international support for the peace process

After acquiring Goïta’s consent, Mauritania should seek backing from the international community and begin planning the first round of talks in Nouakchott. Ghazouani can capitalize on his position as AU chairman to form a Northern Mali Contact Group. The contact group would help coordinate, fund, and execute programming in support of negotiated outcomes of the multiparty talks.

It is very important that the group balance different perspectives and international alliances. Mali’s military junta swapped the country’s Western security partners for Wagner, and Bamako would object if the group contains a disproportionate number of Western states. Ghazouani’s initial efforts should focus on the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC). Two are not part of the West, and all are involved in regional initiatives.

Mauritania’s neutrality affords it positive relations with all the UNSC permanent members. Accordingly, it is well-equipped to navigate any tensions among them. It must emphasize that the permanent members have a common interest: improving stability. This is only achievable if they collaborate.

Within North and West Africa, Ghazouani should focus initial efforts on recruiting former members of the Algiers Accord Monitoring Committee: Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger, and Mauritania. Morocco should be included as well, to avoid upsetting the regional balance of power. These six states all stand to benefit from a peaceful and secure northern Mali.

Once the Northern Mali Contact Group is established, Ghazouani and the AU should focus on coordinating, funding, and executing programs in parallel to the multiparty talks. The parties to the conflict are extremely sensitive to external meddling. The Northern Mali Contact Group must keep the parties’ goals at the center of this deliberative process.

Parting shots

This is an ambitious concept, but it seizes upon the many advantages afforded by Mauritania’s current position. It generates momentum for multiparty talks by engaging terrorist and nonterrorist armed group leaders. It then uses their willingness to negotiate as a bargaining chip with which to compel the government to permit multiparty talks. It concludes by seeking external backing.

Considering and including representatives from all conflict parties in northern Mali is the pathway to a more durable, inclusive political settlement that brings peace to a region historically beset by violent conflict.

Jordanna Yochai is a defense analyst, whose portfolio includes the West African Sahel. She is currently on leave from the Department of Defense, pursuing a master’s degree at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).

The positions expressed in this article do not reflect the official position of the US Department of Defense. The US Department of Defense does not endorse the views expressed in hyperlinked articles or websites, including any information, products, or services contained therein.

The Africa Center works to promote dynamic geopolitical partnerships with African states and to redirect US and European policy priorities toward strengthening security and bolstering economic growth and prosperity on the continent.

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Since his consolidation of power, Saied has dismantled many democratic institutions, extending the state of emergency and adopting a new constitution that centralizes power around the presidency. As a result, political pluralism has been significantly restricted, leading to fears of increased political repression and tighter control over the media. This shift has raised concerns about the erosion of democratic institutions established following the 2011 Arab uprisings, of which Tunisia constituted the only real attempt to reach a pluralistic and liberal government in North Africa.

The current political climate indicates that Saied will likely continue to consolidate his influence over Tunisia’s political landscape. The president’s track record of suppressing dissent, restricting media freedom, and sidelining political opponents suggests that these authoritarian measures will likely persist in the months and years ahead. Recent changes to the electoral process have further tightened his grip on power, with several key presidential candidates imprisoned or barred from participating in the elections. This has effectively cleared the field for Saied, raising concerns about the integrity of the electoral process and the future of political pluralism in Tunisia. The increasingly restricted political environment, combined with these legal and procedural maneuvers, points to a continued erosion of democratic norms under his rule.

In addition to the dire political evolution of the country is its deteriorating economic situation. Tunisia’s economy is precarious, since it is heavily reliant on agreements with the European Union (EU) and even more so with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to sustain its political and economic viability. The EU is a key economic partner, pledging over $900 million in funding contingent upon successful negotiations with the IMF, which are stalled due to the Tunisian government’s withdrawal from negotiations. In fact, Saied’s skepticism toward certain reforms, particularly those involving subsidy reductions and austerity measures, has complicated these negotiations. This hesitance has created uncertainty about Tunisia’s economic future and the government’s ability to address growing public discontent, underscoring a perilous state of affairs with unforeseeable consequences for the whole region.

Furthermore, migration has become a critical issue in Tunisia’s relations with the EU. In response to rising irregular migration from North Africa, the EU has sought to bolster border control and manage migrant flows through partnerships with Tunisia. While Saied has occasionally cooperated with EU initiatives, he has also adopted more nationalistic rhetoric, accusing foreign powers of seeking to use Tunisia as a border guard for Europe. This dual approach complicates negotiations and poses risks not only to the agreements on migration with the EU, but also to the more general economic well-being of the country.

Moreover, the outcome of the upcoming US presidential elections could also significantly affect Tunisia and North Africa. Former President Donald Trump has advocated for an isolationist foreign policy, and if he wins it could lead to the United States reducing economic and political assistance to Tunisia while maintaining military aid for monitoring the situation in the region. In contrast, Vice President Kamala Harris, given her past positions in areas such as rallying international support for Iranian women following Mahsa Amini’s death, may adopt a more proactive stance on human rights and governance, possibly increasing scrutiny on Saied’s administration while still recognizing the importance of military support given the region’s challenges. In this case, the risk of Tunisia radicalizing would increase, with Saied veering toward further authoritarianism and even aligning with countries such as Algeria and possibly Russia and China.

As Tunisia heads toward its election, the intertwining of domestic politics, economic struggles, and international relations sets the stage for a complex political environment. Saied’s presidency, marked by an increasing hold on power and skepticism toward reform, poses critical questions about the future of Tunisia.

The situation makes it difficult for the international community to take decisive action. For the United States, due to geographical distance and a lack of direct national interest in Tunisia, it may be easier for the administration to adopt a tougher stance on the political establishment and push for a return to the democratic process. However, for Europe, the situation is more complex. The EU must maintain a strategic balance between addressing its own challenges—such as migration, terrorism, and regional stability—and upholding the democratic ideals that the Tunisian people championed during the 2011 Jasmine Revolution. Balancing these interests while engaging with Tunisia’s current political realities will be a delicate task.

Karim Mezran is director of the North Africa Initiative and resident senior fellow with the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council.

Alissa Pavia is the associate director of the Atlantic Council’s North Africa Initiative. 

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It is no difficulty to find crises across the Sahel and its adjacent neighborhoods: Economic stagnation, extreme weather and climate degradation, multiple terrorist organizations and jihadist groups claiming territory, a series of military coups and democratic backsliding, various non-jihadist rebel and separatist alliances, a youth bulge and widespread unemployment, and a genocide all compete for sparse outside attention.

Yet, sailing from distant shores comes yet another crisis: An increase in drug trafficking, with flows originating in the Americas, crossing the Atlantic, and making their way into the markets of Europe.

This influx of drugs will have a marked impact, not only on the region itself, but also on the wider world should the worst happen.

The best-case scenario is merely the introduction of additional groups of well-funded armed criminal enterprises with international connections in an already volatile region. The worst-case scenario is the emergence of narco-terrorism on a scale hitherto unheard of and the entrenchment of partnerships between drug smugglers and increasingly well-funded terrorist groups, armed with cash and boasting access to international connections and smuggling routes.

In short, the worst-case scenario is one in which organizations such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) are fueled and financed by one of the largest drug markets in the world.

A bad situation getting worse

According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), between 2015 and 2020, an average of thirteen kilograms of cocaine was seized per year in the region. In 2021, the amount seized rose to forty-one kilograms. Then in 2022, it spiked to 1,466 kilograms.

In comparison to 2015 seizures, that is an increase of 11,176 percent.

Before complete data for 2023 became available, the UN cited that 2.3 tons (just over two thousand kilograms) of cocaine had been seized in Mauritania alone between January and June 2023. These statistics are alarming, and they don’t even show the full picture: Amounts seized are not amounts trafficked—that amount is likely far higher.  

While domestic drug use is rising across the Sahel, sparking public health crises that are ill-afforded in many countries, the region is becoming a drug trafficking corridor. The drugs are bound for outside markets, with the increase in activity attributed to Europe’s surging demand for illegal narcotics and trafficking groups searching for new routes to markets.

The region is a drug smuggler’s paradise.

Located on the doorstep of Europe and the Middle East, the region is vast and often sparsely populated. It is also riddled with economic deprivation, with an ever-increasing population of youth desperate for opportunity. The countries in the Sahel often have weak governance, widespread corruption, and ongoing battles with insurgents and fundamentalists.

On top of that, Sahelian officials and individuals are vulnerable to the influence of drug gangs—but they are not alone. There are numerous documented cases from across the world of drug gangs using officials to further their work, such as a premier of the British Virgin Islands. Following recent seizures and arrests in the Sahel, the UN expressed concerns about the range of individuals—including the political elite, community leaders, and armed groups—who appear to be involved in facilitating drug trafficking.

While the involvement of key individuals in facilitating drug trafficking is widespread, what makes the situation in the Sahel worrisome are the “armed groups” involved. In Latin America, armed groups facilitating drug trafficking are organizations such as FARC and in Southeast Asia they are militias tied to regional forces or even the drug traffickers themselves. In the Sahel, they are international jihadist organizations, ones with global ambitions and a willingness to export terror and war from their base of operations.

Worrying signs

An array of terrorist organizations operate in the Sahel region: Groups include al-Qaeda affiliate Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), and Boko Haram.

These groups control vast swaths of land in the Sahel, are expanding and entrenching their control, and are also competing with each other, propelling their searches for more resources. Because of this, they are among the groups that can most stand to financially benefit from the burgeoning drug trade.

While the drug smuggling flows are opaque, the UNODC highlights that the “limited evidence” of violent extremist armed groups involved in drug trafficking “does not mean that such groups are not involved.” These groups, the UNODC adds, are “likely to benefit indirectly” from drug trafficking, explaining that groups such as JNIM and ISGS demand taxes or fees from traffickers in areas where they operate.

Even if these organizations are not directly managing the drug trade, they stand to benefit from the routes and from facilitating drug smugglers’ operations in the territories they control. Such a partnership could be devastating for the region and beyond.

The UNODC notes that information about these groups’ involvement in the drug trade could still emerge. Historically, terrorist and jihadi organizations have embraced a more hands-on approach to the drug trade to fund their organizations and operations. The Taliban in Afghanistan has long been linked to the opium trade (and the drug trade has supported terrorism), ISIS in Syria has produced drugs for market in Europe and smuggles drugs across the Middle East, and Hezbollah has been tied to Columbian drug rings.

With the Sahel becoming an increasingly major drug trafficking corridor, terrorist groups could shift from merely facilitating the drug trade toward actively managing and participating in it, spreading narco-terrorism and expanding the funding for these groups. A war on drugs and narco-terrorism in the Sahel would be a devastating addition to the current war on terror across the region, where 43 percent of global terrorism deaths take place. A development such as this would not only be dangerous for the Sahel, but for the wider Middle East and Europe as well. Drug routes are known to facilitate other forms of international smuggling and for hiding activities from authorities—ever more dangerous when involving jihadist groups.

What the West can do

Unfortunately, the West can’t do much in the Sahel.

Both the United States and the European Union (EU) have retreated from the region, driven away by military juntas that do not share the West’s democratic values and concern for human rights. Various joint military efforts that had been underway to combat terror groups have fallen apart as the United States and EU left the region and lost partners. This is unlikely to change, and if the United States and EU lack the partners necessary to combat jihadist groups in the Sahel, they will likely also lack the ability to combat drug smuggling.

What they can do, however, is support and strengthen partnerships with the costal democracies in West Africa, preventing drugs from entering the Sahel in the first place.

West African democracies are on the frontlines of combating jihadists. Terrorists are attempting to expand operations and territory in countries including Senegal, Benin, Togo, and Ghana. These democracies are also on the frontlines of combating drug smuggling and are making waves with seizures. For example, last November, Senegal’s navy seized three tons of cocaine that was headed towards Europe. In April this year, the country made headlines for seizing 1,140 kilograms of cocaine (the most ever intercepted on land), which was headed toward Mali. More seizures followed in June. In Ghana, authorities have also clamped down on trafficking, making headlines after arresting a duo attempting to smuggle an amount of cocaine worth six million dollars through Accra’s airport and to London. On September 7 in Guinea-Bissau, authorities (with help from the US Drug Enforcement Administration and a European organization called the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre) seized 2.6 tons of cocaine that had arrived from Latin America.

As drugs continue to flow, and as the domestic use of drugs continues to rise, West African politicians and societies are just as interested in addressing drug trafficking as the United States and EU are. These West African democracies would be willing partners in combating the twin threats of expanding terrorist groups and a burgeoning drug trade.

Should the Sahel become home to narco-terrorism, the consequences would be catastrophic, not only for the Sahel but for the world. The international community must not ignore yet another crisis.

Alexander Tripp is the assistant director for the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.

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Despite the turmoil in the Middle East since October 7, 2023—the pain, suffering, polarization, and destruction of land and hope—the Abraham Accords are still alive. They have laid a foundation far beyond any one conflict for greater peace in the region. Reflecting on their fourth anniversary, this piece explores where the Abraham Accords started, where they are today, and where they are headed.

Where it started

The seeds of the Abraham Accords were planted well before 2020. Longstanding hopes for peace began to become a reality publicly when the UAE named 2019 the “Year of Tolerance,” celebrating the diversity of religious life in the country. Among other milestones, the UAE invited Israel to participate in the Dubai 2020 World Expo, welcomed Pope Francis for a landmark visit to the Arab world, signed the Document of Human Fraternity with the Catholic Church, and announced the construction of the Abrahamic Family House—a mosque, church, and synagogue coexisting on the same campus in Abu Dhabi. For those paying attention, like I was, the ground was shifting—the UAE of 2019 that was building a synagogue was clearly a country that had greater ambitions with Israel.

Then, on September 15, 2020, history was made as 700 guests gathered at the White House to witness the normalization of relations between Israel and two Arab nations: the UAE and Bahrain. Then-US President Donald Trump presided over the signing of the Abraham Accords, alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan, and Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani. Shortly after this milestone, Israel expanded its diplomatic ties by announcing agreements with Sudan on October 23, 2020, and Morocco on December 10, 2020.

In the immediate aftermath, the accords were well-received by the governments involved, who viewed them as opportunities to enhance economic ties, security cooperation, and diplomatic relations. The agreements were heralded by many as the “dawn of a new Middle East,” as Trump noted, marking the most significant transformation in regional geopolitics in a generation and the most important step toward peace and stability in the Middle East since the Israel-Jordan peace agreement twenty-five years earlier.

The early years

Between 2020 and 2023, diplomatic relationships flourished with the establishment of mutual embassies, air and trade corridors, political and cultural advocacy activities, strategic military agreements, and people-to-people ties. Groundbreaking bilateral and multilateral forums, like the Negev Summit in Israel, the Negev Forum Steering Committee in Bahrain, and the Atlantic Council’s N7 Initiative, were established, fostering unprecedented regional collaboration. High-level visits and joint initiatives that once seemed unimaginable brought together innovators, investors, experts, academics, and women leaders, further strengthening these new relationships. Economic ties flourished, with trade between the Abraham Accords countries surging from practically nothing in 2019 to an estimated $10 billion over the first three years.

Israel and the UAE saw the most significant trade, tourism, and innovation advancements following the Abraham Accords: Annual bilateral trade surged, reaching almost $3 billion by 2023, driven by a historic free-trade agreement and numerous business partnerships. Tourism flourished, with over one million Israelis visiting the UAE by 2023, facilitated by 106 weekly direct flights between the two countries. Both nations established embassies, engaged in security cooperation, and collaborated on innovation and technology projects. Cultural exchange programs further deepened these ties, promoting mutual understanding. Joint initiatives in areas like renewable energy and space exploration broadened the scope of their partnership.

Four years later

As their fourth anniversary arrives, the good news is that the Abraham Accords remain intact. Despite the Gaza war, none of the signatories have backtracked from their normalization agreements: No ties have been permanently broken, and no country has withdrawn from its commitments or closed its embassy—a powerful diplomatic signal that the relationships are enduring. Ambassadors from Israel, Bahrain, and the UAE continue to play active roles, maintaining diplomatic channels and fulfilling their duties to sustain these historic ties. Trade between the signatory nations continues, fostering economic prosperity, and security and airspace cooperation also remain largely in place.

However, the period between 2020 and 2023, characterized by hundreds of signed agreements, booming tourism, and vibrant public diplomacy, has given way to a more subdued phase. October 7, 2023, and its implications for all of the signatory countries have shifted the posture from very open and public to very private. People-to-people ties have been limited, public celebrations have been muted, and much of the once-public diplomacy now happens behind closed doors.

A look at the social media channels of the embassies reflects this shift. The Israeli Embassy in Bahrain is focused on the fate of hostages and advocating for their safe return. Israeli Ambassador to the UAE Amir Hayek emphasizes positive messages and sticks to sharing holiday wishes while recognizing milestones in the UAE. Emirati Ambassador to Israel Mohamed al-Khaja has been publicly quiet throughout 2024, albeit sharing Passover wishes in April. His most recent substantial post on X was issued on the third anniversary of the accords in September 2023.

Nevertheless, despite these challenges and the current state of the Middle East, there is still room for hope, and here are the reasons why:

1. A foundation of principles: The Abraham Accords declaration was more than just a political agreement. It was a statement of shared principles: a commitment to “strengthening peace in the Middle East and around the world based on mutual understanding and coexistence, as well as respect for human dignity and freedom.” The aspirations of the Abraham Accords represent universal values that resonate globally—and that are more relevant than ever today.
2. Shifting security alliances: Security alliances have shifted, enabling better responses, particularly from Israel and the UAE, to shared regional challenges ranging from the Red Sea attacks to Iran and from the Houthis in Yemen to Hamas.   
3. People-to-people engagement: The Abraham Accords are a warm peace built not just on politics but also on people-to-people ties, offering a powerful counter to dehumanization, anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia. The Abrahamic Family House is a testimony to that enduring faith in shared humanity. The site recently ranked among Time Magazine’s “2024 Greatest Places in the World to Visit” and is just one example of the signatories’ ongoing commitment to coexistence and understanding.
4. Prosperity as a pathway to peace: Economic cooperation between Israel and the Abraham Accords countries continues, paving the way for peace by addressing key drivers of conflict like poverty, unemployment, and inequality and by shifting the focus to collaboration, innovation, and mutual benefit. In August, Israel Aerospace Industries announced plans to establish a presence in Abu Dhabi, where it will convert Emirati aircraft into freighters. This move highlights the UAE’s ongoing commitment to building ties with Israel, even as regional tensions rise.
5. The essential role of women: To ensure the long-term success of the Abraham Accords, integrating women equally in policy-making, decision-making, and programming will be crucial. Research shows that when women are actively engaged in peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding, negotiations are more effective, peace is more enduring, and broader segments of society benefit. Including women across all sectors—economy, education, environment, politics, and the legal system—will foster a more prosperous, sustainable, and peaceful future for the countries involved in the Abraham Accords and the entire region.

As the Abraham Accords turn four years old, they stand as a testament to the power of diplomacy and the pursuit of shared interests, even in a region as complex and historically fraught as the Middle East. However, the future of the accords cannot be fully realized without a sustainable and just resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

While the accords have faced criticism for sidelining the Palestinian issue, there is still potential for them to serve as a framework that encourages renewed dialogue. Additionally, the potential inclusion of Saudi Arabia—the most influential Arab nation—in the Abraham Accords would be a transformative development. While Riyadh has shown interest, any formal move toward normalization would likely hinge on meaningful progress toward resolving the Palestinian situation. Riyadh’s participation would not only bolster the accords but could also set the stage for even broader regional acceptance of Israel, further reshaping Middle Eastern geopolitics and potentially opening new avenues to address Palestinian concerns comprehensively.

Looking ahead, the survival and success of the Abraham Accords will depend on a continued commitment from all parties to maintain open dialogue, strengthen economic ties, and foster people-to-people connections capable of transcending political tensions. It is essential for signatory countries to reaffirm their dedication to these agreements, not only as a means of advancing their national interests but also as a broader contribution to regional stability. The Abraham Accords may not have solved all of the region’s problems, but they have undeniably shifted the geopolitical landscape in a positive direction: toward lasting peace and cooperation in the Middle East.

Marcy Grossman is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs and former Canadian ambassador to the United Arab Emirates. 

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Despite a mixed record on foreign policy and the economy, Tebboune has increased his popular support by partly redirecting windfall oil and gas revenues into expanded social spending. He also enjoys the substantial advantages of incumbency in Algeria’s highly centralized presidential system. Algeria’s largest political parties, unions, and social organizations—which function as tacit arms of the state—all support his campaign. Most critically, he has the backing of the country’s powerful security apparatus, which has ruled the country from behind the scenes for six decades.

During his first years in office, the military’s support was less certain. Just days after Tebboune’s inauguration in December 2019, army chief Ahmed Gaid Salah died of a heart attack, stranding the new president without his main benefactor. Since then, rumors have circulated of squabbles and backstabbing between the president’s office and the new army leadership. In December 2022, Ihsane El Kadi, one of Algeria’s last remaining independent journalists, wrote an op-ed questioning just how firmly the army supported Tebboune. Merely posing the question was enough to make El Kadi the first political detainee of this election cycle. He would not be the last.

Algerian authorities seemingly intimidated several of Tebboune’s potential challengers into seeking exile abroad or announcing their retirement from politics. Others were weeded out this summer in the candidate registration process, which saw some punished with electoral fraud charges. In the past couple weeks, security forces have also detained multiple high-profile political dissidents. The seizures have been accompanied by an uptick in state propaganda, along with conveniently timed operations to break up an alleged separatist plot and spy ring.

While familiar from previous elections, none of these measures are the hallmark of a strong leader confident in his electoral chances—or of a strong state confident in its stability.

They indicate that the country’s military and political leaders correctly understand elections to be moments of vulnerability. It was an aborted election in 1992—part of a long-overdue, yet nonetheless ill-prepared democratic transition—that tipped the country into civil war. And it was an approaching election in 2019 that sparked the Hirak, a nationwide protest movement calling for new leaders and a new governing system.

Military leaders rebuffed that demand, instead imposing a new election that saw Tebboune designated over protesters’ objections. Their boycott has tarnished his legitimacy ever since.

Having done what was needed in his first term to shore up the army’s support (including doubling the military budget and tightening laws to stifle the Hirak), Tebboune is now returning to the population in hopes of obtaining a more convincing mandate.

He was last elected with 58.1 percent of the vote, a share he is likely to exceed this weekend. Less clear is how many Algerians will choose to vote.

Official turnout in 2019 was just 39.9 percent, a historic low for an Algerian presidential election. Of those who voted, one in eight cast an invalid ballot, a common form of protest vote in Algeria. In fact, turnout has been trending downward and protest votes trending upward in recent presidential elections. Tebboune knows that his second term will be smoother if he can improve on these figures.

To help him do so, he has enlisted two willing contenders: Youcef Aouchiche, leader of the left-wing Socialist Forces Front, and Abdelaali Hassani Cherif, head of the Movement of a Society for Peace, Algeria’s largest Islamist party. They are the only two candidates whom electoral officials authorized to challenge Tebboune. Both consider their parties among the “constructive opposition,” and have chosen to run in order to engage their bases, build electoral credibility over rival parties, and curry favor with the authorities ahead of legislative elections expected by 2026. Alongside Tebboune, they have spent the three-week official campaign period imploring Algerians to turn out in force.

The question of participation rates is among the few unsettled ones around this election. If Tebboune and his fellow candidates manage to incite turnout beyond that of 2019, the president will enter his second term with the wind at his back. If turnout is low, authorities are likely to blame it on timing: Tebboune’s choice to schedule the campaign and election amid the summer vacation period offers a convenient excuse for low turnout. But Tebboune has already shown through his first term that even with limited electoral legitimacy, the combined strength of his office, hydrocarbon revenues, and the army’s backing can suffice to buttress his rule.

Algeria’s election is likely to ensure continuity. Those Algerians who yearn for more participatory governance, protection for essential freedoms, and economic diversification beyond oil and gas will be kept waiting once more.

Andrew G. Farrand is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs and author of The Algerian Dream.

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The news broke after the Moroccan royal palace released a communiqué that referenced a letter from French President Emmanuel Macron to the king of Morocco on the commemoration of the silver jubilee of his coronation. The letter states that the “present and future of Western Sahara fall within the framework of Moroccan sovereignty.” In his correspondence with the Moroccan king, Macron added that “France intends to act consistently with this position at both national and international levels.” Although the French position explicitly references Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, it will need more clarification and translation into concrete policies in the coming months.

Nonetheless, the French decision is particularly significant given its colonial past in North Africa and its shared responsibility with Spain in largely determining the postcolonial borders of Morocco, Algeria, and Mauritania. These borders are the origin of many of the current territorial disputes in the region. France’s endorsement of the Moroccan autonomy plan this week follows similar support from Spain in 2022 and recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara expressed by the United States in 2020 and Israel in 2023, along with a growing list of Arab and African nations.

Understanding the French calculus

France’s shift of stance comes as its relations with Morrocco have been strained. Since 2020, Rabat has pressured Paris to break the status quo—a neutrality on the issue apparently intended not to upset either Morocco or Algeria—and take a clearer stance on the Western Sahara. Striking a deal with then-US President Donald Trump in 2020 over the disputed territories and normalizing ties with Israel boosted Morocco’s diplomatic confidence and helped redefine the kingdom’s foreign policy. As a result, the Sahara issue, in the words of the Moroccan king, became “the lens through which Morocco looks at the world.”

As an example of the deteriorating bilateral relations, Mohammed VI reportedly “definitely shelved” relations with Macron and declined state visit requests by the French president last year. In addition, the kingdom started to increase its divestment from business partnerships with France—previously considered its international economic partner of choice. Torn between Morocco and Algeria, France failed to balance its act in the Maghreb after a chain of unfortunate events, including the Pegasus spyware case, a visa crisis, and the recall of Rabat’s ambassador to France in February 2023. Most recently, Morocco refused French aid after the Marrakesh earthquake in September 2023.

France, however, never stopped courting Morocco, because Paris did not want to lose strategically important economic and political ground in Africa. For its part, Rabat did not break its relations with Paris entirely, continuing its intelligence and security cooperation with France. Moroccan forces, for example, are currently helping to secure the Paris Olympics. Morocco also appointed Samira Sitail, a dual national and Makhzan insider, as its ambassador to attempt to stir the stagnant waters.

Rather than trying to deter Morocco’s ambitious Atlantic Initiative—aimed at offering landlocked Sahel countries trade access to the ocean through a $1.2 billion harbor in Dakhla, Western Sahara—France is eying a share of the economic benefits promised by the project. The only catch is how to address the 2021 European Union (EU) court ruling against the Morocco-EU trade deal over Western Sahara, which the Elysée may now advocate to reverse together with other pro-Moroccan EU countries ahead of the final judgment, due in a few months.

Western Sahara and global realignment

Another defining factor in understanding the recent French decision lies in the global realignment behind old Cold War frontiers, and NATO allies engaging in historic contests against increasingly destabilizing forces. Morocco has always been a reliable partner to the global liberal West in its fight against Russian aggression and different terrorist groups. The country is also more-or-less aligned with the United States and France on a common vision of the future. As Iran and its proxies reinforce ties with the Algerian regime, which has been cultivating close relations with Russia since the 1970s, North Atlantic allies fear a new stronghold of antagonists in North Africa.

For the past five decades, Western Sahara has been a major security loophole at the doors of the Mediterranean and the Sahel. With growing rumors about Iranian and Wagner Group presence among Sahrawis in the Tindouf camps in western Algeria, where an estimated 173,600 refugees live, it’s becoming imperative for the United States and European countries to try to resolve the Western Sahara file once and for all.

Disrupting the status quo in the Maghreb

While on paper the French decision to side with Morocco may seem in line with its economic and global priorities, it does come at a price. EU neutrality in the Western Sahara conflict and exclusive reliance on the United Nations peacekeeping mission to maintain the status quo between Rabat and Algiers has been central to stabilizing the region. After the United States and Spain sided with Morocco, Algeria responded by severing diplomatic relations with Morocco in 2021 and recalling its ambassador in Madrid in 2022. Algeria also disrupted gas exports to Spain through Morocco by closing the EU-Maghreb pipeline just as tensions were building around Russia’s gas exports ahead of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The first reaction by Algiers to Macron’s swing toward Mohammed VI described France and Morocco as “colonial powers, new and old.” This was followed on Tuesday by Algeria recalling its ambassador in Paris to express its discontent.

Macron’s decision has alienated an already nervous Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who is running for reelection on September 7. This week’s events may push him deeper into Iranian and Russian arms. Even though not expressly sought by any of the parties, the risk of recent events sparking up a wider regional conflict in the Maghreb is higher than ever. Even if in a way designed to avoid escalation, Algeria will likely feel it necessary to respond in some form.

Sarah Zaaimi is a cultural studies researcher and the deputy director for communications at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East programs.

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The Mattei Plan is not supposed to operate in a vacuum but is solidly affected and conditioned by the wider international community. However, evolving international dynamics among superpowers and regional powers do not bode for much optimism. Despite some positive events—such as French center-left parties’ relative containment of what was initially expected to be a glamorous victory for right-wing populism and extremism, as well as some successes in cohesion and policymaking by international organizations and institutions such as the Group of Seven (G7), Group of Twenty (G20), and NATO—the trend doesn’t look positive at all. In the background lie the war in Ukraine, the Gaza war, and a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The renewed rivalry for world dominance and the great-power competition between the United States, China, and Russia loom above everything.

North Africa is particularly vulnerable to these dynamics. The ideal part of the Mattei Plan is that it can positively defuse regional tensions. It has been a long-held belief of the European Union (EU), the United States, and the main international institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund that, to create a beneficial environment for economic development and political evolution, the five North Africa states of Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and Mauritania should agree to form some sort of “union.”

The Union du Maghreb Arabe (UMA) was born out of this thinking in 1989. In reality, the regimes then in power created it to fight the Islamist-led popular revolts, which, starting in the mid-1980s, were occurring in each of the North African countries in increasing numbers. UMA was also created to facilitate the exchange of security personnel and intelligence cooperation by these regimes. Because of this, no other sectors—such as the social, political, and cultural sectors—were developed. And once each UMA country felt more secure, it de facto withdrew from the union.

For a brief moment following the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings—which were poised to bring to power, in a more or less democratic way, new elites more responsible for the wellbeing of their populations—international actors thought there was a will to renew a pledge to the UMA. However, the five North African regimes were generally unresponsive to their populations’ demands. There was an expectation that things would improve through democratic elections and that, once in power, the populations would be more prone to engage their neighbors in some kind of integration. But that didn’t happen. Instead, each country backslid into authoritarianism and, thus, in a more isolationist direction.

With this in mind, the prevailing trend, as determined by today’s evolution of the international system, may lead North Africa not toward integration but toward creating rival blocs. Morocco, which has elites strongly tied to Western nations and with Western values, has adapted a policy of cooperation and alliance with Western countries, especially the United States, and institutions such as NATO and the EU. Clear evidence of this pro-Western position is King Mohammed VI’s adhesion to the Abraham Accords pushed by then President Donald Trump as a way to create a new peaceful path to collaboration between Arab states and the state of Israel, in exchange for the US president’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara.

Morocco’s ruler has exerted enormous effort for Moroccan banks and commercial entities to penetrate the West African region’s economy. The success of this action has also gained much support for the ruler’s political ambitions.

Just to the East of Morocco and in contrast to its policies and economic activities, is the country of Algeria. The military-backed regime in power—which values nationalism, Arabism, and third-worldism—finds its legitimacy in the Algerian people’s war for independence from France in the late 1950s.

Algeria has been a staunch supporter of revolutionary and liberation movements in Africa and elsewhere. Thus, support for the Palestinian struggle against Israel quickly became a rallying cry in Algeria. Its relative closeness with the Soviet Union, and with Vladimir Putin’s Russia today, is the natural outcome of these positions. It is easy to see how Algeria could constitute an bloc adversarial toward Morocco. Add to this the wide influence that Algeria exerts on Tunisian President Kais Saied’s quest for absolute power and the natural gravitation of western Libya toward Algeria and Tunisia, and it’s easy to see the formation of bloc in opposition to that represented by Morocco.

Eastern Libya today is controlled by the rogue General Khalifa Haftar and his family, which is almost entirely dependent on Egyptian military support, and will probably detach the region from the western part of the country. Sadly, this would mean the end of a united Libya. This is a scenario that the West should do whatever it can to avoid. The United States seems too distracted by other issues and incapable of reacting to these trends. On the other hand, Italy and some of its European partners could use the idea behind the Mattei Plan to play a neutral role in the North Africa contest and help a rapprochement between Algeria and Morocco. This requires not making Algeria feel isolated from Western countries.

Prime Minister Meloni’s personal visit to Algeria in January 2023 was important for this reason, as was the one made afterward. Italian diplomacy was also active in keeping relations open and ongoing with Tunisian President Saied and in the warm relationship with the United Nations-recognized government in Tripoli. While this might sound ideal, Italy and its allies must take one step forward, which would foster a faster and deeper rapprochement between Egypt and Turkey. This could lead to an agreement in Libya in which the western part, strongly under the influence of Turkey, and the eastern part, which is entirely dependent on Egyptian support, may be convinced to find a way out of their crisis that entails the unity of the country rather than separation. A united Libya under the protection of NATO member Turkey and longtime US ally Egypt will not fall into the radical bloc. On the contrary, it might even be able to help lure Tunisia away from the pro-Russian potential bloc, while exerting an opposing influence on Algeria’s historical pro-Russian tendency by showing the benefits of standing with the West and collaborating with the Mattei Plan.

The Piano Mattei, a new vision of cooperation and collaboration on all fronts with the emerging societies of Africa, will be a great engine for this Italian and, ergo, Western policy of utilizing soft power to overcome issues that have previously created many problems for European countries.

Those who criticize the plan as empty of content, or cite its lack of purpose or precise allocation of resources, are missing the point. It is not only an economic plan but a political intuition to move away from today’s stagnant international cooperation policies and toward new dynamics that could produce extraordinary results if carefully implemented.

Karim Mezran is director of the North Africa Initiative and resident senior fellow with the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council.

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Economic diversification and foreign direct investment

The US-Morocco FTA removed tariffs and significantly reduced trade barriers between the two countries. This, alongside other FTA and advanced trade agreements with the European Union (EU), China, Egypt, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), contributed to Morocco’s efforts to diversify its economy and trade. Through providing access to the US market, the FTA encouraged Moroccan firms to expand into new high-tech manufacturing such as automotive and aeronautics parts, as well as electronics. The agreement has also contributed to a steady increase in bilateral trade. According to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, US-Morocco trade in goods and services has grown to nearly $7 billion annually. This trade growth reflects a deepening of economic ties between the two countries.

Another significant impact of the US-Morocco FTA and other trade agreements has been increased foreign direct investment (FDI). The agreement provided a framework that infused confidence in US and EU investors and caused an inflow of investment in various sectors, including manufacturing, tourism, and renewable energy. These investments have been central in creating jobs and developing the skills of the Moroccan workforce.

One example is the automotive industry, in which major companies like Japan-based Yazaki, Ireland-based Delphi Technologies, Germany-based Schlemmer, and US-based Lear Corporation have established operations in Morocco. These investments have created thousands of jobs and positioned Morocco as a regional hub for automotive parts manufacturing, generating more than $10 billion in revenue and making it a leading sector in the country’s export market. Additionally, the growth of the renewable energy sector has made Morocco a global leader in the green energy industry, with ambitious projects like the Noor Ouarzazate Solar Complex.

Challenges and structural reforms

While Morocco’s FTA and trade agreements with the United States and other major economies have brought numerous benefits, challenges exist. One of the main issues has been guaranteeing that the gains from free trade are distributed equitably across Moroccan society. There is a need for sustained efforts to address regional disparities and support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that may struggle to compete with state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in a liberalized trade environment.

Moreover, the agreement has highlighted the importance of structural reforms to enhance Morocco’s competitiveness. Hence, the Moroccan government has undertaken various measures to improve the business climate, such as simplifying regulatory procedures, developing and improving infrastructure, and investing in education and vocational training, with a particular focus on empowering girls and women. These reforms are crucial for sustaining long-term economic growth and ensuring that Morocco can fully capitalize on the opportunities presented by free trade.

Future prospects

Looking ahead, the US-Morocco FTA serves as a foundation for further economic cooperation and integration between the two economies. Both countries have expressed a commitment to deepening their trade relationship and exploring new areas of collaboration. For Morocco, this includes leveraging the FTA to attract more investment in high-tech industries and innovation-driven sectors. Morocco’s strategic location and proximity to European Union and African markets, coupled with its relatively modern infrastructure and stable political environment, position it as an attractive investment destination in emerging market economies.

Alongside the agreements signed between Morocco and other countries, the US-Morocco FTA remains one of the most important as it has played an integral role in transforming Morocco’s economy and labor force, contributing to the diversification of its trade portfolio and helping to attract foreign investment. However, regulatory, legal, and labor force challenges remain, and continued efforts are needed to ensure that the benefits of free trade are more equitably shared across various sectors of Moroccan society.

As Morocco looks to the future, the strategic vision should focus on further enhancing its competitive edge and strengthening its position as a key player in the global supply chain. Morocco’s Atlantic Sahel initiative is an important step in this direction. With sustained commitment and strategic planning, the next twenty years can bring even more prosperity and development for the Moroccan economy and greater profits for US and other foreign businesses operating in the kingdom.

Amin Mohseni-Cheraghlou leads the Bretton Woods 2.0 Project at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. He is also a senior lecturer of economics at the American University in Washington, DC.

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Migration is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that has significant implications for both sending and receiving countries. In the Atlantic basin, the movement of people across borders has been shaped by various factors such as economic opportunities, political instability, social networks, and historical ties.

This joint report, in partnership with Policy Center for the New South and the Africa Center, aims to explore the trends in African migration within the Atlantic basin, focusing on case studies of Nigerian migration to the United States, the United Kingdom, and South Africa as well as Moroccan migration to the European Union. It seeks to provide valuable insights into ongoing discourse on African migration by exploring case studies from diverse regions within the Atlantic basin, it highlights the interconnectedness of migration flows and their impact on individuals, communities, and societies on both sides of the Atlantic.

The report examines factors such as economic disparities, political instability, educational opportunities, and family ties to explain motivations behind Nigerian and Moroccan migration. By analyzing the “push and pull factors” influencing Moroccan migration to France and Spain alongside Nigerian migration to the United States, the UK, and South Africa, it builds a nuanced understanding of migration dynamics within the Atlantic basin and what is at stake for the home countries experiencing brain drain.

Public Event Thu, June 27, 2024 • 10:00 am ET

New trends in African migration: Case studies from Morocco and Nigeria

The Africa Center brings together experts to discuss current and future trends in African migration.

Africa Migration Morocco Nigeria

The Africa Center works to promote dynamic geopolitical partnerships with African states and to redirect US and European policy priorities toward strengthening security and bolstering economic growth and prosperity on the continent.

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Report

Aug 3, 2023

Irregular migration from North Africa: Shifting local and regional dynamics

By Matteo Villa and Alissa Pavia

Irregular migration from North Africa to Europe, especially through the Central Mediterranean route connecting Libya and Tunisia to Italy, is increasing once more. Italy has witnessed a surge in irregular arrivals, with approximately 136,000 migrants disembarking between June 2022 and May 2023, almost comparable to the high arrival period of 2014-2017 when around 155,000 migrants landed each year.

Human Rights Italy

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This paper is the first in the Freedom and Prosperity Center’s “State of the Parties” series analyzing the strength of multi-party systems in different regions of the world.

In 2024, as many as seventeen countries across Africa, with a total population of nearly 300 million people, will hold national elections. These electoral processes are consequential because whether they are free, fair, and transparent will help determine if the troubling trend in several countries across the continent of democratic regression, military coups, or political instability worsens—or ebbs and begins to reverse, as was recently demonstrated in Senegal.

The stakes are clearly high in these contests, which will occur in the so-called year of elections wherein more than four billion people globally are eligible to cast ballots. While the elections are important to Africa’s democratic trajectory, they are not single-handedly determinative of it.

Strong and institutionalized political parties are also key to the future of democracy on the continent; however, policymakers have not afforded this key institution much attention or associated resources. For example, the US’s national security strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa does not reference strengthening political parties despite the document’s emphasis on democracy promotion. Further, the Biden administration’s Summits for Democracy—the third of which took place in March 2024—have not included commitments from participating governments (the United States included) to strengthen political parties.

Robust political parties inform whether a political system delivers for citizens, provide a key link between citizens and their government, and foster measurable resilience against democratic erosion. For these and other reasons, therefore, political parties as a core institution of democracy will help chart the continent’s future, both in terms of freedom and prosperity.

This piece analyzes the state of political parties in sub-Saharan Africa and uses Atlantic Council Freedom and Prosperity Indexes data and other sources to show why parties are essential to democratic progress. It examines this argument through four case studies and concludes with a path forward for re-centering democracy assistance work in Africa to shore up this critical component.

Issue Brief Aug 30, 2024

South Asia’s political parties need internal reforms to revitalize regional democracy

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Democratic Transitions Elections

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Unloved but indispensable: Political parties in Europe

By Paul McCarthy, Thibault Muzergues, Patrick Quirk

The experience of the past decade has shown that despite their unpopularity, political parties remain indispensable for the functioning of democracies in Europe—when they are present, plural, and organized, democracy is doing well. To prove this assertion, this paper will look at four telling examples in recent European history.

Democratic Transitions Elections

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The shift from party to personality politics is harming Latin American democracies

By Christine Zaino, Sofia Herrera

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Americas Democratic Transitions

State of the Parties

This pathbreaking new series delivers insights and policy recommendations from leading experts on how to enhance efforts to strengthen democracy in all regions of the world. 

The Freedom and Prosperity Center aims to increase the prosperity of the poor and marginalized in developing countries and to explore the nature of the relationship between freedom and prosperity in both developing and developed nations.

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The latest sign of Algeria’s obsession with Morocco was its decision to confiscate the jerseys of Moroccan soccer club RS Berkane after its players traveled to Algeria on April 19 to play a CAF Confederation Cup semifinal match against USMA Alger. Algeria justified its decision by stating that the team’s equipment bore an “illegitimate” map of Morocco, which included Western Sahara. 

African soccer’s governing body intervened, ordering Algeria to drop its case and allow RS Berkane to play in the jerseys. However, Algiers disregarded the ruling, seizing any opportunity to display its support for what it describes as the self-determination of the Sahrawi people.

Many have maintained that one of the main drivers of Algeria’s hostility toward Morocco is the ideological makeup of the Algerian establishment and its strategy of seeking popular legitimacy.

Algeria’s operating philosophy is to galvanize nationalist fervor against its enemies. For the past three decades, it has constantly needed to create external enemies to mobilize national support and divert public opinion from the country’s economic, social, and political problems. 

While largely pertinent, this analysis ignores the psychological dimension of this chronic animosity between the two countries. Algeria’s military and political leaders harbor unresolved grievances against Morocco, which contribute to tensions. Additionally, Morocco is one of the oldest monarchies in the world, and has managed to maintain its sovereignty for much of its history. The same cannot be said of Algeria, a sixty-two-year-old country. 

This makes the Algerian regime reluctant to fully explore the past, out of fear that a deep dive into the country’s history might lend credence to some critics’ claim that modern Algeria is the creation of imperialist France.

It’s worth mentioning that Morocco was a strong supporter of the Algerian liberation movement, contributing financially and logistically to the war effort against French domination. Then a champion of what some have described as a strong belief in the urgency and imperative of Muslim solidarity, Morocco ignored warnings and secret deals from France, committing itself to the liberation of Algeria instead.

Yet, post-independence, Algeria’s leadership quickly whitewashed this well-documented episode of Moroccan solidarity and generosity, providing invaluable insights into what would later become Algeria’s deep-seated desire to be the Maghreb’s undisputed leader.

Morocco’s defeat of Algeria in the border war known as the 1963 Sand War created a psychological barrier, as generations of Algerian military and political elites grew up with the idea of avenging the humiliation that newly independent Algeria had suffered at Morocco’s hands.

Morocco’s “betrayal” of Algeria

Over time, Algeria’s resentment against Morocco for its humiliating defeat morphed into a radical desire to take revenge by fostering separatism on Moroccan territory. Therefore, Algeria’s support of the Polisario Front is the culmination of the Algerian elite’s strategy of attaining regional primacy by establishing a satellite state in southern Morocco. While proclaiming its support for the “liberation struggle” of the “oppressed Sahrawi people,” Algeria’s primary goal is to keep Morocco in check by fomenting and prolonging the dispute over the Western Sahara region to prevent Rabat from reopening the issue of unresolved Algerian-Moroccan borders.

As far as Algiers is concerned, ending the Western Sahara dispute would provide Morocco with a level of strategic continental depth that would overwhelmingly consolidate its status as a regional hegemon. Algeria has steadfastly supported the Polisario for the past four decades to prevent Morocco from settling the territorial dispute. The Algerian-Moroccan rivalry entered a new phase in 2017 when Morocco joined the African Union (AU). Algeria had tirelessly used Morocco’s absence from the AU to push for a “parallel African agenda” on the Western Sahara question. This entailed lobbying for the Polisario Front’s Sahrawi cause, which it presents as a decolonization struggle against what it describes as Moroccan occupation.

Given that the AU’s official position on Western Sahara has shifted in Morocco’s favor since 2018, some of Algeria’s anti-Moroccan agitation speaks of deepening diplomatic disarray and a profound sense of disappointment. Algeria seems to be furious that Morocco, in the short time since its return to the AU, has effectively destroyed all the work that Algerian diplomacy had done for three decades to get the AU to fully support a self-determination referendum that would culminate in the creation of an independent state in the Western Sahara region.

Algeria’s displeasure with Morocco’s growing continental influence can be seen in three regional efforts that Algiers has undertaken in recent years to contain Rabat’s rising leadership. The first is the attempted revival of the Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline project in 2022 to derail the more promising Nigeria-Morocco pipeline project. The second is the planned creation of free-trade zones with Niger and Mali to counter Morocco’s Atlantic Initiative for the Sahel. Finally, the most recent is the Algerian regime’s push for the creation of a Maghreb Union without Morocco.

For all these counterattacking efforts, highlighted by the projected openings of more African consulates in Dakhla and Laayoune, the fact remains that Morocco’s African diplomacy is having morale-boosting results. In contrast, Algeria’s diplomatic influence has declined across the continent. More importantly, Morocco’s African diplomacy now extends to countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Nigeria, outside its so-called traditional francophone comfort zone. In the coming months and years, Algeria will redouble its efforts to persuade some of these countries to reconsider their cooperation with Morocco. 

Perhaps the most significant blows to Algeria’s diplomacy have come from outside Africa. These include the consistent pro-Moroccan stance reflected in all United Nations (UN) resolutions on Western Sahara since 2007, the decisive US decision in 2020 to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over the region, and Spain’s 2022 declaration of full support for Morocco’s autonomy plan. While the first development has been gradual, and lacks absolute finality due to the presence of marginal pro-Polisario voices within the UN, the latter two events have shaken Algeria.

Taken together, however, these and other emerging developments clearly indicate that self-determination dreams have been buried—and that compromise is the only viable route to a politically feasible and lasting solution in the Sahara dossier. Faced with what increasingly appears to be an irreversible diplomatic setback, Algeria has shifted tactics by confronting Morocco on alternative battlefields. In recent months, as noted earlier, Algeria has used the unconventional platform of sport to settle scores with Morocco.

The goal is to open a second narrative front to rally popular sympathy and support for the Algerian-backed Polisario Front. Algeria’s permanent representative to the UN recently drew parallels between Palestine and Western Sahara, reflecting the regime’s overarching aspiration to distort historical facts and equate the Western Saharan and Palestinian cases. 

It is unlikely that Algeria’s continued attacks on Morocco will compel the UN to reconsider its implicit, but increasingly apparent, burying of the self-determination option on Western Sahara. At the same time, there are growing signs that many in Morocco, having grown tired of ignoring Algiers’s unrelenting hostility toward Rabat, might start pushing Morocco to discard its long-standing patience and the ensuing hope of brotherly reconciliation between the two countries.  

Time for the United States to step in

The animosity and hostility between the two countries have reached worrying levels, raising the specter of a military conflagration breaking out. Against this bleak backdrop, the United States should lead a vigorous diplomatic campaign.      

To calm the waters between the two countries and ensure that the current state does not get out of hand, the United States should give more attention to its military cooperation with Morocco, while signaling to Algeria that Washington would do everything in its power to prevent it from taking any actions that could destabilize the region. Such a move could send Algeria an unmistakable signal of Washington’s commitment to security cooperation with Rabat.     

Second, the United States must pressure the Algerian government to abide by the provisions of the UNSC Resolution on the Western Sahara issue since 2018, all of which call on Algeria to fully cooperate with the UN as it works toward a compromise-based and realistic political solution to the dispute. As Algeria’s rejection of some recent UN resolutions has shown, the only way to get it to commit to the UN-led political process is to pressure it to fully acknowledge its political responsibility for creating and prolonging this conflict and to negotiate a face-saving political solution with Morocco. 

However, this goal will remain out of reach if the United States clings to a balancing diplomacy that prevents it from unequivocally supporting Morocco’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara. The time has come for the United States to break with this policy. It must align its political discourse and actions by reaffirming its recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara while calling on Algeria to fully participate in the UN-led political process to achieve a political solution to the dispute.

Indeed, such a move would simply reflect the long-standing US position in the dispute. Numerous declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) documents show that the United States has never believed in the viability of establishing a satellite state in southern Morocco. Americans have long praised the proverbial friendship that unites the United States and Morocco, stressing that Morocco was the first country to recognize US independence. It is time for the United States to give true meaning to this friendship by fully supporting Morocco’s decades-long quest to end the dispute over Western Sahara; by doing so, it could help end the conflict between Rabat and Algiers once and for all.    

Samir Bennis is a senior political analyst specializing in Arab affairs and Morocco’s foreign policy. He is the co-founder and publisher of Morocco World News. His upcoming book, The Self-Determination Delusion: How Victim Politics and Feel-good Advocacy Have Hijacked the Western Sahara Case, comes out in July.

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As political tensions between Algiers and Rabat have continued to mount since 2020, threatening to destabilize the entire North African and Sahel region, another front is being fought with no possible détente in sight: the cultural heritage war. The most recent chapter of this absurd dispute began when the Moroccan Ministry of Culture took legal action on May 20 by filing a complaint against Algeria with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for the alleged appropriation of a unique Moroccan traditional garment known as Caftan Ntaâ El Fassi (Ntaâ Kaftan), which came originally from the Moroccan city of Fez and which Algeria is trying to inscribe among its intangible cultural heritage list.

In recent years, there has been a renewed awareness about the significance of cultural heritage symbols and their undisputable value in nation branding. This was popularized, in part, by the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage introduced by UNESCO in 2003, which calls for the documentation and preservation of living cultural expressions such as crafts, oral traditions, and performing arts. This phenomenon was also encouraged by the business opportunities presented by cultural tourism, an important source of national wealth that accounts for an estimated 40 percent of all tourism worldwide.

Starting in 2008, Morocco and Algeria raced to inscribe diverse aspects of their local traditions with UNESCO. For Morocco, these included the Tbourida equestrian performance, Gnawa music, and the Argan tree and its know-how; for Algeria, they included the pilgrimage to the mausoleum of Sidi ’Abd el-Qader Ben Mohammed, Tlemcen wedding traditions, and the rituals of Sebeiba. However, many cultural elements remain the subject of fierce clashes between the two countries, which compete over the authenticity, exclusivity, and preeminence of disputed cultural symbols like Rai music, the couscous dish, or the Moorish Zellige tile.

The limits of cultural fortresses

Culture is a complex anthropological phenomenon that cannot be confined within the limits of modern nation-state borders—a more recent and contested political invention often inherited from colonial calculus over natural resources. This is particularly true in the case of the Moroccan Kingdom and Algerian Republic’s borders, which were engineered by their former occupiers after the 1845 Treaty of Lalla Maghnia. It is common knowledge by now, as demonstrated by historical maps, archive documents, and an International Court of Justice ruling, that colonial France considered Algeria one of its foreign territories—it annexed Algeria in 1830 and maintained control there until 1962—while Morocco was a mere strategic protectorate with a perpetual Alaouite monarch, which Paris would eventually need to exit with the growing decolonial movements starting in the 1930s. It was evident to France that it was more beneficial for its long-term interests to extract as many territories as possible from the Cherifian kingdom and generously subjoin them to the Ottoman Regency of Algiers.

The impossibility of drawing a line in the sand between two intertwined cultures is the very source of the recent conflict between Rabat and Algiers. Disputed bordering districts like Tlemcen, Tinduf, and Bechar are witnesses of the demographic hybridity and heritage spillover of several forms of craftsmanship, musical expressions, and culinary traditions. For instance, it would be absurd today for Morocco to claim the cultural exclusivity of Malhoun music or for Algeria to claim Rai music—though both are ironically inscribed under one country with UNESCO. This example and many others around the world demonstrate how this United Nations (UN) mechanism, while claiming to preserve cultural heritage, also contributes to the creation of imaginary borders and obsolete disputes among transnational communities that share many affinities, such as the indigenous inhabitants of North Africa.

The concept of cultural authenticity itself is historically questionable. It was established by authors like Eric Hobsbawm in The Invention of Tradition and David Lowenthal in The Past Is a Foreign Country that nation states handle, and often fabricate, historical narratives “celebrating certain aspects and expunging others.” It all depends on what serves their immediate interests, unity, and legitimacy. While Algeria’s oil-economy dependency and introverted military regime delayed its quest to reclaim its heritage, Morocco has benefited from its alignment with Western liberal economies and the urge to develop its tourism and services sectors to tap into its rich traditions and brand itself as an attractive destination at the doors of Europe—often caressing a certain Western orientalist fantasy about the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Rabat profited from its first-mover status to successfully market its souks, food, and crafts, sometimes exclusively claiming certain shared North African heritage symbols like Amazigh carpets, pottery, and the iconic dish of couscous, though such claims upset its Maghreb neighbors.

Heritage as a unifying juncture

Another recent episode illustrating this cultural heritage battle occurred in 2022, when the sports company Adidas revealed the Algerian soccer team’s jerseys comprising patterns commonly found in Moroccan ceramics, such as Fez Zellige. Morocco responded by issuing a legal warning to the company. The German sportswear brand ended up officially apologizing to Rabat and settling the dispute amicably after admitting to being inspired by Moroccan craftsmanship. Interestingly enough, back in 2015, the kingdom had engaged in patenting the Fez Zellige in the Vienna Classification of Figurative Elements of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)—a more robust and legally binding mechanism to preserve national crafts compared to the UNESCO treaty. Morocco has since attempted to trademark many more cultural elements, including kaftan embroidery patterns, which closes the loop for anyone trying to “culturally appropriate” Moroccan designs and use them for commercial gains.

Local media, Wikipedia, and social platforms are becoming central fronts in this incongruous cultural war. Both Morocco and Algeria engage restlessly and spend large amounts of money on distasteful online confrontations on YouTube, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter) debating whether the kaftan is Almohad or Ottoman in origin and if the tajine is an authentic Moroccan or Algerian earthenware pot. Algerian bots, in particular, have been notorious for spreading propaganda and claiming many confirmed Moroccan traditions for themselves. Moroccan social media users carried out an outrageous, yet revealing, social experiment to prove this theory. To make a point, online users jokingly posted that the “Jaghdid” (colloquially meaning poison in Darija) is “a purely Moroccan delicacy,” prompting Algerian users to rush to claim the imaginary dish as theirs.

On the positive side, North African countries are gaining awareness of the importance of documenting and researching their history and memory, leading to a true revival in local crafts, ethnographic research, and a certain pride to showcase and reinvent those ancestral traditions long ignored in favor of Western consumerist goods. Moreover, this awareness contributed to liberating the Maghreb from the shadows of living in the periphery of Middle Eastern capitals like Cairo, Damascus, and Baghdad that repetitively spread false claims that North African countries’ heritage and aesthetic beauty are all to be credited to romanticized and fictitious perceptions of “Arab” Andalucía—a claim that historical evidence strongly refutes.

Last year, “the arts, skills, and practices associated with engraving on metals (gold, silver, and copper)” were inscribed as intangible world heritage by UNESCO in ten MENA countries, including Morocco and Algeria. If the Algerian copper artisan I had encountered and Si Mohamed, the Moroccan one, were to speak today, they would surely approve of this positive collective effort to recognize their craft. The artisans would also agree that while respecting local know-how, originality, and unique historical trajectories is essential, cultural heritage can also be plural and an essential juncture for constructive exchanges beyond trivial political agendas.  

Sarah Zaaimi is the deputy director for communications at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East programs.

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He announced the launch of an international initiative to “enable the Sahel countries to have access to the Atlantic Ocean.” Landlocked Mali, Niger, Chad, and Burkina Faso are at the center of the Moroccan plan, which involves making Morocco’s road, port, and rail infrastructure available to them and implementing large-scale development projects.

Even if it is not detailed yet, the Moroccan initiative comes after military regimes came to power by unconstitutional means or through coups d’état, which for three of these states resulted, at various points, in having sanctions imposed on them. For example, Niger was sanctioned by the United States, European Union (EU), and European countries such as France and the Netherlands. Notably, Malian army officers who collaborated with the Wagner Group or were suspected of crimes were sanctioned by the United States. And the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which had sanctioned Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso, lifted its sanctions on Niger and Mali in February this year, a month after the three Sahelian countries left the organization and soon after the countries formed the Alliance of Sahel States. Chad has not yet seen sanctions imposed after the undemocratic accession of its president following the death of his father. While the sanctions imposed on the three countries are intended to apply pressure on those who seized power by force or defied the constitution, in the hopes of restoring democratic systems, these sanctions also impact the populations.

The people in these countries are essentially penalized twice: On the one hand, they are led by governments that have revoked the right of the people to choose their leaders. On the other hand, these populations also suffer from the effects of sanctions, which cause them economic hardship, limit their access to essential goods, cut them off from the world, and deprive them of trade opportunities.

That creates a quandary for the democratic world: While sanctions are intended to target unconstitutional governments, it is the ordinary people in these countries who suffer the most from them.

Behind the initiative

Morocco’s efforts to cooperate with the states in the Sahel seem inspired by Morocco’s 2011 Constitution—mainly the preamble.

In this preamble, Morocco commits itself to supporting the Maghreb Union (which it says is a “strategic option”), deepening its bonds with the Arab-Islamic Ummah, intensifying cooperation with European countries around the Mediterranean, strengthening cooperation across Africa, and diversifying its relations with the rest of the world.

Specifically, when it comes to Africa, the preamble states that Morocco intends to “consolidate relations of cooperation and solidarity with the peoples and countries of Africa, particularly the countries of the Sahel and Sub-Saharan countries.” This short sentence helps explain Morocco’s initiative. The Moroccan Constitution does not drown the Sahel in the mass of Africa, but on the contrary highlights it by mentioning it separately. In his November 6 speech, the king of Morocco even called the Sahelian countries “African sister countries.”

In addition, the Moroccan Constitution’s commitment to the Islamic world—each of the three sanctioned countries are majority Muslim—and its pledging solidarity with the “peoples and countries of Africa” help explain Morocco’s new initiative. By specifying that its solidarity goes to the countries as well as to the peoples, Morocco is distinguishing people from the regimes that govern them.

As for the content of the Atlantic initiative, it has been received well by the Sahelian states because it offers alternatives for growth and development—and indeed, even survival. For example, Niger (one of the poorest countries in the world) depended on international aid for its annual budget, which was slashed by 40 percent in 2023 due to donors and creditors withholding support. Following the coup, malnutrition skyrocketed, only compounded by the fact that the United Nations (UN) World Food Program’s cargos were getting blocked from reaching Niger due to border closures, with one UN coordinator saying that their goal—to deliver humanitarian aid to at least 80 percent of 4.4 million vulnerable people—was in jeopardy.

The success of this initiative is contingent on several factors: It will require funding, a robust regulatory framework, efforts to address challenges such as piracy, and harmonization with and between maritime governance actors. In addition, the economic activity this initiative would create could have benefits for the governments, as well as the people, in the sanctioned Sahelian countries. However, the focus of this initiative is on helping the people, who have continued to suffer for decades.

The Atlantic advantage

The initiative underscores the importance placed—across centuries—on accessing the Atlantic Ocean. For example, El Hadj Omar Tall (founder of the Toucouleur Empire) and Samori Ture (a leader of the Wassoulou Empire) each governed landlocked areas of West Africa in the nineteenth century. Burkinabe historian Joseph Ki-Zerbo chronicled how the two African heroes, facing the inevitable advance of European colonial conquest, hurried to “capture, before it was too late, the political initiative and keep it in African hands.” They both did that by directing their troops to the ocean. Eventually, however, their efforts to reach the sea were halted by the French.

The strategic importance of the Atlantic as taught by history resonates today.

Today, over one hundred countries border the Atlantic Ocean, and importantly those countries include the world’s leading power (the United States), other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (including the United Kingdom and France), Latin American powers (such as Argentina and Brazil), and African nations stretching from Morocco (which itself has a 1,800-mile coastline on the ocean) to South Africa.

For countries that have the means to take full advantage of their coasts, such as Morocco and Senegal, the Atlantic is a boon. Indeed, Africa’s twenty-three coastal nations are home to 46 percent of the continent’s population, 55 percent of its gross domestic product, and 57 percent of its trade. They also contain a large amount of natural resources, including oil.

But access alone won’t grant people in Sahelian countries access to the boon. Here is what is needed for this initiative to succeed:

• Defining common strategic priorities between the countries participating in this initiative and also their partners in order to focus on the most pressing issues.
• The integration of projects already underway such as the Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline project or the Great Green Wall. Their inclusion will bring a more holistic approach to the Moroccan initiative, which focuses on road, rail, and maritime infrastructure.
• The inclusion of the African Union (through the 2050 African Integrated Maritime Strategy) as well as maritime governance mechanisms, specialized institutions, and other important stakeholders such as the Maritime Organization of West and Central Africa, African Port Management Associations, Union of African Shippers’ Councils, maritime training institutions, the UN, and the International Maritime Organization. This inclusion in discussions will help to harmonize the maritime rules and avoid double governance systems.
• Access to substantial financing, particularly via international partners such as in the private sector and development and financial institutions. Financing will be needed to support the blue economy and the modernization of road, rail, and port infrastructure.

Sahelian civilian populations have been suffering from the effects of a twenty-year war against jihadist attacks. These populations deserve peace and prosperity. After the security failures of so many domestic and foreign military interventions and the unfolding of the coups, this proposal offers a much-needed brighter perspective for these people.

Rama Yade is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center and senior fellow for the Europe Center.

Abdelhak Bassou is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center and a senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South.

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Minerals often lie at the heart of this cooperation, and while the words the presidents said may have been similar, the meaning and context behind them couldn’t be more different.

Russia offers quid pro quo partnerships with promises of kinetic military, security, and political support—and assisted by faux anti-imperialist messaging. The United States, on the other hand, touts an approach that places emphasis on economic and community investment. There is a widening gulf emerging between the two models—and each model offers something that the other cannot.

Russia’s give—and take

Russia’s version of partnership has been aptly described as a “regime survival package,” in which the Russian government offers military and security assistance to struggling African governments; soon after come resource concessions for Russian companies.

This exchange has relied heavily on the Wagner Group, as the military company’s running operations allowed Moscow to distance itself via proxy. However, since the Wagner Group’s consolidation and rebranding into the Africa Corps (following the death of Wagner Group leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin), the exchange is arguably more direct and state-to-state, as Africa Corps activities are now reportedly being directed by the Russian state and managed by Russia’s military intelligence agency (the GRU) and the Kremlin. The Russian Defense Ministry, with the Africa Corps now reportedly in-house, is expanding its operations.

Russia’s offer of partnership has appealed particularly to governments in the Sahel. The Central African Republic is often viewed as the textbook case, with Wagner arriving in 2018 to push back rebels from the capital. Soon after, gold and diamond mining licenses were granted to a Russian-owned company that even the United Nations warns is “interconnected” with Wagner. And last year, Wagner helped Mali retake rebel-held areas in the north; in the months that followed, Russia and Mali signed agreements on gold refining and on oil, gas, uranium, and lithium production.

More recently, a contingent of Africa Corps personnel arrived in Burkina Faso in January to, according to the group’s Telegram channel, “ensure the safety of the country’s leader Ibrahim Traore and the Burkinabe people.” Two months later, Burkina Faso’s minister of energy, mining, and quarries told Sputnik Africa that Russian companies can become “strategic partners” in the extraction of minerals—such as gold, zinc, manganese, copper, graphite, and lithium—from mines and quarries.

Russia’s offer is currently supplanting other forms of partnership in Niger. The junta halted military cooperation with both France and the United States—whose militaries were there to help improve the security situation for Niger’s previous democratic leadership—pushing French troops to leave the country late last year and propelling the United States to agree to withdraw its forces. Earlier this month, Russian forces and military advisors arrived in Niger, equipped with an air defense system and other security equipment—a choice reflecting the fact that US forces were allocated between two airbases, from which they used drones to target militants. Once again, resources seem to be on the table in exchange for Russia’s partnership.  

While there are some actual value-added projects being developed from Russia’s deals, such as the agreement with Mali on building a gold refinery, such deals are exceptions to the rule. A number of Russia’s grandiose economic promises to Africa have failed to fully materialize. The fact is that Russia’s economic potential for Africa cannot compete with that of the West. Russia contributes less than 1 percent of the global foreign direct investment going to the continent, and when it comes to trade revenue, it’s $17.7 billion (as of 2021) is dwarfed by the United States’ $65 billion and the European Union’s (EU) $295 billion. If economic measures were the only consideration in choosing partnership, Russia likely wouldn’t make any list.

The only market where Russia leads in Africa is the arms market. Last year, Russia overtook China as the largest supplier of arms to Sub-Saharan Africa.

Part of what makes Russia so appealing as a partner—in addition to its offers of security assistance—is Russia’s ability to market itself as anti-imperialist based on the Soviet Union’s support for African countries when they were fighting for independence. For example, when the junta seized power from a French-backed president, Russia’s Prigozhin framed the coup as a liberation from Western powers. African countries still have concerns about the remaining influence wielded by former colonial powers.

How Washington works

The United States, on the other hand, makes its appeal to African countries by promising partnership on local economic development—the critical minerals discussion is only part of that partnership. The US approach is reflected in projects such as the Lobito Corridor—which is intended to make transport, including of critical minerals, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia to Angola easier. Alongside its mineral extraction initiatives, the United States is eager to showcase regional and community benefits for its projects. 

In addition, the United States often cooperates and coordinates with its European partners when approaching investment and activity in Africa. For example, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have signed similar agreements with both the United States and EU in which the countries agree to promote responsible mineral extraction activities that build local capacity and to bring more of the minerals value chain (including processing, manufacturing, and assembly) to the region.

Partnership with Europe can be an effective strategy for the United States, as such an approach gathers more funds, capacities, and markets. Yet, there are downsides. By tying itself with Europe, the United States ties itself to a colonial legacy. In Niger, the junta took power and quickly sought to evict French forces and EU partners—but not US forces (at least initially). This generated tension in the US-France relationship and underscored the extent to which the United States is willing to deviate from cooperation with its partners to maintain engagement in Africa. Such a method lines up with the revamped US Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa under which the Biden administration has been adamant that it is seeking to partner with African countries on equal footing and that it will not treat Africa as a great-power battleground. Europe is itself aware of its history. A former Latvian prime minister, for example, called for EU members without colonial pasts to lead the bloc’s engagement with countries across Africa.

The United States, for the most part, holds its engagement conditional on the health of each country’s democracy. In the case of Niger, the United States suspended financial assistance, saying that “Any resumption of US assistance will require action . . .  to usher in democratic governance in a quick and credible timeframe.” The United States has also not shied away from terminating partnership in programs such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act (which provides duty-free entry for certain products) when the country in that partnership has seen an erosion in democratic governance, human rights, and freedoms. The United States shouldn’t shy away from doing so; but this is not a priority Russia shares.

To be fair, the United States, often alongside its European partners, does collaborate on military affairs with African countries. For example, the United States and United Kingdom joined African democratic partners in conducting a large military drill in Kenya. Many African countries, especially those that are partners with the United States, recognize the risk Russia’s support poses. Some have been vocal in making their opposition to Russia’s geopolitical actions known.

Yet, deadly incidents (and the resulting political fallout)—such as the 2017 Tongo Tongo ambush or the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu—have doused US enthusiasm for assistance with direct combat. The United States focuses on supporting roles with airpower, intelligence sharing, and training. Even France, after deploying troops across the Sahel for years in Operation Barkhane, was unwilling to deploy its forces to Niger during the coup to support the president it had backed. Compare that to Russia, which seems willing to sustain partnership with blood. When the Central African Republic’s president changed the constitution last year to abolish term limits, Russian forces in the country increased their presence and provided support and security services to the president.

The United States (especially when joining with its allies) is an economic power, and that is attractive for African countries seeking much needed domestic development and value addition. Yet, US partnership does have its limitations. Should a country’s domestic policies run afoul of American principles, partnership is near impossible. Unlike Russia’s limitations, the United States’ are largely self-imposed.

Weighing the choice

Going forward, African countries must choose wisely between the United States (and its offer of economic and development support) and Russia (and its offer of direct military support) in their search for a partner on critical minerals.

Juntas and dictatorships will likely choose Russia, even if offered another choice (which seems unlikely). Russia offers them the equipment and military support they need to fight insurgent and terrorist groups.

The West will need to closely watch democratic countries in Africa. Russia is looking to make the choice easier by deploying disinformation. France has accused Russia of even staging atrocities and framing the West to promote its narrative.

As for what the United States could do: It could theoretically start adding direct kinetic security support to its offer. However, the United States isn’t likely to align itself with military leaders who trampled democracy on their road to power, and it isn’t very likely to deploy forces to protect them. The United States could, theoretically, also turn to the private sector—supporting the efforts of private military companies that are already operating in the continent. But the government would still be limited, rightly so, by laws that restrict it from supporting nondemocratic regimes.

With African minerals in high demand, Russia and the United States will continue to offer what the other can’t.

Alexander Tripp is the assistant director for the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.

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Stability at home translates to leadership abroad

Across the political divide, the consensus in Rome is that Meloni’s position is secure. A year and a half into her tenure, Meloni maintains strong approval ratings. She faces no real threats from the opposition or her coalition partners. Would-be rivals of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, including Deputy Prime Minister and Infrastructure Minister Matteo Salvini and the League, have been outflanked. Forza Italia, led by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, is on the rise, but it still lags in the polls. Both those in power and in opposition predict that Meloni will last for the remaining three years of the legislature—barring any twists, which even now no one can write off in Italy.

An important part of this stability comes from the fact that Meloni’s foreign policy priorities are largely supported among Italy’s policymakers and fit within transatlantic priorities. Initially feared as another weak link in the European Union (EU), Meloni has shown herself to be staunchly pro-Ukraine. She is a Euroskeptic but not anti-EU. And while US President Joe Biden differs from her on several notable domestic policies, he has found an ally in Meloni. “We have each other’s backs,” Biden declared during their March 1 meeting in Washington. It’s an interesting turn given that, shortly after her election, Biden used Meloni as a warning to Democrats. She has played a delicate balancing act on China, officially leaving the Belt and Road Initiative—Italy being the only Group of Seven (G7) country to have signed on—while still maintaining economic ties with Beijing. If anything, Meloni’s domestic opposition criticizes her for a lack of follow-through, especially on Italy’s aid to Ukraine and the funds pledged for development projects in North Africa.

Uncontested leadership and support for its foreign policy priorities allow Italy’s government to be much more impactful abroad. This stability comes at an opportune time. Italy holds the G7 presidency in 2024 and for that reason is in the driver’s seat when it comes to advancing the vision of the “steering committee for the world’s most advanced democracies,” as described by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Stability and popularity also allow Rome to make its priorities for the West heard, most notably the security of the Mediterranean and Western outreach to Africa.

Recentering the Mediterranean

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and arguably before, much of the West’s attention has focused on Europe’s eastern flank—and with good reason. As a result, Rome’s focus on the Mediterranean can at times seem like a regional preoccupation, but the case for the area’s importance for the transatlantic alliance is strong.

The Mediterranean is NATO’s southern flank, and a rather weak one at that. Italian policymakers do not see Russia as just threatening NATO’s eastern flank. Russia has long played a destabilizing role in Libya, for example, funneling weapons into the country as well as deploying its own forces. This destabilizing activity directly affects Europe, impacting migration flows and propping up an important presence off Italy’s coast. Italy’s leadership in the EU’s naval Operation Aspides in the Red Sea provides a useful example of the role Italy can play in organizing its European counterparts, and Rome should seek to extend that leadership to provide greater security in the Mediterranean in the face of threats from Russia and other actors.

The Mediterranean region is also poised to play an important role in the planned India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). A major deliverable of the 2023 Group of Twenty (G20) Summit in New Delhi, this rail-and-sea infrastructure network has huge potential for countries such as India and for Italy and the Mediterranean region to be a conduit that deepens Europe’s ties with emerging new global partners. Europe could provide these partners with an alternative to deepening economic ties with China and boost sustainable infrastructure investments across the network. Italy is well positioned to carry forward this effort. But it needs to make sure this massive project stays viable and on the West’s agenda. Italy should use its current G7 presidency to garner greater Western support for IMEC, and position itself as a key partner on the European link of the corridor.

The infrastructure development race to the top

Italy’s focus on infrastructure goes beyond IMEC. Rome is paying greater attention to infrastructure development across the Global South and stands ready to build on earlier efforts by the West. In June 2022, the G7 adopted the Partnership for Global Infrastructure Investment (PGII) to facilitate six hundred billion dollars in infrastructure projects by 2027. The EU’s Global Gateway promises to provide three hundred billion dollars for EU-supported projects, also by 2027.

Meloni, too, has jumped into the infrastructure development space. She has made infrastructure a cornerstone of her foreign policy and of Italy’s relationship with Africa through the Mattei Plan for North Africa, unveiled in January 2024.

Rome’s Mattei Plan has several drivers that fit in with the West’s larger infrastructure push. First, the plan aims to help African countries build stability at home to limit migration abroad. Meloni explicitly stated this goal, as Italy remains a key port of entry from North Africa. Second, the plan is intended to position Italy as a European energy hub, deepening the economic link between Europe and Africa. Third, the plan fits within the G7’s larger effort to prove the West’s rules-based system is fit for purpose and to offset the influence of China through a truly nonexploitative partnership framework. Fourth, mineral-rich states in Africa will be critical to the twin green and digital transitions. The extraction and processing of these resources must be supported with sustainable practices that respect the rule of law and labor standards, and help countries move up the global value chain. Doing so will help in the West’s de-risking efforts to shift away from overreliance on China while boosting states’ long-term development.

Building relationships that are not extractive or exploitive will be key to ensuring long-term partnerships, and Italy has said it intends to take this approach with future infrastructure development. Creating public-private partnerships will also be important, since the private sector will play an integral role in the financing of said investments. But the private sector needs to be convinced that investing doesn’t come along with an unacceptable amount of risk. There is a role for the government to play in minimizing these risks, and focusing on the opportunities presented by these markets.

Italy is well suited to set up the mechanisms needed to coordinate these projects. With its G7 presidency, Italy should focus on deepening the coordination of projects such as the PGII, Global Gateway, and the Mattei Plan. The Mattei Plan specifically will require greater effort to be successful. While the plan’s framework presents a possible blueprint for increased European and G7 engagement with the Global South, in its current form it is humble both in the number of projects and the amount of financing proposed—just over five billion euros for nine projects—compared to the PGII and Global Gateway. For this project to really take off, Rome will need to find more money to invest through the Mattei Plan and expand its scope, while fully integrating it into larger investment plans.

Until recently, political chaos and economic woes have caused Italy, the EU’s third-largest economy and a G7 member, to punch below its weight. The current political calm won’t last forever, but in this period of steadiness at home, Rome can expand its leadership role abroad.

Jörn Fleck is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

Rachel Rizzo is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

James Batchik is an associate director at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

Nicholas O’Connell is the deputy director for public sector partnerships at the Atlantic Council.

The post Dispatch from Rome: Political stability gives Italy a chance to step into the spotlight appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Read up on the events shaping the democratic world order below.

Reshaping the order

This month’s topline events

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatens to set a date to invade Rafah amid mounting US and international pressure to limit civilian harm. The Israeli government continued attacks across Gaza before, in early April, withdrawing all but one of its battalions and reportedly setting a date for a military operation in the city of Rafah. However, significant skepticism abounds as to whether the date is real or simply a tactic to try to pressure Hamas. The United States sought to help shape Israel’s Rafah plan given concerns for civilian casualties, but did not reach an agreement on how Israel might proceed with such an operation. The United States continued high-level pressure on the Netanyahu government to limit civilian casualties and agree on a temporary ceasefire. Vice President Kamala Harris called for an immediate temporary ceasefire and US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized Netanyahu, going so far as to call for fresh elections in Israel. Netanyahu canceled  a meeting between senior Israeli officials and US counterparts to discuss Rafah after the United States abstained from voting on a United Nations Security Council resolution pressing for an immediate temporary ceasefire in Gaza, which allowed the measure to pass, before allowing a virtual meeting to take place. Meanwhile, negotiations between Israel and Hamas in Qatar stalled after Israel claimed Hamas was “not interested” in talks; however, as April began the talks were expected to restart in Cairo. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsened, despite ongoing aid deliveries by air and sea. Conditions close to famine levels are now present, according to the International Court of Justice at the Hague, which also ruled unanimously that Israel must let food aid enter Gaza.

• Shaping the order. The Israel-Hamas war retains a high risk for spreading into a broader regional, state-on-state conflict. This risk heightened at the start of April as Israel reportedly killed two Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) generals and five military advisors in an airstrike on the Iranian consulate building in Damascus, Syria, which Israel claims is being used as a cover by the IRGC to conduct regional malign activities. Meanwhile, the manner in which the Netanyahu government has prosecuted the war has prompted significant debate between those viewing the tens of thousands of casualties as having driven support to Hamas and those who argue that Israel’s urban warfare conduct has actually set a new “gold standard.”  What does seem clear is that Hamas is turning battlefield losses into strategic advantage, as the United States warned Israel was the likely outcome if it went into Gaza in a way that causes mass civilian casualties and hunger.
• Hitting home. The war and humanitarian crisis being felt every day by Gazans is helping to shift US public opinion on Israel. Gallup’s March survey found that 55 percent of Americans now disagree with how Israel is conducting its war against Hamas, up from 50 percent in November. A group of eight Democrat senators pushed US President Joe Biden to end the US provision of military weapons to Jerusalem.
• What to do. In the immediate term, the United States must continue to press (and put pressure on) the Israeli government to limit civilian casualties and pursue a temporary ceasefire that would enable mass humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza and release all hostages. The Biden administration, even as it urges Netanyahu to limit civilian casualties, must mobilize key Middle Eastern partners, namely Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates, to devise and resource a viable plan for post-war Gaza, a core pillar of which should be a two-state solution.

Ukraine fights on with European support while US support remains stuck in Congress. Ukraine’s strikes deep into Russian territory continued, with significant impact, including the destruction of one-third of Russian naval vessels and the brief closure of (and possible damage to) the Kerch Bridge in Crimea. Despite this progress, Ukraine faced munitions and personnel shortages that could imperil its hold on the front lines. The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, debated lowering the draft age from twenty-seven to twenty-five to deal with manpower shortages, but without ammunition and with US support in doubt, morale is sagging.

The United States continued sending mixed messages on its support for Ukraine. A minority in the US Congress again held up passage of a large-scale military aid package for Kyiv, though as April started, there were signs a vote could be called soon. The Biden administration reportedly urged Kyiv not to attack Russian oil refineries, a message that generated frustration in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Europe held firm in its support for Kyiv. French President Emmanuel Macron told European allies and partners, “Today, to have peace in Ukraine, we must not be weak,” and refused to rule out Western troop deployments to Ukraine. A Czech-led ammunition initiative to supply Kyiv with artillery shells by June received additional support. Sweden announced it will help bankroll the effort with thirty million euros and Germany announced it would pay for 180,000 rounds.

• Shaping the order. US military support, in the form of weapons and munitions, along with the same from European allies, will largely determine whether Kyiv succeeds or fails on the battlefield. The minority in the US Congress preventing the military aid bill from passing is sending a message to Russia (and China) that US resolve might not hold. Absent continued US and European military support, Ukraine could lose the war. This would likely embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin to attack NATO countries and in so doing draw the United States directly into a land war in Europe to defend a NATO ally.
• Hitting home. Ukraine defeating Russia is a plausible outcome and would advance US national interests by weakening a US adversary without costing US soldiers. Despite these realities, a minority in Congress continued holding up further military support to Ukraine. Many Europeans are alarmed by rising isolationism in the United States, particularly following Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s claims that former US President Donald Trump had told him he would end military aid to Ukraine should he be elected.
• What to do. The Biden administration must continue to push Congress to pass military aid for Ukraine and work with its allies in Europe to continue their support for Kyiv.

Senegal’s democracy shows resilience. On March 24, Senegalese citizens elected Bassirou Diomaye Faye as president, just ten days after his release from prison. The election was initially scheduled for February 25, until Sall, in office for twelve years, announced a delay and pushed for legislation that rescheduled the contest for December 2024. The opposition and some analysts feared that Sall wanted to delay the election to extend his time in power; although in February, Sall promised to end his term in April. However, the Constitutional Court rejected the plan to postpone the elections and ordered the government to set the date for elections, which it set as March 24. Many had feared that the postponement of the election would result in violence, after security forces violently responded to protests against the election delay. 

• Shaping the order. Democracy in West Africa has been on the backfoot following a string of coups across the Sahel. Senegal, which looked at risk of backsliding after the unfolding of these events, showed the importance of strong and independent institutions in restoring democracy.
• Hitting home. A democratic and stable Senegal benefits the United States. More broadly, the United States benefits when there are more democracies in the world. Democracies are more reliable trading partners, are less likely to go to war with one another, and are less likely to incubate and export transnational crime and terrorism.
• What to do. The United States should continue pursuing partnerships with the new government on a range of economic, cultural, and security matters.

Quote of the Month

“My purpose tonight is to both wake up this Congress and alert the American people that this is no ordinary moment either . . . What makes our moment rare is that freedom and democracy are under attack, both at home and overseas, at the very same time.”
– Biden in his State of the Union address before the US Congress.

State of the Order this month: Weakened

Assessing the five core pillars of the democratic world order

Democracy (↓)

• In the first Iranian election since protests erupted in 2022 following the death of Mahsa Amini, many Iranians boycotted parliamentary elections, seemingly expressing, by refusing to cast a ballot, their opposition to the government’s oppressive rules and handling of the economy.
• Venezuela’s regime officially blocked the leading opposition candidate, Corina Yoris, from running in July’s presidential elections, a major blow to opposition hopes to unseat Nicolas Maduro. The regime’s decision is also a setback for the Biden administration, which lifted sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry in an effort to encourage Maduro to hold free and fair elections.
• Article 23, Hong Kong’s new security law, came into effect, enabling officials to conduct closed-door trials and allowing the police to hold individuals for up to sixteen days without bringing charges for violating state secrets, fomenting sedition, and engaging in treason, all of which have broad definitions under the law. Radio Free Asia shut down its office in Hong Kong due to fears that its staff could endangered.
• India put in place a new citizenship law that excludes Muslim migrants and establishes a religious test for migrants of prominent faiths in South Asia other than Islam. Experts say that under Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, Muslims have faced increased discrimination.
• On balance, the democracy pillar was weakened.

Security (↓)

• Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry resigned from office, following a meeting in Jamaica of the United States, Caribbean partners, Canada, and France. An alliance of gangs, which has sowed instability across the country, including by releasing thousands of prisoners from government facilities and controlling most of the capital, had threatened civil war if Henry did not resign.
• Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham–Khorasan (ISIS-K), launched an attack on a concert hall in Moscow that left at least 144 dead. The group claimed responsibility but Putin has continued to link the attack to Ukraine.
• The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned that the number of individuals experiencing female genitalia mutilation increased by 15 percent in the last eight years, with UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell stating that these unnecessary procedures are happening at younger and younger ages, sometimes even before children reach the age of five.
• On balance, the security pillar was weakened.

Trade ()

• Chinese Premier Li Qiang announced that China’s economic growth goal is 5 percent; however, he offered few details on how China would increase growth, even as its real estate crisis continued and public confidence in China’s economy declined.
• The Bank of Japan, after eight years of negative interest rates, increased short-term interest rates to 0-0.1 percent, demonstrating the central bank’s confidence in the country’s economic recovery and sustainable inflation.
• On balance, the trade pillar was unchanged.

Commons ()

• The oil and gas company Shell initiated court proceedings to formally repeal the 2021 ruling wherein a district court in The Hague ordered Shell to cut its carbon emissions by 45 percent by 2030 compared to 2019 levels.
• On balance, the commons pillar was unchanged.

Alliances (↑)

• Sweden formally joined NATO, strengthening the Alliance and positioning it to better defend its northern flank.
• On balance, the alliances pillar was strengthened.

Strengthened (↑)________Unchanged ()________Weakened (↓)

What is the democratic world order? Also known as the liberal order, the rules-based order, or simply the free world, the democratic world order encompasses the rules, norms, alliances, and institutions created and supported by leading democracies over the past seven decades to foster security, democracy, prosperity, and a healthy planet.

This month’s top reads

Three must-read commentaries on the democratic order

• Liselotte Odgaard, in Foreign Policy, argues that NATO is not ready to deter Russia in the Arctic.
• Hal Brands, in Foreign Affairs, contends that new autocratic alliances are a genuine threat.
• Sahar Halaimazi, Metra Mehran, and Marika Theros, as part of a project examining Afghanistan’s gender apartheid, map the timeline of the Taliban’s decrees restricting women.

Action and analysis by the Atlantic Council

Our experts weigh in on this month’s events

• Frederick Kempe, in Inflection Points Today, assesses that the United States needs to make the case for winning the “strategic battle for the global future,” including by banning TikTok and passing aid to Ukraine.
• Jenna Ben-Yehuda and Matthew Kroenig, in the New Atlanticist, respond to Biden’s State of the Union address.
• Andrew Michta and Jeffrey Cimmino, as part of the Scowcroft Center’s project on twenty-first-century diplomacy, analyze the risks and benefits of generative artificial intelligence for diplomacy.
• Jerzy Koźmiński and Daniel Fried, in the New Atlanticist, discuss NATO enlargement on the twenty-fifth anniversary of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic joining the Alliance.
• Patrick Quirk, in the Hill, argues that technology companies and Russian democracy activists must work together to combat Putin’s online authoritarianism.
• Samantha Vinograd, on Face the Nation, analyzed the ISIS-K terror attack in Moscow.
• Jeffrey Cimmino, in the New Atlanticist, lays out how the United States can play a bigger role in protecting religious freedom across the globe.

__________________________________________________

The Democratic Order Initiative is an Atlantic Council initiative aimed at reenergizing American global leadership and strengthening cooperation among the world’s democracies in support of a rules-based democratic order. Sign on to the Council’s Declaration of Principles for Freedom, Prosperity, and Peace by clicking here.

Patrick Quirk – Nonresident Senior Fellow
Dan Fried – Distinguished Fellow
Sydney Sherry – Program Assistant

If you would like to be added to our email list for future publications and events, or to learn more about the Democratic Order Initiative, please email pquirk@atlanticcouncil.org.

The post State of the Order: Continuing challenges to the world order raise the urgency for Gaza ceasefire and Ukraine aid appeared first on Atlantic Council.

It is an epilogue to months of suspense in what has long been West Africa’s most stable and democratic country. Senegal has landed back on its democratic feet. It has demonstrated to the world that its reputation as a democratic bastion in its region remains strong.

It took a combination of factors to make this outcome possible, after the country lived for months under the scrutiny of observers from around the world.

Democracy is culture

For the Senegalese, democracy is not a slogan or even simply the rule of law. It’s a way of life. Journalists, intellectuals, youth organizations, families, religious communities—all strata of society are imbued with this democratic culture, as evidenced by the high voter turnout, the positive takeaways of international observers, and the presence of nineteen presidential candidates. But there is another important element that observers who are not familiar with Senegalese culture might have missed. There is an ongoing tradition in Senegal of open dialogue between the opposition and the outgoing majority, thanks to many mediators, including former Senegalese presidents.

For the opposition parties in Africa, the Senegalese election is a lesson. Boycotting an election in protest, instead of contesting it, is not always the best solution. Moreover, no one is irreplaceable. The fate of Faye, who emerged from relative obscurity to replace the former opposition candidate Ousmane Sonko at the last moment, proves this. The Senegalese will now get to know President Faye. But it will be necessary for the new president to distinguish himself beyond the slogan that emerged during the campaign: “Diomaye moy Sonko,” or “Diomaye is Sonko.”

For the putschists in the region, some of whom have strangely welcomed Faye’s victory, this election is a stinging refutation of their seizure of power by brute force. Faye may present a program of rupture with the outgoing administration, but the fact remains that he submitted to the vote of his people. Neither Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya of Guinea, nor Captain Ibrahim Traoré of Burkina Faso, nor General Abdourahamane Tiani of Niger had the courage to do.

In Senegal, change comes through the ballot box, not through weapons. While a few members of the Senegalese army committed the folly of whispering the names of the most eminent generals as a possible recourse, the armed forces remained stoic in their barracks, aware that their duties are not of that nature and never have been.

The outgoing president

The actions of the outgoing president should be noted here. Unlike some leaders in the region, Sall relinquished his power when it was time. He renounced a third term when he understood that his reading of the constitution on this subject was not shared by all Senegalese, despite pressure from his supporters. Then, at the height of the crisis over the postponement of the election, he complied with the decision of the Constitutional Council. It is only in a democracy with strong institutions that the president (and the national assembly) accepts the decision of a court that has just contradicted the head of state. Finally, Sall’s amnesty bill, which freed hundreds of prisoners, some of whom had been guilty of abuses and looting, displeased the members of his party, but he understood that opponents did not belong in a prison.

Undoubtedly, for Senegalese to elect Faye, a candidate whom they knew nothing of until two months ago, the power of “dégagisme”—or rejection of the current political class—had to be exceptionally strong. But as usual with outgoing presidents, it will take time for Sall’s full legacy both internationally and domestically to be fully understood.

During Sall’s presidency, Senegal led the African Union in 2022-2023, replacing Mali at the last minute. In his role as the African Union chairman, Sall brought important attention to the issue of food security during his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi in June 2022, to the financing of African economies, and to the need for a permanent seat for the African Union in the Group of Twenty (G20), which was finally approved in September 2023.

In Senegal, Sall leaves an economic record that can be measured by the large number of major infrastructure projects undertaken during his tenure. This includes the new city of Diamniadio, as well as new trains, airports, stadiums, highways, and hospitals. Sall’s administration also spearheaded an emergency development plan for small rural communities. But in this country of eighteen million inhabitants, 75 percent of whom are under thirty-five years old, who have had to face economic consequences stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine, it is the high cost of living that has given energy to the opposition. Youth unemployment and social inequalities have persisted, despite financial support for the poorest.

The incoming president

Faye takes office at a pivotal moment for his country. Important oil and gas projects are set to begin production later this year, potentially providing a boost to the country’s economy—and drawing interest from regional and global powers. At the same time, Senegal sits in a precarious region that has been hit by a series of coups d’état in recent years. In addition, the jihadist threat has never ceased, as evidenced by the regular arrests of terrorists by Senegalese military forces, which have been heavily mobilized at the border in recent years.

Faye campaigned on enacting a rupture on three levels:

• First, a break with Senegal’s former colonial power, France, by questioning the CFA franc and potentially introducing a new currency.
• Second, a break with the “resource curse” with the promise of a better distribution of revenue from oil and other natural resources.
• Third, a break with bad governance via institutional reform.

None of these will be easy, but the biggest challenge for the new president will undoubtedly be the one that all Senegalese presidents before Faye have faced as well: How to keep campaign promises and not disappoint the Senegalese youth, who have proven their ability to make the difference on election day.

Rama Yade is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center and senior fellow for the Europe Center.

The post In Senegal, Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s win shows that change comes through the ballot box appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The divergences caused by fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV) situations are particularly stark, as the incidence of conflict events has increased 40 percent since 2020, to the highest number of events since World War II. Half of the world’s poor live in FCV-affected countries and that number is expected to rise to 60 percent by 2030, in part as the duration of conflicts extends—to now an average of twenty years. In addition to the death, destruction, and disruptions they cause, conflict and fragility are disincentives to investment and further undermine economic growth. One-fifth of International Monetary Fund member countries are considered fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS) and twenty of the most climate-vulnerable economies are also on the World Bank’s FCS list.

According to the most recent Women, Peace, and Security Index: “In 2022, approximately six hundred million women—15 percent of women in the world—lived within fifty kilometers of armed conflict, more than double the levels in the 1990s.” These numbers don’t lie, but they also don’t necessarily tell the whole truth. And the truth is that women and girls are disproportionately impacted by fragility and conflict economically, socially, and politically. The impacts are well-documented. The data show, for example, that women and girls are more likely to see their educations disrupted, are more vulnerable to gender-based violence, and are more likely to be displaced or become refugees.

Women often face much greater economic hardships than men in conflict-affected areas, as well. Notably, six out of ten of the World Bank’s FCS countries are in the lower quartile on the “Economic Participation and Opportunity” subindex on the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index, indicating wider gender gaps and more challenges facing women in conflict contexts. Similarly, a majority of FCV countries can be found in the bottom of the latest Women Business and the Law rankings released on March 4. These impacts also further undermine economies: The World Bank estimates that gender-based violence costs some countries up to 3.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), and a 1 percent increase in violence against women lowers economic activity by 9 percent.

The roles women hold during conflict and reconstruction

But there can be opportunities for women’s economic empowerment in conflict and reconstruction, as well. Women are experiencing these outcomes despite the important role they play in economies during conflict, in post-conflict reconstruction, and in efforts to sustain peace.

Most of today’s FCV economies are characterized by low female labor force participation. For example, in 2022, the United Nations estimated that closing gender gaps in women’s labor force participation in Yemen would increase the country’s GDP by 27 percent. War has historically created windows of opportunity for women to fulfill workforce shortages—including in male-dominated fields—since men make up a majority of combatants. War—often coupled with crippling inflation—makes finding paid work more acceptable and, importantly, this openness tends to continue as income generation changes women’s economic value and power in society. In the United States, for example, women took to manufacturing and government administration for the war industry and beyond during World War II, with nineteen million women entering the US workforce during this period. Today, women continue to join or rejoin the workforce—including in the informal sector—at higher rates amid conflict and take on more culturally nontraditional jobs. For instance, Ukrainian women have joined the mining workforce, filling the gaps left by conscription after Russia’s invasion.

Like most economies worldwide, micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises dominate the market landscape of fragile and conflict-torn countries.

Even though these smaller businesses face more start-up and operational constraints, they provide a key pathway for women’s economic participation during conflict and on the road to recovery. A study in Syria estimated that the proportion of female entrepreneurs increased from a low base of 4.4 percent in 2009 to 22.4 percent by 2017. This includes women-owned and -led businesses engaging in supply chains; including in the logistics, information, and communication technology, infrastructure, and public works sectors, all of which are critical to reconstruction.

And as women workers and their businesses earn more, especially in the formal economy, they can mitigate the otherwise dampening domestic resource mobilization associated with reduced economic activity, investment, and government administration during conflict or destabilization. Women’s greater participation in the economy during conflict and reconstruction can also increase consumption and income utilization (including from cash transfers or other social protection mechanisms) as women recirculate their earnings with spending on their families.

How to wield prosperity and peace dividends with and for women

Gender inclusion cannot be an afterthought. Policymakers must address the immediate economic security and income needs of women during conflict, while empowering them to contribute to and benefit from recovery, reconstruction, and growth. This means providing context-specific, targeted social protections and addressing the issues that undermine women’s economic participation. It requires mitigating and responding to gender-based violence, as well as improving accessibility and affordability of child and elder care. It also means supporting women entrepreneurs and women-led small businesses, closing education or skill gaps, and addressing social and cultural norms that limit career choices or workforce participation with conflict or fragility-sensitive knowledge, design, and delivery mechanisms.

Depending on the type, level, and stage of FCV, as well as the economic landscape, certain FCV-specific interventions can also make a difference in women’s economic empowerment. These include, for example, enabling women’s earning, employment, and entrepreneurship by expanding opportunities in gig and home-based economies and increasing safe and reliable transportation to and from work or school. Policymakers should also take steps to improve access to education and training with attention to language, as well as the demand for and portability of skills and certifications. In addition to addressing persistent systemic and policy hurdles, women business owners and entrepreneurs need targeted support with more risk financing, knowhow, and market entry and development.

This includes leveraging sizable development and humanitarian assistance and procurement. The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), for example, bought over $1.8 billion worth of goods and services in 2022 from suppliers worldwide, with 56 percent local spending. Aligned with system-wide UN gender-responsive procurement initiatives, UNOPS is piloting and beginning to scale programs to train and prepare women business owners to successfully bid and execute their tenders. These women can then use the investment, experience, and credibility gained from working with UNOPS to obtain other public and private sector contracts and optimize supply chain opportunities.

Increasing digital inclusion can be transformative for women’s financial inclusion and economic participation, as well; including by training women for information and communication technology jobs in the digital economy, like the World Bank-Rockefeller Foundation’s Click-On Kaduna project in Nigeria. Policymakers should prioritize increasing women’s access to and utilization of digital tools and platforms, including digital money and financial services, as well as remote learning and government technology. Digital mechanisms can also serve as useful aspects of larger initiatives that empower women’s participation and leadership, which is critical for conflict mitigation and durable peacebuilding. 

The evidence that expanding economic opportunities for women is intertwined with building inclusive and sustainable growth, as well as peace and social progress, is only accruing with time, experience, and data. On this International Women’s Day, aptly themed “Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress,” it is incumbent upon all leaders, investors, and policymakers to heed this call. Public and private sector actors would do well to invest and enable increased women’s economic participation to catalyze prosperity and peace.

Nicole Goldin is a nonresident senior fellow at the GeoEconomics Center.

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More than a decade after the revolutions collectively known as the Arab Spring, several countries in the Middle East and North Africa are undergoing democratic backsliding and a return to authoritarian rule, including Egypt under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Libya under General Khalifa Haftar, and Tunisia under President Kais Saied. This trend and some shifts in sentiments about the West in these and other MENA countries have given Russia openings to undercut Western influence in the region and frame Ukraine as a Western puppet, using its state media and public diplomacy to influence opinion.

This is playing out in the context of growing internal polarization in many countries in the region and, among the citizenry, rising disenchantment with the West and democracy as a workable governing system for them. These developments enable Russia to offer an alternative alliance to authoritarian leaders who aim to diversify their country’s resources and reduce reliance on the West and the United States in particular.

Russian state media has had a presence in the Arab World since the 2007 launch of Russia Today Arabic (now just RT Arabic), and its influence expanded with the 2014 start of Sputnik Arabic, which maintains a regional office in Cairo. Today, RT Arabic is one of the region’s top three most-watched news broadcasters after Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera. As reported in the DFRLab’s previous Undermining Ukraine report, Russia signed cooperation agreements with local media in Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco to formalize official cooperation on joint projects and information exchanges.

Some Arabic-speaking media outlets post the exact text of articles published on RT Arabic’s website, allowing for the spread of narratives promoted by state-run Russian media to Arabic speakers. A short RT article from January 13, 2023, pushing claims that Ukrainian soldiers were carrying chemical weapons, was posted verbatim on the news websites of Egypt’s Al-Ahram, Yemen’s Al-Ayyam, and Dubai-based news aggregator Nabd. An August 2023 RT Arabic article repeating Putin’s claim that the ban on Russian media was due to the West’s fear of the truth was also reposted by Yemen’s Al-Ayyam and Emirati newspaper Al Khaleej. An article published in state-aligned Syria’s Al-Watan and Egypt’s Al-Ahram in September quoting State Duma Member Anna Kuznetsova saying that the “Kyiv regime uses the same methods used by the terrorist organization ISIS [Islamic State group] to recruit children” was originally published in RT Arabic.

By cooperating with local media, Russia is able to spread its propaganda to a broader audience in the Arab world. The narratives amplified by Russian state media and local media partners are framed in a way that appeals to audiences in the region and their complicated history with the West. In line with authoritarian Arab leaders’ statements about the West’s interest in their countries, local media amplify narratives suggesting that the West attempts to demonize Russia in order to maintain Arab nations’ reliance on the West. Additionally, narratives about Zelenskyy being a puppet of the West and Putin standing up to them appeal to many in the Arab populations who viewed their former authoritarian leaders as puppets supported by the West at their own expense. Moreover, regional audiences point to Western hypocrisy in considering Russia’s war in Ukraine with a different lens than the US invasion of Iraq or Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip.

As Western states imposed a ban on RT and Sputnik and blocked their YouTube channels to minimize the impact of their propaganda, Russian media was further emboldened in the region as it became increasingly considered an alternative source of information after decades of Western influence in their countries. While there is some sympathy expressed online among Arabic speakers for the Ukrainian people, there is also support for Russia and Putin expressed by media and individuals, resulting from internal polarization and disenchantment with democracy and the West.

Russian media and its social media accounts capitalize on such resentment toward Western countries to gain support for Russia in the region. The X accounts of Sputnik and RT Arabic produce more content than BBC Arabic and Al Jazeera, regularly posting content that appeals to Arab audiences. For instance, on June 29, 2023, one day after an incident of Quran burning in Sweden, the three X accounts posted similar videos showing Putin holding the Quran during a visit to a mosque in the city of Derbent, Russia, while criticizing Western countries like Sweden for allowing the burning of the holy book.

Arabic-speaking journalists and influencers promoting pro-Russia narratives

X also serves as a major social media platform for several Arabic-speaking Russian state media personalities as well as unaffiliated online influencers. Many of these accounts with large followings consistently post news content aligned with the Kremlin’s preferred narratives. There are differences between the two groups, however, as affiliated journalists openly state their ties to Russian media and use their real identities, while influencer accounts appear to more frequently use stolen images and show signs of coordinated posting and engagement.

The DFRLab identified and analyzed thirty accounts of influencers and self-proclaimed journalists boasting large follower counts and posting Arabic content, mostly in the form of news updates. These accounts often promoted similar pro-Russia, anti-Western messaging and celebrated partnerships between Russia and Arab nations. Specifically, the accounts created content that would resonate more with an Arab audience and sometimes expand on regional resentment toward Western countries, accusing them of double standards following their pro-Ukraine narratives.

An analysis of the accounts revealed several suspicious indicators, including similarities in how they present themselves and the content they post. The bios of twenty-three of thirty accounts highlighted interest in Russian news, Russia-Ukraine news, or general political and war news. Many of the accounts often published similar posts on the same day or within a short window. One example showed accounts attempting to attract interest from Arab and Muslim users after Russian general Sergei Surovikin visited Algeria, with six accounts using very similar text and the same photo of Surovikin reading the Quran in an Algerian mosque, all published within a two-hour period on September 15, 2023.

These X accounts routinely promoted disinformation related to the Russia-Ukraine war as well. In one example, on October 4, 2023, three accounts used identical or nearly identical text falsely claiming that Zelenskyy was attempting to recruit Islamic State fighters held in Iraqi and Syrian prisons to join the Ukrainian army in its fight against Russia.

The DFRLab also noticed some degree of coordination between some of the accounts, such as liking, retweeting, and replying to each other’s tweets. For instance, reviewing @russiaArb4’s post engagement revealed many retweets from the same three accounts. Moreover, some of the accounts created posts to promote other accounts and asked users to follow them.

Several of the identified accounts appeared focus on retweeting other accounts, alongside retweeting specific and possibly new Arabic media accounts. This apparent coordination around retweeting could be seen in the almost identical timelines with the same set of retweets between accounts.

Furthermore, five accounts that claimed to be either media figures or Russian citizens living in Russia or somewhere else had additional suspicious indicators. According to monitoring tool Twitter ID Finder, four of these accounts were created in October 2022: three on October 20—two of them just twenty minutes apart—and one on October 28. A reverse image search also confirmed that four of these accounts reappropriated publicly available images of attractive women as their avatars. This tactic appears to be similar to one previously used by a set of pro-Russia accounts, as documented by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, in an attempt to target Arab male users to follow and engage with them. 

Russian public diplomacy in the region

As in Latin America, Russia uses the social media presence of its diplomatic missions in the Middle East and North Africa to promote its preferred narratives about the war in Ukraine. Most of the diplomatic missions post updates to their official Facebook and X accounts at varying frequencies, focusing on diplomatic affairs with the host country. Most repost content from other diplomatic missions and the Russian Foreign Ministry’s English, Russian, and Arabic X accounts about international affairs and the war in Ukraine, routinely posting falsehoods and exaggerations about the war. These include describing the war as a “special military operation” or fighting Nazis in Ukraine.

The X and Facebook accounts of Russia’s diplomatic mission in Egypt post regular international affairs updates. The accounts posted regularly about Ukraine throughout 2023 with the hashtag #الحق_مع_روسيا (“Russia is right”). Among its posts, Russia’s embassy in Egypt posted statements to Facebook about “Ukrainian Nazis” allegedly firing missiles at a hospital in Pervomaisk, Ukraine, using US-provided High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) missiles. Economic and military ties between Russia and Egypt have strengthened in recent years, especially as the latter’s government seeks to reduce its dependence on the United States, which provides Egypt with $1.3 million in annual military assistance. Egypt currently imports the majority of its wheat from Russia and has been working with Russia to construct a Russian-built nuclear plant since 2022.

The increased cooperation and aligning of economic and military priorities between the governments of Egypt and Russia allows the latter to be more aggressive in promoting its narratives to Egyptian audiences through its official channels and getting positive engagement with social media users. The embassy’s messaging about the war in Ukraine sometimes plays on anti-Western sentiment among some audiences.

On February 24, 2023—the first anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine—the Russian embassy in Egypt tweeted a statement from the ambassador expressing gratitude to Egypt for “fully understanding the reasons for the confrontation over Ukraine and for supporting Russia despite the torrents of lies about our actions launched by the West.”

In September of that year, the embassy posted about a US announcement that Russia characterized as providing tanks to “Ukrainian Nazis” and depleted uranium shells to “expose our land to radioactive pollution. Exactly what they did in Iraq.” Russian diplomatic missions reference the Iraq War as part of its strategy to capitalize on anti-Western sentiment fueled by lingering distrust of the United States.

Diplomatic missions also capitalize on holidays and other public events by posting statements promoting Russian narratives. For example, the Russian embassy in Egypt evoked its fight against “Nazis” in Ukraine in a tweet on Defenders of the Homeland Day, then repeated the same rhetoric in another tweet on Russia’s Victory Day.

The Russian embassy in Algeria posted a statement from its ambassador on the occasion of Russia Diplomats’ Day, suggesting that the West was engaging in an “open anti-Russia campaign,” adding, “In a time like now when we witness tremendous pressure on Russia by the so-called ‘collective West,’ it becomes clear who our real friends are.” The ambassador also posted on Russia’s Victory Day, saying that “our great Homeland will win this time, will once again rid the world of fascism and Nazism.”

In other posts, Russian diplomatic missions in the region promoted narratives related to specific incidents of concern to Muslim audiences, such as a post from the Russian Embassy in Egypt showing a picture of a praying hand and a copy of the Quran with a tweet condemning the alleged burning of the Quran by Ukrainian soldiers. The post stated that the soldiers did so, knowing there are Muslims fighting in the Russian army, referring to a video that appears to show Ukrainian soldiers burning copies of the Quran.

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Freedom of assembly, freedom of opinion, and democracy are not just American values, “they are human values. They are also African values,” said Succès Masra, the prime minister of the Republic of Chad, on Wednesday.

Formerly the leader of the opposition Transformers party, Masra fled to the United States in the aftermath of the “Black Thursday” crackdown on dissent by the military government in October 2022. Now, after negotiations between the opposition and Chad’s government brokered by the Democratic Republic of Congo, Masra has returned to his home country and was appointed prime minister of Chad’s transition government in January. In this role, Masra has been working toward Chad’s democratic transition and reforming the country’s governmental and electoral institutions. Masra has yet to announce whether he will be a candidate in the May 6 presidential elections.

Molly Phee, assistant secretary for African affairs at the US Department of State, opened the conversation with Masra, urging the international community to support Chad’s transition government as it seeks to build stronger, more inclusive, democratic institutions and serve as an example throughout the region. Below are more highlights from Masra’s discussion of Chad’s democratic transition, economic ambitions, and the role the country should play in the region, which was moderated by Rama Yade, the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.

Democratic transition and reforms

• Masra said that the transitional government’s first priority was establishing governmental and electoral institutions. “Unless we have strong institutions, nothing sustainable can happen,” he said. The war in Sudan, he added, showed that “if everybody has weapons, it’s not enough to build a strong country. It’s important to make sure that institutions are also here to help.”
• These institutions include a new independent body for organizing elections and a reform to enhance the independence of the judiciary. “These are new tools that we are putting on the table to push for fair elections,” Masra said.
• Another aspect of the electoral reform initiatives is to “push for citizen involvement,” said Masra. “Our ambition is to train fifty thousand volunteers” to help with the elections in the next few weeks, he said, which will require help from institutions in the United States, civil society actors, and members of the African diaspora.
• “But we still have challenges ahead,” Masra acknowledged, which include financing the electoral process. “This is where we can also expect some support.”

Economic goals

• Masra outlined an initiative for “minimum development packages,” which would ensure that every village has a school, health system, clean water facility, road, and access to energy. Unless Chad “bets on education,” Masra said, “there is nothing sustainable we can accomplish yesterday, today, or tomorrow. The world is led by ideas.”
• “We want a Chad which could become tomorrow’s startup nation,” where both local and international actors want to invest, said Masra, who was formerly the chief economist at the African Development Bank. “This is not about philanthropy. This is about business.”
• Masra also highlighted the importance of facilitating trade among African countries, including promoting e-visas, ensuring free travel, expanding regional markets, and making the most of the African Continental Free Trade Area.

Chad’s international role

• Concerning the series of coups in the Sahel countries of Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso, Masra said that “the reality of security and the obligation for leaders to respond to people’s needs remain the same.” Even during war, “people should continue to talk,” he said. “We speak to everybody, with the idea to use Chad as a regional player.”
• “The United States is a partner for our country, and I’m here to say we want to build a stronger partnership,” said Masra. Ongoing areas of cooperation between the United States and Chad, he said, include security, private sector development, and “pushing for a soft landing” in Chad “where people can choose their leaders.”
• “Africa must unite. This is mandatory,” Masra said, urging greater African involvement in global institutions. That means “it’s important to have a place” in the United Nations Security Council, he added.
• Before concluding, Masra called for “hope” for Chad, stating that “there is a new Chad, a new Africa, and we can build bridges” together.

Watch the full event

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Table of contents

Evolution of freedom

Egypt has experienced a political roller-coaster in the decade following the Arab Spring. The militarization of power in politics has been a key feature of contemporary Egypt. At the end of 2010, massive demonstrations broke out against poverty, corruption, and political repression. These led to the ousting of President Mubarak, a former military officer. This was despite the important economic reforms Mubarak had embarked upon in his last few years in office, which had been lauded by the international community. President Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood movement succeeded Mubarak after free and fair elections in 2012. A year after Morsi’s election, Army General al-Sisi took power in a coup and has since ruled Egypt with an iron fist.

The evolution of the Freedom Index for Egypt is indeed marked by the events of 2011 and 2012. The Freedom Index experienced a steep increase—reflecting the Arab Spring and the free elections that followed—before falling sharply by almost 10 points, a result of the counterrevolution led by General al-Sisi. The political freedom subindex visibly drives the movements in the overall freedom score. The 10-point increase on this subindex in 2011 vanishes, with a subsequent plummeting of almost 15 points, evident in all indicators, but especially in political rights. Al-Sisi has repressed brutally all political opposition and activism.

Economic freedom shows a somewhat erratic evolution, echoing the country’s political instability. Economic freedom seems to improve after 2014 as al-Sisi embarked on a series of reforms. Nonetheless, al-Sisi’s tenure has seen numerous economic problems: The scores on property rights and women’s economic freedom were still extremely low in 2022, and there has been a renewed acceleration toward military control over the economy. Al-Sisi embarked on large infrastructure investments, hoping that these would stimulate durable economic growth. These investments have turned to bad debt. Add to that the fact that the Gulf Cooperation Council countries have significantly reduced their aid to Egypt, making it nearly impossible to repay its ballooning debt and associated interest payments. The country is now at risk of a debt crisis.

Legal freedom presents a clear negative trend in Egypt since 2000, with this subindex losing around 10 points in that time. Clarity of the law, one of the most basic elements of the rule of law, receives a very low score throughout this period. The situation is echoed in the degradation of political freedom and the instrumentalization of the judicial system.

From freedom to prosperity

Just as on the freedom front, Egypt’s prosperity has been a roller-coaster. In what has become a familiar cycle, Egypt typically goes through periods of delayed macroeconomic stabilization followed by a balance-of-payments crisis. The country then calls on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout in exchange for drastic reforms. These so-called structural reforms often consist of cutting consumer subsidies (food and fuel), which helps consolidate budgets in the short run but leaves the structure of the economy—including vested interests and cronyism—unaltered. This, in turn, can lead to social instability and repression. The current episode is no different and does not augur well for addressing the social deficiencies affecting Egypt.

The control of the economy by the army is impeding its rapid and deep transformation.
Egypt’s prosperity score remains significantly below the regional average, although it has seen a sustained increase over the last twenty years, suffering only a small regress in 2013–15. There is still a 3-point gap between the country’s prosperity score and the MENA average.

There has been some limited progress in education, health, and the environment. The evolution of the income and education indicators in Egypt has been somewhat better than the average for the MENA region. In the latter case, Egypt has overcome a differential of 6.4 points with respect to the regional average in 2006 and is now almost 2 points above it. In terms of the health and environment components, the country scores visibly below the regional average, and the gap has actually widened since 1995. Minority rights protection dropped by almost 8 points after 2012, coinciding with the period of political turmoil, but most of that fall seems to have been recovered in the last three years.

The future ahead

Egypt will have to navigate very difficult macroeconomic challenges in next few years. The country is heavily indebted, adding to the already worrisome sociopolitical situation. Egypt is gearing up for elections in December 2023. It is likely that President al-Sisi will be re-elected, and although this would theoretically hand him a mandate for reform, it is unlikely he will do anything that would affect crony or military interests. Instead, al-Sisi might have to resort to further devaluation of the currency, which will ignite further inflation and hurt vulnerable households. What is more, it would create a damaging currency imbalance, adding to the cost of servicing foreign debts that are held in foreign currency.

Al-Sisi will have to find external sources of financing outside of capital markets, given the prohibitive spread on external borrowing. Financial aid from Gulf countries, which typically provided a lifeline, is no longer forthcoming. Gulf countries are looking to invest in strategic assets but also want to see reforms before doing more to support the country. Gulf partners are counting on the IMF to push for more market-oriented reforms.

While political reforms are unlikely given the current circumstances, deep economic reforms also seem doubtful. Indeed, they would be difficult as the militarization of politics and of the economy is entrenched. This stalled situation will continue to limit the country’s potential. It is imperative to re-embark on a balanced economic and political transition to avoid the domestic instability that could result from a frustrated youth. What is more, the geopolitical situation is also tense. The renewed escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict risks spilling over into Egypt. That could destabilize the country and spread to the whole region.

Rabah Arezki is a former vice president at the African Development Bank, a former chief economist of the World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa region, and a former chief of commodities at the the International Monetary Fund’s Research Department. He is now a director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Studies and Research on International Development and at Harvard Kennedy School.

Trackers and Data Visualizations

Jun 15, 2023

Freedom and Prosperity Indexes

The indexes rank 164 countries around the world according to their levels of freedom and prosperity. Use our site to explore twenty-eight years of data, compare countries and regions, and examine the sub-indexes and indicators that comprise our indexes.

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With the plan, Italy is boldly positioning itself as an energy hub for Europe and as a regional power capable of independently engaging in Mediterranean affairs, separate from other European Union (EU) countries. Moreover, through five main policy pillars (education and training, agriculture, health, water, and energy), the plan could help spur economic growth in Africa, and by default, reduce some of the economic causes driving mass migration from the continent.

Can the plan succeed? Early criticism of it centers on its perceived ambiguity, on concerns that it could jeopardize efforts to address climate change, and on its potential use as a pretext for Italy to tighten its stance on irregular migration. However, amidst these apprehensions, there are grounds for optimism. The plan presents an opportunity for Italy to emerge as a prominent player in Africa and to shift from its historically reactive approach to irregular migration toward proactive and constructive solutions.

A renewed Italian role in the Mediterranean

Since assuming office in October 2022, Meloni has made the Mediterranean a focal point of her foreign policy agenda. From addressing irregular migration to reducing reliance on Russian energy, the motivations behind this agenda are clear: the Mediterranean Sea, with its strategic location as a gateway to three continents and its abundant natural gas and oil resources, is crucial for Italy. This truth holds as much weight today as it did historically when the Roman Empire sought to assert its dominance by controlling the Mediterranean region.

In her first year as prime minister, Meloni visited Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt. During her first diplomatic mission, she orchestrated a two-day visit to Algeria alongside Claudio Descalzi, the chief executive officer of Italian energy company Eni, signaling an effort to further her predecessor Mario Draghi’s strategy of reducing Italy’s dependence on Russian gas. Throughout the visit, she emphasized a “virtuous model of collaboration” between African and European partners. She also took part in numerous photo opportunities with Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, to underscore her efforts to emphasize the warm relationship between Italy and Algeria. 

In early 2023, Meloni continued her engagements with North African leaders, traveling to Tripoli, Libya, where she met with Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah to finalize substantial energy investment agreements, address migration challenges, and discuss security threats posed by Sahelian Islamist groups. During her visit, Eni and Libya’s National Oil Company signed an eight-billion-dollar gas investment deal aimed at facilitating exploration and production for both domestic and European markets. Additionally, Italy provided Libya with five ships for the Libyan coast guard to bolster patrols against irregular migration across the Mediterranean.

In July 2023, Meloni made two separate visits to Tunisia in under ten days, following a surge in migration from the North African country to Italy. Along with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Meloni negotiated the signing of a memorandum between the European Union and Tunisia worth 150 million euros, aimed at revitalizing Tunisia’s economy and strengthening its coast guard capacities to combat irregular migration.

Middle power or global player?

Italy has long grappled with formulating a cohesive foreign policy, oscillating between assertiveness and mediation. During the Cold War, Italy assumed the role of a mediator, often acting as an intermediary between the United States and the Eastern bloc in the Mediterranean. Hindered by its struggling economy and internal ideological divisions, Italy failed to attain the status of an assertive, leading power capable of guiding rather than following.

Italy’s engagement in the Mediterranean has followed a similar path, vacillating between prominent and passive stances. In the 1950s and 1960s, Eni founder Enrico Mattei positioned the company to challenge the dominance of Western oil companies in North Africa through strategic alliances with countries such as Egypt under Gamel Abdel Nasser. These efforts were in part aimed at strengthening Italy’s role in the region.

But since the early 2000s, and especially in the wake of the Arab Spring in the early 2010s, Italy’s approach to the Mediterranean has been primarily reactive. Policies such as former Prime Minsiter Enrico Letta’s “Mare Nostrum,” aimed at tackling Mediterranean challenges through multilateralism and economic development, and former Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni’s “Minniti Plan,” emphasizing border control and law enforcement, were chiefly reactive strategies to the perceived migration crisis gripping Europe. These strategies often lacked a cohesive long-term vision and strategic foresight, relying instead on short-term fixes.

A path to renewal

The Mattei Plan for Africa seeks to establish an Italian agenda that prioritizes Africa’s needs and avoids predatory practices. Through investments in infrastructure and renewed energy, Italy aims to reclaim an assertive role in the region.

For this repositioning to succeed, however, the Meloni government must avoid repeating past mistakes. Instead, it should adopt forward-looking approaches aligned with global trends, such as addressing climate change and providing green energy solutions, while forging lasting relationships with African elites committed to impactful policies. While short-term gains may appeal to transient foreign policy agendas, it is the pursuit of long-term benefits that distinguishes leaders with enduring legacies.

Alissa Pavia is the associate director of the Atlantic Council’s North Africa Program.

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2023 also produced moments of hope and diplomatic feats. MENA countries were included in development organizations and plans that aimed to bolster the region’s economic prosperity; Iran and Saudi Arabia restored diplomatic relations; and the Abraham Accords continued to prosper.

Learn about the region’s biggest moments:

January 1: Israeli Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir decisively visits Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif)

The year had a rocky start as Israel’s controversial newly appointed minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, visited the Temple Mount, also known as Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary). Since Israel won the holy sites in the 1967 war, it granted the administrative authority of al-Aqsa Mosque, the Temple Mount, and the surrounding complex to the Jordanian Islamic Waqf. Under the status quo, the site is open to Muslim worshipers while Jewish visitors are allowed only at certain times and are not permitted to pray there.

“Ben Gvir, who is the leader of the extreme-right Otzma Yehudit party, has previously been convicted for supporting terrorism and inciting racism,” highlighted senior fellow Ksenia Svetlova. Given his background, Ben-Gvir’s January 1 visit—and subsequent visits later in the year—angered Palestinians, Arab-Israelis, and the wider Arab and Muslim world, as he has previously voiced discontent with the status quo, making his visit appear threatening to Muslim rights at the holy sites in Jerusalem.

MENASource

Jan 30, 2023

Ben-Gvir’s controversial new position angered the Arab world. But how will it impact a potential peace deal with Saudi Arabia?

By Ksenia Svetlova

Will PM Benjamin Netanyahu find the desired equilibrium between the radical politics of his coalition partner and diplomacy with Arab capitals?

Israel Middle East

January 5: Libya’s rival governments agree to develop a constitutional basis for elections 

Since the 2011 uprising against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, the country has faced violence, uncertainty, and division, resulting in two parallel governments. In January, after more than a decade of conflict and failed attempts at unity, the two governments of Libya—the Government of National Unity in the west and the Government of National Stability in the east—entered into negotiations to find a constitutional basis to end the conflict and hold elections for a single, unity government.

The talks took place in Cairo after Egypt volunteered to host. Aguila Saleh, the speaker of the Libyan House of Representatives, represented Tobruk and eastern Libya. In contrast, Tripoli and western Libya were represented by Khaled Al-Mishri, the head of Libya’s Higher Council of State. The representatives agreed to create a roadmap for the election process in the talks. The prime ministers of both governments also passed along the country’s constitutional document for approval from their respective legislatures.  

MENASource

Feb 1, 2023

Libya’s political impasse and the $6 billion question

By Alia Brahimi

On January 5, after months of talks brokered in Egypt, Libya’s rival legislative bodies finally agreed to begin discussions to develop the constitutional basis for elections.

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February 6: Deadly 7.8 magnitude earthquake hits Turkey and Syria 

On February 6, a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck southern Turkey and northwest Syria, killing over 55,000 people and affecting 15.7 million more. The damage was widespread; homes, schools, and hospitals were destroyed as the earthquake left entire cities and villages in ruin. While it was known that war-torn Syria would not have the capacity to respond to disaster, the earthquake exposed the inadequacy of Turkey’s response system.

Despite international aid, rescue and rebuilding efforts in Turkey were insufficient, with help slow to reach many areas. The earthquake has also had detrimental economic effects. The rebuilding efforts are expected to cost upward of $130 billion—over one-eighth of Turkey’s GDP—while many industries and livelihoods have also been destroyed. But as one Syrian told senior fellow Arwa Damon hours after the earthquake struck: “It did what the Assad regime and Russians wanted to do to us all along.”

MENASource

Jun 12, 2023

I work in Syrian civil society. There were gaps in our performance after the February 6 earthquake.

By Kenda Hawasli

It is clear that humanitarian response planning in Syria requires a full review process that reconsiders existing approaches and involves local partners while listening to their experiences.

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February 10: Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security leads Iranian opposition gathering 

An Iranian diaspora opposition coalition known as the Alliance for Freedom and Democracy in Iran (AFDI) officially came together at an event hosted by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security months after anti-establishment protests kicked off in September 2022.

Although the conference’s scope was limited and pushed important issues like the type and makeup of a future government down the road, it was a successful first gathering, resulting in the release of the Mahsa Charter a month later. Unfortunately, several months later, in May, the AFDI collapsed.

“The spirit of solidarity evident in the Women, Life, Freedom movement seems to be miles away from the acrimonious scene witnessed around the Iranian opposition abroad or on social media,” noted writer Arash Azizi.

IranSource

May 10, 2023

After a failed coalition effort, where is the Iranian opposition headed?

By Arash Azizi

Cracks within the Iranian opposition coalition were visible from the outset, with much of the division revolving around former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi’s persona.

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February 13: ‘Manifesto for Minimum Demands of Independent Trade Union and Civil Organizations of Iran’ published 

As part of the ongoing anti-regime protests, twenty trade unions, activist groups, and student organizations signed and released a manifesto for fundamental change in Iran that was quickly endorsed by other parts of civil society. The revolutionary document covered several different issues ranging from the prohibition of torture to gender equality to the privatization of religion.

The manifesto “offer[s] an articulate and elaborate meaning to the slogan ‘woman, life, freedom,’ aiming to end the formation of any power from above and to establish a society free of oppression, discrimination, tyranny, and dictatorship,” said Shadi Sadr, a human rights lawyer. Read the manifesto text here.

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Feb 23, 2023

Iran’s ‘women, life, freedom’ revolution has a manifesto. Here are the next steps.

By Shadi Sadr

Signed by twenty organizations and released on February 13, the manifesto gathered the support of many civil society organizations in Iran.

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February 14 – 16: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi goes to China 

President Ebrahim Raisi made a telling visit to Beijing, marking the first time an Iranian leader has made an official state visit to China in over twenty years. This visit was geopolitically significant, as it displayed the consolidation of the China-Russia-Iran axis, which could effectively counter US sanctions and diplomatic pressure.

During the three-day visit, President Raisi and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping signed twenty documents and agreements on topics ranging from trade to information technology to transportation. The projects and agreements could be worth billions of dollars. But as senior fellow Jonathan Fulton rightfully asked, “Does a visit from Iran’s president help with any of this? In material terms, probably not. China is a lifeline to Iran, while Tehran is of marginal importance to Beijing.”

IranSource

Feb 22, 2023

Iran’s economic future is uncertain. It’s no surprise why Raisi visited China.

By Jonathan Fulton

From February 14-16, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was in Beijing for his first foreign trip of the year and the first official visit to China for an Iranian leader in twenty years.

Iran Middle East

February 20: Iran acknowledges enriching uranium at 84 percent

Under the 2015 nuclear agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran was to eliminate its medium-enriched uranium, reduce its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 98 percent, and, for the next fifteen years, only enrich uranium to 3.67 percent. After the United States pulled out of the JCPOA in 2018 and reimposed unilateral sanctions, Iran incrementally stopped following the terms of the agreement.

In February, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) revealed it had found uranium particles enriched at 84 percent—not far away from 90 percent, weapons-grade uranium. As Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, spelled out, “Regardless of whether the 84 percent enriched particles were the accidental product of Iran reconfiguring its centrifuges or produced by design, this incident underscores the increased challenge in discerning Tehran’s nuclear intentions and the growing proliferation risk of Iran’s rapidly expanding nuclear program.”

IranSource

Mar 2, 2023

Iran’s nuclear program is advancing. So too should negotiations.

By Kelsey Davenport

Regardless of whether the 84 percent enriched particles were accidental, this incident underscores the increased challenge in discerning Tehran’s nuclear intentions and the growing proliferation risk of Iran’s rapidly expanding nuclear program.

Iran Middle East

March 1: Abrahamic Family House opens in Abu Dhabi, UAE 

On September 15, 2020, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) signed the Abraham Accords, becoming one of six Arab countries to normalize relations with Israel formally. Since then, the UAE and Israel have significantly benefited from their newfound cooperation in sectors from trade and tourism to security and diplomacy.

The opening of the Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi—a place of worship for all the Abrahamic faiths, containing a synagogue, a mosque, and a church—symbolized the prosperity to be gained through peace and cooperation. The House represents the hopeful future of co-existence and respect between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. As senior fellow Marcy Grossman wrote, “It is also a beacon of light at a time when western antisemitism is at an all-time high. Perhaps, most significantly, it is a beacon of peace in the Middle East.”

MENASource

Feb 27, 2023

What the opening of the Abrahamic Family House Synagogue in the UAE means for the Jewish community and the rest of the world

By Marcy Grossman

The Abrahamic Family House, a mosque, church, and synagogue all sharing a multi-faith campus in Abu Dhabi is about to make its worldwide debut, opening its doors to the general public on March 1.

Israel Middle East

March 10: China brokers deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran 

Seven years after severing diplomatic ties following the storming of Saudi missions in Iran in response to the execution of Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr, Saudi Arabia and Iran restored relations in a deal brokered by China. This event was geopolitically significant on both a regional and global level.

Regionally, Saudi Arabia and Iran have been leaders of opposing sects of the Arab world, taking different sides in practically every war and conflict since 1979. Despite housing the holy cities and sites of Islam, in recent years, Saudi Arabia has increasingly secularized in contrast to Iran. Saudi Arabia has also been opposed to the expansion of Iranian regional influence, even exploring normalization with Israel. It has yet to be seen whether restoring diplomatic ties is more than an empty nicety.

Globally, China’s role as a mediator demonstrated its aspirations to challenge America’s role in the Middle East and to present itself as a serious player. However, as fellow Ahmed Aboudouh pointed out, the deal “is beset by Saudi-Iranian mutual distrust that runs deep in their strategic thinking and a wide range of regional conflicts—Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria—that serve as a battleground for their competition.”

MENASource

Mar 21, 2023

China’s mediation between Saudi and Iran is no cause for panic in Washington

By Ahmed Aboudouh

The deal is a mere statement of intentions by both countries to improve relations, meaning reconciliation is not complete.

China East Asia

March 13: Megiddo bombing in northern Israel

On the morning of March 13, a roadside bomb went off in Megiddo, seriously injuring an Israeli Arab. The location of the bombing, the Megiddo Junction, was just thirty-seven miles from the Lebanese border. Based on shrapnel and remains of the bomb, Israeli officials did not believe the attack to be from a Palestinian group. According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the suspected terrorist crossed into Israel from Lebanon and was found hitchhiking following the attack.

“If Hezbollah was behind the Megiddo bombing,” argued senior fellow Nicholas Blanford, “it likely came within the context of supporting the growing popular unrest in the West Bank.” 

For Israelis, the incident reinforced the necessity of the wall currently being built on the border with Lebanon to replace an ineffective fence.  

MENASource

Mar 22, 2023

Was Hezbollah behind the Megiddo bombing in Israel? If yes, it’s a new escalation.

By Nicholas Blanford

The suspect was shot dead when Israeli security forces intercepted him in a vehicle traveling close to the border with Lebanon.

Lebanon Middle East

March 18: Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu visits Cairo 

Following the 2013 coup d’etat in Egypt that ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi banned the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamist group that Turkey supported. The incident brought a rift in ties. Now that Ankara has abandoned its critical approach to Sisi, the two countries have tried to mend their relationship.

At the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, President Sisi and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan were photographed shaking hands. In March, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu visited Egypt and met with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry. This encounter led to the first official meeting of the two presidents in over a decade on the sidelines of the September G20 summit in New Delhi.

MENASource

Apr 12, 2023

Egypt-Turkey normalization: Ankara’s perspective 

By Ali Bakir

While Turkey would prefer to speed up the normalization process, Cairo might prefer to wait until the next elections before expediting it.

Europe & Eurasia Libya

MENASource

Apr 11, 2023

Egypt-Turkey normalization: Cairo’s perspective 

By Shahira Amin

After a decade of ruptured ties and simmering tensions, Egypt and Turkey are inching towards a rapprochement—a move thought unimaginable by some observers a couple of years prior.

Africa Europe & Eurasia

March 30: International Court of Justice issues judgment on Certain Iranian Assets case 

In the case of Certain Iranian Assets, Iran challenged its responsibility to issue payments to families of victims of Iranian state-sponsored terrorism based on the now-terminated 1955 Treaty of Amity. The United States had frozen $1.8 billion from the Central Bank of Iran (Bank Markazi) in 2012. Iran brought the case to the International Court of Justice in 2016, which issued a mixed ruling on March 30. Families of terror victims will receive compensation, but the funds and assets from which the compensation money may be obtained have been found to be narrower in scope than the United States had aimed.  

IranSource

Apr 24, 2023

What the ICJ ruling on the Central Bank of Iran means for the US and the Islamic Republic—and those seeking reparations for state-sponsored atrocities

By Celeste Kmiotek

On March 30, the International Court of Justice issued its final judgment on a case between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States on the fate of “Certain Iranian Assets.” The judgment contains wins and losses for both sides.

Iran Middle East

April 4: Iran cracks down on hijab law 

In the face of mass anti-regime protests across Iran following the death of Mahsa Jina Amini in September 2022, mandatory hijab laws were laxed. However, after announcements in March and April, Tehran reversed this trend with even harsher enforcement than before the protests began.

Punishments for evading the law and servicing women without mandatory hijab now include up to $60,000 in fines, deprivation of social and public services, revocation of documents, ban of internet access, and the confiscation of property and forced closing of businesses. The clerical establishment is enforcing the hijab law by installing cameras and facial recognition technology. However, as former Young Global Professional Mahnaz Vahdati argued, “Despite all these brutal actions by the clerical establishment, many Iranian women are taking a prominent role at the forefront of the non-violent opposition to the gender apartheid system in Iran by defying the mandatory hijab.” 

IranSource

Apr 20, 2023

The Islamic Republic is mobilizing all its forces against unveiled Iranian women, but they’re pushing back

By Mahnaz Vahdati

Despite all these brutal actions by the clerical establishment, many Iranian women are taking a prominent role at the forefront of the non-violent opposition to the gender apartheid system in Iran by defying the mandatory hijab.

Politics & Diplomacy

April 6: Rockets launched at Israel from Lebanon 

On April 5, Israeli police forces and Palestinians clashed at the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Palestinian and Arab media and governments claimed Israel was “storming” the mosque and had assaulted worshippers. At the same time, Israeli police justified their force with reports of masked young people barricading themselves inside the al-Aqsa Mosque with fireworks, clubs, and rocks after evening prayers. Following reports of the clashes, rockets and projectiles were allegedly launched by Hamas from the Gaza Strip into Israel. Hamas reported that the IDF then struck targets in Gaza. The next day, on April 6, thirty-four rockets were shot at Israel from Lebanon, presumably launched by Hezbollah.

The escalation of violence in early April overlapped with Hamas Political Chief Ismael Haniyeh’s visit to Lebanon to discuss the Resistance Axis, which is made up of Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). As program assistant Nour Dabboussi explained, it was a reminder of “how Hezbollah continues to act as a separate military and political entity in the country—considering itself entitled to maneuver partnerships that fall outside of the official realm of the Lebanese government—with external militia groups holding goals and ideologies that further Iran’s regional endeavors.” 

IranSource

Apr 12, 2023

The attacks on Israel should be a wake up call for the Lebanese people

By Nour Dabboussi

The rocket fire from Lebanon on April 6 highlights how Hezbollah continues to act as a separate military and political entity in the country, with external militia groups holding goals and ideologies that further Iran’s regional endeavors.

Iran Lebanon

April 15: Fighting breaks out in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum 

On April 15, another round of fighting broke out in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, between the two factions that made up Sudan’s government. In 2021, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) overthrew Sudan’s transitional government, which was created after the 2019 military coup. For the past two years, the SAF and RSF ruled Sudan together, but now the leader of each group wants to rule Sudan independently.

“As with previous civil wars in Sudan, the collapse of security and the displacement of the population will have broad transregional impacts beyond immediate neighboring states,” underscored senior fellow R. Clarke Cooper. 

The conflict has displaced over six million people and has created over 1.2 million refugees.  

MENASource

May 11, 2023

Experts react: Sudan at the crossroads—where the conflict goes from here

By Benjamin Mossberg, Alia Brahimi, Thomas S. Warrick, Shahira Amin, R. Clarke Cooper

Atlantic Council experts react to the conflict in Sudan and discuss how it will impact the region and beyond.

Africa East Africa

May 7: Arab League normalizes with the Bashar al-Assad regime 

In 2011, the Arab League voted to suspend Syria from its membership based on the Bashar al-Assad regime’s violent suppression of peaceful protests. The decision to readmit Syria in May also called for a resolution of the Syrian Civil War and its spillover effects, which have impacted its neighbors and the region through the refugee crisis and drug trade. The readmission of Syria to the Arab League was controversial. Some Arab countries already have relations with Syria while others still will not be persuaded to normalize.

“Not much will change in Syria or across the region for now, but keeping Assad isolated would not be as easy as before, especially as he eyes recognition from the West followed by the removal of sanctions and funding for reconstruction,” emphasized Qutaiba Idlibi, head of the Atlantic Council’s Syria Project.

MENASource

May 19, 2023

Experts react: Assad gets warm reception at Arab summit. Where does that leave the US and its allies?

By Qutaiba Idlbi, Gissou Nia, Michel Duclos, Emadeddin Badi

Atlantic Council experts react to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s attendance at the Arab League summit in Jeddah and explain its significance below. 

Human Rights Middle East

May 9 – May 13: Israel conducts Operation Shield and Arrow against Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza 

On May 2, a prominent member of the terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Khader Adnan, died after an eighty-seven-day hunger strike while in Israeli prison. Following Adnan’s death, PIJ launched 102 rockets from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel, injuring seven people. The IDF responded to the rocket attack on May 9 with Operation Shield and Arrow. During the three-day operation, seven PIJ commanders were killed in targeted assassinations, approximately 938 rockets were fired into Israel by PIJ, and a total of thirty-four Palestinians (including the targeted commanders and members of PIJ) and one Israeli were killed. A ceasefire was signed on May 13, negotiated by the Egyptian government.

Operation Shield and Arrow was just one of the many escalations around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict this year. “It seems that the next Israeli operation in Gaza is inevitable,” predicted senior fellow Ksenia Svetlova. “Everyone in Israel, Gaza, and Egypt knows how it will look and how many days it might take. The only unknown factor is the operation’s future name.”

MENASource

Jun 2, 2023

In an endless series of Israeli operations, Operation Shield and Arrow in Gaza was yet another name on the list

By Ksenia Svetlova

The current Israeli government is just as unable as previous ones to produce a solution to stop PIJ and Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank.

Conflict Israel

May 27: Clashes between Iran and Afghanistan over Helmand River 

The Helmand River, a major water source for Iran and Afghanistan, has been a point of contention between the two countries for centuries. The river, which flows through Afghanistan and ends in eastern Iran, is essential for farmers in both countries. Since a 1973 treaty, Iran will receive 820 million cubic meters of the river each year.

On May 18, tensions over the river and water access flared up again when Iranian President Raisi warned the Taliban to respect Iran’s water rights. Then, on May 27, fighting broke out when alleged armed drug smugglers attempted to cross the border into Iran. Iranian security forces fired at the drug smugglers, but Afghan forces, unaware of the drug smugglers, believed that Iranian forces were shooting at them unprovoked. Afghan forces then attempted to attack Iranian border villages. Each side reported that the other began shooting first. But as the Middle East Institute’s Fatemeh Aman emphasized, “Several factors have contributed to the current situation, including the impact of climate change.”

IranSource

Jul 7, 2023

Iran and Afghanistan are feuding over the Helmand River. The water wars have no end in sight.

By Holly Dagres

Fatemeh Aman, a non-resident senior fellow at MEI, on why the Islamic Republic and Taliban are bumping heads on transboundary water issues.

Afghanistan Climate Change & Climate Action

June 23-June 24: The Wagner Group rebellion 

On June 23, the Wagner Group, a Russian-funded private paramilitary organization, staged a rebellion against the Russian military and defense ministry. Wagner forces attacked and took control of Rostov-on-Don and the headquarters of the Southern Military District before continuing their offensive towards the Russian capital, Moscow. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko brokered a deal between Wagner and Russia before the rebellion reached the capital. Wagner’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, claimed the uprising was in response to the defense ministry’s attacks on his forces and demanded Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov be turned over to the group. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the rebellion treasonous. Two months later, Prigozhin died in a plane crash. 

“It must be noted that the recent Wagner crisis affects not just those Middle Eastern countries with a Wagner presence, but all Middle Eastern countries cooperating with Russia—which is basically all Middle Eastern governments,” said senior fellow Mark Katz.

MENASource

Jun 28, 2023

The Wagner rebellion is over—for now. But how will the events reverberate in the Middle East and North Africa?

By Mark N. Katz

The June 23-24 rebellion led by Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin—aimed, he claimed, at replacing the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov (not Russian President Vladimir Putin)—has ended. However, reverberations from it are likely to continue being felt beyond Russia, such as in the Middle East and North […]

Conflict Europe & Eurasia

June 29: Biden administration announces inter-agency counter-captagon strategy

Though the issue of the illicit captagon trade has not been covered much, its impact threatens the stability of the Middle East and has the potential to propagate the drug crisis worldwide. On June 29, the Joe Biden administration announced an inter-agency plan to counter the captagon trade. The plan includes the provision of diplomatic and intelligence resources to law enforcement agencies; applying financial pressure and economic sanctions on the Assad regime and other groups involved in the illicit captagon trade; the provision of counternarcotics training to affected countries; and diplomatic engagement and strategies to hold Syria accountable. 

MENASource

Aug 24, 2023

No quick fixes for the Middle East’s captagon crisis

By Karam Shaar

Counter-captagon policies should look further ahead and deeper into the causes of the demand in the first place.

Middle East Politics & Diplomacy

July 4: Iran admitted as a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization 

Since 2009, Iran has held observer status at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a group started in 1996 largely to manage territorial disputes that arose from the collapse of the Soviet Union. The SCO originally had just five members: China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan, adding Uzbekistan in 2001 and India and Pakistan in 2017. Iran was admitted as a full member in July. Although the group is largely ineffective, having been stalled by the rivalry between China and India, Tehran’s membership signals the failure of the United States to effectively isolate the country and the growth of an illiberal alliance. 

IranSource

Jul 13, 2023

Iran joining the SCO isn’t surprising. But Beijing’s promotion of illiberal norms in Eurasia should get more attention.

By Jonathan Fulton

Deeper coordination between Iran and other member states gives momentum to the China-centered illiberal order being promoted by Beijing.

China East Asia

July 10: Russia sides with the United Arab Emirates over Iran on territorial claims 

Iran and the UAE have had a decades-long territorial dispute over the islands of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs in the Strait of Hormuz. Both countries claim historical ties to the islands, dating back centuries. For a large part of the twentieth century, the British controlled the islands. When they left in 1971, Iran immediately seized control of the islands and has effectively, if not legally, administered them ever since. The UAE’s efforts to diplomatically regain control of the islands have not ceased for the past fifty years. Most recently, Russia has surprised the world by voicing support for Abu Dhabi’s territorial claims despite the former’s strong relationship with Tehran.

As senior fellow Mark Katz explained, “The Russia-GCC joint statement does nothing to alter the fact that Iran remains in control of the three islands and is likely to remain so.”

MENASource

Jul 18, 2023

Is Russia really siding with the UAE against Iran?

By Mark N. Katz

For Russia to endorse the GCC’s position on three islands is especially surprising, considering how much Iran has done to support Moscow.

Iran Middle East

July 18: Israeli President Isaac Herzog visits the United States

Despite a decades-long friendship, the Joe Biden-Benjamin Netanyahu relationship has been strained by the current right-wing government in Israel—the most extreme in the country’s history. In July, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, whose role is largely ceremonial, was welcomed to the Oval Office. During the meeting, President Biden reaffirmed the “unbreakable” friendship between the United States and Israel and strengthened his commitment to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Biden also stated that a meeting between himself and Netanyahu in Washington was in the works for the coming months.

While in the United States, Herzog addressed Congress and met with American Jewish leaders. However, as senior fellow Shalom Lipner highlighted, “Israel and the United States have some tough decisions to make if they harbor any hopes of refreshing the trifecta—shared values, shared interests, and broad-based support—which has kept them famously on the same page.”

MENASource

Jul 17, 2023

At risk of separating, can Israel and the US renew their vows?

By Shalom Lipner

President Joe Biden is rolling out the red carpet for his Israeli counterpart, Isaac Herzog, who arrives in the United States on July 18.

Israel Middle East

August 10: United States reaches hostage deal with Iran 

After months of negotiations, the United States and Iran reached a deal to exchange prisoners. In September, five Iranian-Americans held hostage in Iran on unsubstantiated charges were released in exchange for five Iranians imprisoned in the United States on charges of sanction violations. “Many have criticized the deal as constituting a ransom payment, incentivizing Tehran’s hostage-taking model,” said staff lawyer Celeste Kmiotek. The United States also released $6 billion of frozen Iranian funds held in South Korean banks, which was transferred to Qatari banks for humanitarian purposes but may be re-frozen by Congress. After the American hostages returned home, the Biden administration introduced new sanctions against Iran. 

The Islamic Republic is holding at least three other hostages who may be considered nationals under the Levinson Act: Green Card holder Shahab Dalili; US permanent resident Afshin Sheikholeslami Vatani; and US resident Jamshid Sharmahd.

IranSource

Aug 17, 2023

The Levinson Act means all Americans must return home—not just citizens

By Celeste Kmiotek

Shahab Dalili, Afshin Sheikholeslami Vatani, and Jamshid Sharmahd are all considered US nationals under the Levinson Act.

Human Rights Iran

August 20: Protests and strikes in Sweida, Syria begin

In August, the pan-Syrian August 10 movement was founded by Syrian opposition leaders to end poor economic conditions, violence, and sectarianism in Syria. Simultaneously, the Free Alawite Officers published a declaration expressing demands of the Assad regime, including an end to Iranian influence in the country and the creation of accountability methods. Both groups appealed to the Alawite community of Syria. Just days later, small-scale protests began.

On August 17, a general strike was called in Sweida—a predominantly Druze area—and hundreds of protesters gathered near police headquarters and the governor’s office, chanting anti-Assad regime slogans. Protesters participated in mass demonstrations, causing road closures, boycotts, and destruction of Baath party property. As the protests continued throughout August and into September, the movement became more explicitly anti-government, calling out the crimes of the Assad regime and demanding his overthrow, and even spread to areas that traditionally supported the dictator. The government responded to the protests violently, killing many demonstrators.

Despite this, it seems the regime has been unable to stop the protests thus far. “It may be unexpected to witness this scene after all the suppression and war crimes committed by the Assad regime in Syria,” emphasized writer Rima Flihan. “However, it signifies that the desire for change in Syria still exists within the Syrian people.”

MENASource

Sep 5, 2023

The uprising in Sweida will continue until the regime changes in Syria

By Rima Flihan

These demonstrations call for a change in the Syrian regime and the full implementation of UNSC Resolution 2254.

Middle East Politics & Diplomacy

August 22-August 24: Middle Eastern countries admitted to BRICS 

During the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) summit in South Africa in August, the group—which is a geopolitical rival to the G7—announced the admittance of six new countries to the bloc, including four Middle Eastern countries: Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. This move was made to give a greater voice to the Global South and to grow BRICS’s share of the global economy.

However, the divide that the G7 and BRICS represent between the Global North and Global South is unclear. BRICS contains important American strategic allies like India and Saudi Arabia, and there are significant geopolitical tensions between BRICS members India and China. Senior fellow Mark Katz pointed out that “For Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE in particular, joining BRICS is a statement that while they cooperate with the United States and the West, they also cooperate with Russia and China and that the West will just have to accept this.”

MENASource

Aug 25, 2023

The BRICS come to the Middle East and North Africa

By Mark N. Katz

For Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE in particular, joining BRICS is a statement that while they cooperate with the United States and the West, they also cooperate with Russia and China

International Financial Institutions International Markets

September 9: White House Announces India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor

In September, the Memorandum of Understanding for the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) was signed at the G20 summit in New Delhi. The project, seen as an American alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, aims to promote economic development, integration, and connectivity throughout Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. The rail and shipping networks are to include many strategic American allies and will travel through India, Europe, Greece, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.

“The project serves primarily as a US diplomatic tool to counter China’s influence in the Middle East. In fact, IMEC should be considered in the same light as Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI): an ambitious foreign policy project that captures the world’s attention, even though it is unlikely to deliver on its lofty promises,” claimed senior fellow Jean-Loup Saman.

The IMEC is just the latest initiative in the growing global competition between the United States and China.

MENASource

Oct 6, 2023

The India-Middle East Corridor: a Biden Road Initiative?

By Jean-Loup Samaan

Economists and regional experts expressed their reservations on the feasibility—both politically and financially—of a corridor that would redraw the map of infrastructure across Eurasia.

Economy & Business Financial Regulation

September 10: Tragic floods strike Libyan city of Derna 

Tropical Storm Daniel hit Libya on September 10, becoming the deadliest storm recorded in the Mediterranean. The storm caused the failure of two dams in the city of Derna, releasing 30 million cubic meters of water, which flooded the city and resulted in an estimated 5,300-20,000 deaths. While Libyans were grieving and rescue efforts were still underway, it was revealed that the dams burst because of decades of neglect.

After Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown in 2011, the city changed hands four times and was a battleground in the Libyan civil war. As North Africa director Karim Mezran explained, “the tragedy of the dam collapse results from neglected dam maintenance, city infrastructure, and civil services, such as inadequately trained and equipped firefighters and medical personnel, the absence of a warning system, and numerous other issues.”

MENASource

Sep 22, 2023

The Derna catastrophe is a sign that the international community needs to take action in Libya

By Karim Mezran

This narrow window of opportunity is unlikely to remain open for long.

Libya Middle East

September 16: First anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death 

On September 16, 2022, twenty-two-year-old Kurdish-Iranian Mahsa Jina Amini died while in custody of the so-called morality police. Amini was arrested for “violating” mandatory hijab law. In the year since her murder, mass anti-regime protests erupted across Iran. #Mahsa_Amini reportedly broke the X (formerly known as Twitter) hashtag record, as the cause was taken up globally. Amini’s death also united the Iranian diaspora, which mirrored and amplified the voices of the people of Iran.

“I strongly believe that the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising is the beginning of the end for the Islamic Republic… By no means are we going to stand back and surrender. We will be victorious,” said one Gen Z Iranian protester on the anniversary of the protest movement.

IranSource

Sep 13, 2023

Letters from women protesters inside Iran: One year after #MahsaAmini’s death 

By Khosro Sayeh Isfahani

“The people of Iran want to overthrow this regime. If you believe in freedom, equality, and human rights, remember that this regime stands against these values.”

Human Rights Iran

September 22: Senator Bob Menendez indicted in corruption case with the Egyptian government 

United States Senator and Chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Bob Menendez (D-NJ) was indicted on federal corruption charges. The charges allege that Menendez, his wife, and three New Jersey businessmen participated in a years-long bribery scheme where Menendez and his wife received hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for Menendez’s agreement to use his official position to benefit the businessmen and the Egyptian government. At least one of the businessmen had close connections with Egyptian government officials.

Menendez was introduced to Egyptian intelligence and military officials through the businessmen and provided them with sensitive, non-public US government information, including information on employees in the US Embassy in Cairo. Menendez also used his position to influence foreign military financing and sales of military equipment for the benefit of Egypt. Senior fellow Shahira Amin noted, “Despite the low-key coverage of the shocking corruption scheme by the mainstream Egyptian media, the bribery case stirred controversy on Egyptian social media platforms.”

MENASource

Oct 4, 2023

Menendez’s case coverage is relatively muted in Egypt. That might be intentional.

By Shahira Amin

Egypt’s predominantly pro-government media has chosen to either dismiss altogether or downplay the allegations against Senator Bob Menendez.

Corruption Democratic Transitions

October 7: Outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war 

On October 7, the fiftieth anniversary of the Yom Kippur war, Hamas carried out a brutal terror attack in southern Israel, killing between 1,200-1,400 people, injuring hundreds more, and kidnapping approximately 240 people (primarily civilians) before holding them hostage in the Gaza Strip. The attack, which saw the largest number of Jews killed in a single day since the Holocaust, included reports of torture, mutilation, decapitation, sexual violence, and immolation. Simultaneous to the ground attack, Hamas launched a rocket barrage at Israel consisting of at least three thousand rockets. Israel declared war on Hamas the same day, launching its offensive to destroy “the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”

On October 27, Israel began its ground invasion, attempting to destroy Hamas’s infrastructure and tunnels and clear northern Gaza of its operatives. Since Israel began its bombardment of Gaza, a massive humanitarian crisis has erupted. Approximately 18,400 Gazans, primarily women and children, have been killed, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. 1.9 million Gazans have been internally displaced, and essential resources, such as food, water, and fuel, are scarce. After weeks of negotiations between Israel and Hamas, orchestrated by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States, the parties reached a ceasefire deal that lasted from November 24 to December 1. The deal saw the release of 105 hostages in exchange for over 230 Palestinian prisoners and up to two hundred trucks of aid delivered to Gaza daily.

The Israel-Hamas war also has the potential to expand into a regional war. Iran’s Resistance Axis has already been active. The border between Israel and Lebanon has seen an escalation of small-scale attacks, and the Houthis have launched missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles at Israel from Yemen. The war has also paused previous diplomatic efforts in the region, like the potential normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The effects of the war will be widespread. 

Israel-Hamas war

Experts from across the Atlantic Council are providing insight and analysis at speed and in depth on the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, Israel’s response, and how the emerging conflict is upending the Middle East and the world.

October 17: Iran-backed militia strikes in Iraq and Syria 

Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, US troops and military personnel in Iraq and Syria have endured drone and rocket attacks launched by various Iran-backed militias and terrorist organizations. 3,400 US troops are stationed in the two countries to assist local forces in preventing the resurgence of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). In the more than forty attacks in the last two months, forty-five US troops have been injured. The United States has responded to the attacks, carrying out a number of air strikes against military targets and strongholds of the militias and terror groups.

Iran’s proxies justify their attacks by asserting that the United States shares the blame for Israel’s declaration of war against Hamas. Since October 7, the United States has bolstered its military presence in the region, sending aircraft carriers and troops and increasing drone surveillance.

MENASource

Nov 22, 2023

Islamic Resistance in Iraq appears to be responsible for attacks in the country and there’s no end in sight 

By Lizzie Porter

Iraq is witnessing part of the regional fallout from the Israel-Hamas war, and Iraqi bases housing US troops are feeling that most forcefully.

Iran Iraq

November 14: Speaker of Iraq’s parliament ousted

In November, Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court revoked the parliamentary membership of its speaker, Mohammed al-Halbousi, along with member Laith al-Dulaimi. Although the court did not disclose its reasoning, the decision was released following an argument between Halbousi and Dulaimi over allegations that the speaker forged Dulaimi’s signature. In reaction to the ruling, members of the speaker’s party, Takadum, resigned from parliament. Critics of the decision say it has the potential to set a dangerous, anti-constitutional precedent, as decisions from the highest court cannot be appealed.

“The timing of this development is particularly crucial, given that Iraq, like the rest of the region, is entangled in the escalating Israel-Hamas war,” explained Abbas Kadhim, director of the Iraq Initiative. “Additionally, the country is in the midst of an election campaign to reinstate provincial councils.”

MENASource

Nov 17, 2023

Iraq’s parliamentary speaker was removed. What’s next for the country?

By Abbas Kadhim

The current crisis dates back to May 2022, when Mohamed al-Halbousi removed one of his bloc’s members from parliament.

Elections Iraq

November 30-December 12: COP28 in the United Arab Emirates

The United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP, convened 197 member countries in Dubai to discuss progress and plan measures to combat climate change. The decision to host this year’s conference in the UAE has caused some controversy, as the country is a major oil producer.

Just days before the conference began, news leaked alleging that the UAE planned on using its proximity to the summit as a forum to discuss oil and gas deals. Major topics of COP28 included responses to the Global Stocktake synthesis report, which revealed the failure to reduce the rise in global temperatures, the shift away from fossil fuels, and the impacts of climate change on cities.  

MENASource

Nov 30, 2023

COP28 is here. These are the Global South’s demands and expectations.

By Lama El Hatow

The COP28 negotiations will prove to be challenging given all the demands and expectations on the table in this COP.

Civil Society Energy & Environment

December 10-December 12: Egyptian presidential elections 

As Egyptians headed to the polls for presidential elections, it was all but certain that President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi would serve a third term, but the election came at a challenging time: Egypt’s economy is suffering with inflation at an all-time high; its neighbors are fighting a brutal war that poses risks to Egypt’s border and security; and the country continues to experience international and domestic pressure regarding its human rights record. Despite these conditions, there was no question about Sisi’s victory.

Though there were three other candidates formally in the race, the only serious competitor, Ahmed El-Tantawy, was forced to end his campaign, and his supporters were harassed, intimidated, and arrested. The election formalized six more years of Sisi’s reign. “Be that as it may, Sisi still needs to win over the hearts and minds of disgruntled Egyptians, which may prove to be his biggest challenge during his third term in office,” highlighted senior fellow Shahira Amin.

MENASource

Dec 7, 2023

President Sisi’s third term will be his biggest challenge—not the upcoming Egyptian election 

By Shahira Amin

While it is certain that Abdel Fattah el-Sisi will win a third term, it is uncertain what will happen after the vote and when the Gaza war is over.

Elections Middle East

Rachel Friedman is a Young Global Professional with the Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council. 

The post 2023: A year in the Middle East appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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H.E. Leila Benali is the minister of energy transition and sustainable development of Morocco and president of the UN Assembly for Environment. This essay is part of the Global Energy Agenda.

Describing the recent crush of global crises, a wise man said, “We faced a century’s worth of tragedies in less than two years.” Our health systems might have emerged more resilient following the COVID-19 pandemic, but our economies and financial systems are still struggling at a time when emerging markets, like Morocco, want to escape the middle-income trap of 3 percent GDP growth.

The Russia-Ukraine war added to the unprecedented disturbance in already dislocated commodities supply chains, threatening nations’ energy security and triggering global inflationary pressure. It is not the first time humanity faces such continuous accumulation of upheavals , but it is the first time it does so at such record levels of global debt—238 percent of global GDP in 2022. This does not leave much room to tackle the triple planetary crisis of our time: climate change, environmental degradation, and biodiversity loss.

We are more often reminded of the fragility of our environment, with extreme weather events or natural disasters. A quarter of the United Nations’ membership, mostly Small Island Developing States, is at risk of disappearing by the end of the century because of rising sea levels. Humanity will face climate-triggered questions over sovereignty and national identity for the first time. Is our post-World War II world order, including our Bretton Woods institutions, equipped to answer?

Humanity will face climate-triggered questions over sovereignty and national identity for the first time. Is our post-World War II world order, including our Bretton Woods institutions, equipped to answer?

Part of the answer is already known: decarbonization of emitting sectors and acceleration of the energy transition would soften the worst impacts of climate change. And maybe, in the twenty-first century, some countries should show the way despite low historic responsibility for causing planetary warming. Morocco has a longstanding commitment toward sustainability despite its negligible emissions. It was one of the first countries to target a reduction of its greenhouse gas emissions by 45.5 percent by 2030 in its Nationally Determined Contribution.

To achieve necessary emissions cuts, pragmatism and inclusiveness are key. When affordability, as well as economic and social development are nonnegotiable, there is no room for ideology in technology and fuel taxonomies. We must leave the traditional energy transition narrative, driven by divisions, in the twentieth century, and embrace twenty-first century narratives.

Morocco generates more than 40 percent of its electricity capacity from renewable energy, and is also a fossil fuel importer, still largely exposed to global commodities’ price volatility and supply issues. Its approach to energy and climate, built over three decades, thus takes into account the complexity of building a credible, sustainable development path, while understanding the long-term nature of energy investments, and the role of lower-carbon fuels like natural gas as key to a well-ordered energy transition.

Coal-based generation will be phased out. More importantly, we want to harness our exceptional renewable resources, and the momentum created by rising technologies like green hydrogen, e-fuels, and storage. We want to leverage our favorable legal framework and three decades of experience in structuring and developing renewable and private energy projects.

Our strategic objectives are threefold:

1. Accelerate (i.e., triple) the pace of investments in renewable energies and key sectors like transmission infrastructure and storage solutions, starting today.

2. Build resilient and agile energy systems and grids that are secure, affordable, and sustainable.

3. Put people at the center of our energy transition and net-zero pathways, permeating the new socioeconomic models we are building.

How will we achieve these objectives? The National Strategy for Sustainable Development (NSSD) is our reference framework to support policies and programs in implementing Morocco’s sustainable development priorities. It is aligned with the 2030 Agenda and its seventeen Sustainable Development Goals as well as the main orientations of the Kingdom’s New Development Model.

The NSSD aims, by 2050, to promote resilience, human development, and reduction of social and territorial inequalities; mitigate and adapt to the consequences of climate change; and protect the environment.

What is different about this strategy is the approach. Through constant consultation, we harness the collective intelligence of all stakeholders—including local authorities, the private sector, civil society, youth, Moroccans living abroad and minorities—to shape the future they want for the country, and to craft with the government the relevant tools to operationalize our social and economic sustainable development path. This inclusive and democratic approach is already having tangible impacts on our new generation of public policies.

Morocco’s development path needs to be holistic, just, and sustainable. Therefore, this is a space and time for society to define the positive and negative externalities of development and price them. These policy levers for sustainable development are defined at the local level, acknowledging the diverse needs and aspirations of our twelve regions.

Even if I am personally excited by the leaps in space technologies, there is still no Planet B, and human societies are still dependent on their environment on Planet Earth. Morocco’s sustainable development strategy is not only a response to the climate crisis, or another mere net-zero pathway, but a means to reintroduce humanity into our policies, placing people at the center of the system.

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The post A people-centric energy transformation appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Many Moroccans were shaken by the flow of footage depicting the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza in the aftermath of the October 7 terrorist attacks. Akin to many Arab and global capitals, tens of thousands of citizens have marched in solidarity with the Palestinian people in recent weeks. There are undeniably long-standing affinities between many Moroccans and Palestinians today due to religious, linguistic, and cultural similarities, notwithstanding their geographical distance and often divergent political trajectories.

These protests have led some foreign commentators to proclaim that normalization is in peril. What many such commentators get wrong, however, is that these demonstrations are not happening against the wishes of the country’s leadership and are not perceived as pressure points within Moroccan political spheres. On the contrary, this social movement in support of Palestinians is organized with the state’s blessing. The government provides logistical and security arrangements for demonstrators every weekend, and it seems to view the marches as an expression of indisputable civil rights. It also has clearly formulated a position on the conflict that is in tune with public demands, calling for de-escalation, access to humanitarian aid, and the protection of civilians in line with international law. 

Morocco, however, has no intention of revoking the normalization agreement it signed with Israel. Bilateral relations might traverse a period of malaise, and certain public-facing projects might even be frozen until the next Israeli government takes power, but it is highly unlikely that the kingdom will pull back from its commitments with the United States and Israel. This was apparent from Rabat’s veto, together with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, Mauritania, Djibouti, Jordan, and Egypt, on November 11 that blocked a proposal to cut ties with Israel at the Arab League summit in Riyadh.

Unlike countries that share immediate borders with Israel and have a long history of conflict with it, Morocco has a greater margin to maneuver over its foreign policy. The kingdom has pragmatically shown over the years a quasi-secular approach, decoupling what it considers a religious and brotherly duty to support Palestinians and what it believes can best serve its territorial integrity and economic development agenda. Hence, Rabat often reiterated the importance of involving Palestinians in the Abraham Accords process while it gradually expanded the prospects of its cooperation with Israel. Morocco was even cautious about phrasing its agreement with Israel as a “re-establishment of diplomatic ties” rather than as normalization. The relations between the two countries never graduated from the limited status of reopening their respective liaison offices to having full diplomatic representation, despite Israel recognizing Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara in July—the main pillar of the deal brokered back in 2020 by the Trump administration. 

At the same time, several anti-normalization voices are mounting in Morocco, notably influential Islamist and leftist party leaders and elites, such as Abdelilah Benkirane, the former prime minister from the PJD, and Nabila Mounib, the general secretary of the Unified Socialist Party. Many more private citizens are feeling increasingly frustrated at the humanitarian toll of the Israeli military operations in Gaza and have decided to join the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement or protest groups online and in the streets. Nevertheless, it would be misleading to use a snapshot of one part of society to make a blanket statement about what all nearly forty million Moroccans want or believe. 

Over the past few weeks, some commentators and journalists seem to be feeding sensationalism and presenting a misleading image of a country on the brink of serious civil unrest over the Israel-Hamas war. Interestingly enough, while the war on Gaza still dominates headlines, many Moroccans seem more preoccupied with rain scarcity, teacher strikes, reform of the family code, or even the new Pedro Sanchez government in Spain. The country is also linguistically, ethnically, and ideologically diverse. Many Moroccans, for example, chose to stand with Israel in the ongoing conflict using hashtags like “Morocco First” or “Taza before Gaza”—Taza being a small town in Morocco’s northeast. If one were to zoom out from the elites with internet access and social media accounts, one may very well find that a silent majority has no strong opinion on the matter.

Rather than spinning stories about civil unrest in Morocco and reenacting the failed 2011 Arab Spring forecasts about an imminent revolution awaiting the kingdom, it is perhaps better to focus instead on a recent and worrying escalation in Western Sahara. On October 29, the local authorities reported four blasts in civilian areas in the city of Smara, resulting in one dead and three injured. The attacks against civilians, which the separatist Polisario Front later claimed, could represent a kind of spillover of the Israel-Gaza conflict into North Africa, especially with the Front’s insurgents taking advantage of the current international momentum and mimicking Hamas-style speeches and narratives. The Moroccan authorities have since been in constant confrontation with the insurgents, who, for the first time in years, executed an operation in the Moroccan-controlled territories rather than along the Berm sand wall. The German newspaper Die Welt also reported earlier this month on an even more disturbing piece of intelligence, revealing that Iran might be planning an attack on the Israeli liaison office in Rabat using Polisario as a proxy.

These recent developments suggest that the kingdom may tone down its public collaboration with Israel and the United States and continue to criticize the humanitarian situation in Gaza publicly. Yet, it remains improbable to envisage a split with Israel at the security and intelligence levels, as this collaboration is now a matter of national security for a monarchy that’s succeeded in surviving for twelve centuries.

Sarah Zaaimi is the deputy director for communications at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East programs where she oversees the Center’s strategic communications, media relations, and social and digital marketing efforts. She previously worked as a journalist and international development professional in Morocco, Egypt, Iraq, and elsewhere in the region.

The post Why Morocco will not cut ties with Israel appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Scholars have repeatedly emphasized the importance of a stable and forward-looking Southern shore—the countries of North Africa—for the peaceful evolution of Southern Europe’s polities. Unfortunately, that possibility is farther away than ever and the current situation can quickly get worse.

To begin with, the Morocco-Algeria rivalry, which has always been focused on the issue of the contested territory of the Western Sahara, has caused the two countries to engage in a decades-long arms race. This security issue, which is about both countries’ power and legitimacy more than anything, could very well lead to a military clash. This dispute over Western Sahara is an excuse to have an enemy at the border and justifies the power of the ruling classes in Algeria and Morocco.

Nevertheless, in recent years, efforts have been made to bring rapprochement between Morocco and Algeria, such as reopening the borders and establishing a direct diplomatic relationship. Much hope was raised by various Arab populations in the region during the 2011 Arab Spring period. In the same vein, Moroccans and Algerians shared a keen interest in fostering ties. With the onset of the democratization process in their respective countries, citizens aspired to exert pressure on their governments for rapprochement.

However, this wishful thinking was short-lived, and more reasons for confrontation have recently emerged. For starters, in 2020, the normalization of certain Arab states with Israel (including Morocco) went beyond creating strong tensions within Algeria, producing a radical reaction that prompted it to join states like Libya, Iraq, Iran, and Syria in opposing the accords at the time.

The consequences of the Algerian response are significant in the context of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, particularly for Italy and other European nations that have come to rely on Algerian gas as a substitute for Russian gas. Irregular migration from Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria has plagued Italy for years and is likely to increase as tensions between these countries remain unresolved.

Separately, in Tunisia, the newly elected President Kais Saied has centralized all constitutional powers to himself, turning the country towards authoritarianism. However, what could be more dangerous is that Tunisia is falling into the arms of its powerful neighbor: Algeria. The more Tunisia plunged into its economic and political crisis, the more President Saied needed support for its political and economic development that was not conditional from Western countries.

This issue is raising concerns for Egypt, too, which has been striving to extend its military and political rule to its neighbor and civil war-ravaged Libya. Disorder and negative consequences at Egypt’s western borders have been partially avoided by supporting one of their proxies and the ruler of Libya’s eastern provinces: General Khalifa Haftar. The strongman, supported by Russian mercenaries, the Wagner Group, achieved a moderate level of order through a bloody war against all opposing clans and tribes—which he has lumped together as Islamist terrorists—as well as through establishing a reign of terror in the country.

However, this went undetected by most until the tragedy of the September 9 floods in Derna province, which killed about ten thousand people. Now, many are beginning to question Haftar’s and, more precisely, his six sons’ involvement in the military and economic realms of the province. Since then, clashes have occurred, and the possibility of a revolt by the tribes and urban population increases by the day.

Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi may try to intervene directly to alleviate the bordering region. Still, there is little doubt that this would cause a strong reaction from Algeria, which would see an attempt to expand Egyptian power as tilting the balance of power in North Africa. Moreover, the power that controls the western part of Libya, Turkey, will not sit idly by and will most probably intervene directly while having Algeria in its corner. The idea of a Turkish-Algerian entente was challenging to conceive until the summer when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan de facto joined the normalization refusal front headed by Algeria.

Given the current scenario, the situation of the Israel-Hamas war may force Egypt to face its contradictions, leading it to either a confrontation with Israel in defense of the Palestinians or against Hamas in support of its peace agreement with Israel. In either case, the consequences for Western countries would be unthinkable.

In light of these multifaceted challenges, Western countries should take into consideration the ongoing tensions in North Africa to make their decision-making process regarding the events in Gaza more precise and holistic. The only viable solution for a lasting peace—rather than a temporary fix—is to formulate a plan that facilitates the reconciliation of the Palestinians and Israelis and shapes their political and socio-economic progress in a manner that does not neglect the entirety of the Arab world. This is the only path forward.

Karim Mezran is director of the North Africa Program at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs.

The post On a knife’s edge: How the conflict in Gaza could tip the scales in North Africa appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Our team analyzed the relative strength and weakness of these countries using the “Misery Index”—the sum of the inflation and unemployment rates—weighting the data by GDP.

The results clearly show how this time is different, from an economic perspective. Today, the Misery Index for these countries is higher than at any point since 2000.

Egypt’s inflation soared to 38 percent in September and its currency reserves are rapidly drying up. Lebanon has had triple-digit inflation for the past three years and its entire economy is in crisis. Jordan is comparatively better off but unemployment has hit a new high of 22 percent in 2023.  

While past flashpoints posed challenges for Israel’s neighbors, they did not have to contend with the risk of recession or worse at the same time. And that means that economic statecraft by the United States and its partners could be particularly effective in navigating the current crisis.

Right now, policymakers are rightly focused on how to limit Iran’s involvement in the conflict—largely through “negative” economic statecraft like sanctions. But economic statecraft has a “positive” side, too, comprised of policies that reward countries for desired behavior. Those inducements have the potential to be particularly effective given the economic difficulties that Israel’s neighbors face.

For instance, there is currently a $5 billion stalled IMF program and Cairo is desperate to have access to at least part of the money. Jordan was supposed to receive a $100 million loan from Japan for an upgrade to its electricity grid. Before October 7, France had committed (but not yet fully sent) over 30 million euros in financial relief to Lebanon.

There are dozens of similar financial levers the West could pull in the days ahead to get more collaboration on the Rafah crossing for humanitarian relief, reconstitute the cancelled Arab Leaders Summit in Amman with President Biden, and send a deterrence signal to Hezbollah to avoid escalation in the north. If ever there was a moment to leverage the combined influence of the dollar, pound, euro, and yen this is it.

There are limits to this approach that the Biden administration should also bear in mind.

In 1956, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles informed Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser that the United States was withdrawing its financial support of $70 million (nearly $800 million in today’s dollars) for the construction of the Aswan Dam on the Nile. Dulles was upset that Egypt had formally recognized the new communist Chinese government in Beijing (and abandoned the nationalists in Taiwan). He thought Egypt’s economy was so weak they couldn’t build the dam without US support. He was wrong. The Soviets stepped in. An emboldened Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, which brought the UK, France, and Israel into a war.

Today, Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar are in a much stronger economic position—closer to Israel’s than its neighbors’—and they could step in to fill the void.

One of the lessons from 1956 is that if countries don’t get support from the West, they will get it from somewhere else. With China serving as the world’s largest bilateral lender, that’s even more likely today than it was then.

The bottom line is that all conflicts, especially those of the past several years, have a military and economic dimension. It’s time for the G7 to start using all the tools at its disposal.

Josh Lipsky is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center and a former adviser at the International Monetary Fund.

Phillip Meng, Niels Graham, and Sophia Busch contributed to this piece. This post is adapted from the GeoEconomics Center’s weekly Guide to the Global Economy newsletter. If you are interested in getting the newsletter, please email SBusch@atlanticcouncil.org.

At the intersection of economics, finance, and foreign policy, the GeoEconomics Center is a translation hub with the goal of helping shape a better global economic future.

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The core questions for achieving this objective are how to promote green hydrogen development and not just hydrogen production per se, and the feasibility of long-distance transportation from regions with favorable conditions for production to the markets that will consume it.

In that vein, connecting hydrogen-hungry Europe and the potential green hydrogen powerhouse of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is a critical part of this international decarbonization objective.

The state of Europe-MENA hydrogen interdependence

Since COP27 last year in Egypt, countries within the MENA region have adopted national strategies and pursued new projects in hydrogen development aimed at transitioning their economies to clean energy exports.

Yet, with a few exceptions, several memoranda of understanding (MoUs) signed since the conference have not turned into actual investment decisions so far, notably in the case of COP27 host Egypt.

Meanwhile, the European Union (EU) and most of its member states are slowly but surely building their hydrogen supply chains, with plans that in most cases involve interdependence with the MENA region.

The quest for hydrogen

Demand for hydrogen in Europe is growing. The EU as a whole aims to import 10 million tons (MT) of green hydrogen by 2030 per the objectives of REPowerEU, the bloc’s overall plan to cut dependence on Russian fuels.

Germany and some of its companies are particularly active in concluding agreements with the Gulf states to buy hydrogen. Germany foresees importing between 50 percent and 70 percent of its hydrogen demand from abroad, corresponding to 95-130 Terawatt-hours (TWh).

On the whole, investments within Europe appear to be lagging behind its goal of producing 10MT of green hydrogen by 2030. This is due to uncertainties in demand, regulatory frameworks, and the crowding out effect of the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States.

Still, a number of initiatives for Europe to import hydrogen from the MENA region are on the horizon.

The H2 Med project—a hydrogen pipeline that would link Spain, France, and Germany—might be further connected with Morocco and possibly Mauritania to bring solar-produced green hydrogen to Europe.

Similarly, Italy is mulling fresh investments in gas production in Algeria. Gas pipelines running through Italy might be partially repurposed in the future to transport hydrogen from Northern Africa. Algeria, Tunisia and Libya—currently connected through gas pipelines to Italy—are the potential partners for such a scheme. New dedicated hydrogen pipelines might also be built. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni set out this vision during her visits to Algeria and Libya earlier this year.

According to a recent industry discussion paper, a hydrogen pipeline connecting Qatar to Europe could transport 10TWh or approximately 2.5MT of hydrogen per year at a levelized cost of around €2.7 ($2.9) per kilogram by 2030, later decreasing to €2.3 ($2.46) per kg. Such hydrogen is likely to be carbon-neutral to conform to EU regulations, but may be “blue” rather than “green,” meaning it would be produced from fossil fuels with carbon capture.

Steel to shipping

Demand for green steel and green iron is also poised to grow, in part because of an EU carbon border adjustment mechanism which will require certification of low-carbon production.

The MENA region holds significant potential in this regard, and projects are already under consideration. Oman is planning to set up a plant that would produce 5MT green steel annually by 2026, the year when the EU carbon border tax would come into effect. Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia are also considering investments in green metals production. A company based in Bahrain is involved in a green steel project in Saudi Arabia.

Ambitions to decarbonize maritime transport is also spurring demand for green fuels from the MENA region. The International Maritime Organization has launched a strategy to reduce emissions from shipping between 20 percent and 30 percent by 2030 and between 70 percent to 80 percent by 2040. At the Paris Summit on a New Global Financing Pact last June, 23 countries and regional organizations supported the principle of a levy on greenhouse gas emissions from international maritime transportation.

The MENA region has an opportunity to benefit from these developments. Maersk, a major player in international shipping, is planning an investment in Egypt, worth $3 billion, for the production of green methanol and its derivatives, beginning at 300,000 tons a year in a first phase, set to increase later to 1 million tons per year. 

Egypt is positioning itself as a green bunkering hub to attract marine traffic. Last August, the first green methanol-powered container ship transited through the Suez Canal and refueled in East Port Said on its maiden voyage from South Korea to Denmark.

The future of the Europe-MENA hydrogen trade

Despite these opportunities, the road ahead for hydrogen development and new patterns of interdependence between the MENA region and Europe appears bumpy, with many elements of uncertainty, including costs, financing, scalability, and inadequate development of hydrogen value chains.

Nevertheless, a changing dynamic is in motion in the MENA region, with agreements and projects in the process of elaboration and implementation.

The pace of this shift must be sped up. A multi-stakeholder effort is needed, involving both public and private players. Investments will come if there is a steady growth in demand, which in turn, requires incentives to support investors from governments and institutions.

The EU has come up with its own legislation on building its hydrogen industry, although the IRA is widely believed to remain a better model in terms of the simplicity and predictability it offers.

Much remains to be done in terms of demand creation, setting emissions requirements for hard-to-abate industries, and investments in hydrogen-dedicated infrastructure and value chains, among others.

Investments also need clear regulatory frameworks. The certification of green hydrogen products must be made certain, in light of the EU carbon tax coming into force in a few years.

Politics remain a factor on the European side. The task of pursuing the design of this new EU-MENA interdependence will fall to the new European Commission, which will come to office following elections for the European Parliament in June 2024.

None of that must disrupt this emerging partnership. There is far too much at stake for Europe’s security and stability.

Giampaolo Cantini is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center

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EnergySource is the Global Energy Center’s (GEC) online publication providing commentary and analysis on developments in the energy and climate sector from a wide-array of thought leaders, politicians, and experts.

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Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Global Energy Center at COP28

The 28th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference takes place from November 30-December 12, 2023 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The Atlantic Council Global Energy Center will be on the ground to work alongside government, industry, civil society, and public stakeholders to discuss key issues and outcomes.

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This week, leaders are meeting at IMF-World Bank Week in Marrakesh, Morocco, to get the world’s economic engine back on track. But with so many global crises putting countries (especially emerging markets) in a bind, audiences worldwide will be watching to see whether the IMF and World Bank can help countries respond to debt distress, climate change, and the economic impact of conflict.

With so much happening behind closed doors, we’ve dispatched our experts to Marrakesh; on the ground and in conversation with finance ministers, central bank governors, and other top leaders, they are evaluating the IMF and World Bank’s response to today’s biggest financial challenges. Below are their takeaways and insights from behind the scenes as the week unfolds.

• As the meetings wrap, macroeconomic and gender equality agendas remain tightly linked

• The final verdict: The IMF and World Bank are struggling to see how geopolitics and economics intertwine

• As IMF-World Bank Week wraps, we wonder: Is that all there is to say?

• See day five analysis

Watch all our conversations with central bank governors and finance ministers

IMF-World Bank Week at the Atlantic Council

WASHINGTON, DC APRIL 21-25

The Atlantic Council hosts a series of special events with finance ministers and central bank governors from around the globe during the 2025 Spring Meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Watch key moments with ministers

As the meetings wrap, macroeconomic and gender equality agendas remain tightly linked

A month ago, on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, I discussed top risks and opportunities in the year and near years ahead with foresight experts from the Atlantic Council. On the risk side, I talked about debt and geopolitical fragmentation—and the resulting drop in investment (especially in the Global South) that undermines productivity and growth. On the opportunity side, I talked about women’s economic and labor force participation driven in part by policy reforms and investments taking root that enable women to work, start, or grow businesses; including through care.

These risks and opportunities appear to be bearing out—at least if the conversations and reports this week at the World Bank-IMF Annual Meetings are to be believed.

The World Economic Outlook (WEO) projects that global growth will slow to historically low levels—from 3.5 percent in 2022 to 3 percent this year and 2.9 percent next year—driven down by risks associated with weakened Chinese growth, persistent inflation and debt distress, and the geopolitical fragmentation of commodity markets. These factors are also contributing to a widening divergence in growth across countries; and though not routinely discussed in the WEO, we are also seeing widening inequality, worsening food insecurity, and increasing poverty as a result—including higher numbers of poor people in wealthy countries—as macroeconomic challenges bear disproportionate impacts for already marginalized or disadvantaged economic groups, youth, women, and rural communities.

At the same time, the dialogue this week put women’s economic participation front and center as a solution to challenges, including those that are macroeconomic in nature, such as debt: More women in the labor force increases the tax base. In a conversation on mobilizing domestic resources to boost growth, Canadian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland touted investing in early learning and childcare as her government’s “best bang for the buck” for increasing prime age women’s labor force participation to record highs of over 85 percent (and 8 percent higher than the US record high) and increasing productivity, tax revenues, and household consumption in return. It’s a theme echoed across campus this week, including in my conversation with Hana Brixi, global gender director at the World Bank. At the same time, discussions of increasing women’s economic activity through improved financial inclusion and digital access were widespread—including in my Brixi conversation and in a conversation on digital financial inclusion with Josh Lipsky, Jesse McWaters, and Raj Kumar. In these risks and opportunities, we see the impact of the choices that policymakers make—and, increasingly, the impact of the choices that private sector leaders make.

The final verdict: The IMF and World Bank are struggling to see how geopolitics and economics intertwine

The IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings in Marrakesh actually delivered concrete outcomes—and more than many expected going into the week. But the dark clouds of war loomed over the Meetings, and all the quota deals and debt agreements in the world couldn’t hide the fact the biggest risk to the global economy was staring the ministers right in the face—and they weren’t sure what to do or say about it. 

The IMFC couldn’t agree to a joint communique, likely because of debates over how to characterize the ongoing war in Ukraine. And the Group of Twenty finance ministers’ statement surprisingly avoided mentioning anything about the Israel-Hamas war directly. 

But the IMF’s steering committee did broker an agreement on quotas—the money all members pay to the IMF, and in return, they receive a share of voting power at the Fund. The United States got what it wanted: an “equi-proportional” increase, which means more money from everyone but no change in how the votes are allocated. China, India, and Brazil stay with their current percentages. When I interviewed Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman yesterday, she told me this was going to happen: “This solution that came from the US has been accepted.” But she also said next time around, things will have to be different. 

For the agreement on this solution, credit is due to the range of emerging countries that put the stability of the IMF ahead of the understandable desire to have the size of their economies more accurately reflected in voting share. And credit is also due to the United States for brokering an agreement that many thought wasn’t possible. 

That success would have been enough for everyone to hang their hats on. But the Zambia debt memorandum of understanding was the “will they, won’t they” question of the meetings. Early in the week, when I spoke to Zambian Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane, he confirmed it was happening. Then IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva announced it was a done deal. And then, it wasn’t. After a few days of carefully crafted press releases and hedging, the deal was officially done. The question is whether doing debt restructuring with China is going to be like developing a new pharmaceutical drug—it takes years to do the first one but then easily replicated—or if each process is going to be as torturous as Zambia’s was. 

Looking at the Marrakesh meetings by themselves, they were a success. The problem for the finance ministers and central bank governors is that the world around them is on fire. Brune Le Maire, France’s finance minister, probably said it best when he said geopolitics is the biggest risk to global growth. 

For peace and stability, the world needs geoeconomics, Spain’s Nadia Calviño said earlier today. But the best the IMF and World Bank could offer was that it was too early to tell when it comes to the economic fallout from the war in Israel. It’s an understandable but insufficient position from the world’s leading financial institutions. How many crises can the world handle at once? It seems we are at the tipping point. That was the sense of urgency that was missing in some of the language and events during the Meetings. 

So the final verdict? There was strong progress on the economics, but a missed moment on geopolitics. Geoeconomics is ultimately the lesson—hard-learned during World War II when the IMF and World Bank were created—that the two can actually never truly be separated.

As IMF-World Bank Week wraps, we wonder: Is that all there is to say?

Amid the (welcome) fundraising and quota-raising progress reports, today’s IMFC Chair Statement missed an opportunity to reassure a concerned public by providing a strong response to the extraordinary uncertainty around the global economic outlook.

The IMF’s flagship reports released this week were already in need of an update, given that their timing did not allow for a full analysis of the rise in long-term interest rates, appreciation of the US dollar, and increase in oil prices following the attack on Israel. With the Global Financial Stability Report warning particularly about the risks in the global banking system, it would have been important to emphasize a willingness to closely collaborate on economic policies to avoid further increases in volatility.

This is not to downplay the agreement to increase IMF quotas, an important step to strengthen the global safety net, but especially with a rudderless US Congress and a sharp slowing of the Chinese economy, a better understanding of how global policymakers intend to preserve global stability would have been welcome.

The lack of a policy message from the IMF-World Bank meetings further adds to the policy vacuum left after the Group of Twenty (G20) communique similarly avoided specific policy commitments. Both documents echoed the language agreed upon at the Delhi summit, leaving the impression that ministers and central bank governors were too distracted by the need to negotiate geopolitical language and secure agreement on fundraising and quota issues to focus on their most important task at hand.

Moreover, the failure to change the relative voting shares at the IMF has been criticized by the Group of Twenty-four (G24) (comprised of developing countries) as setting a bad precedent in perpetuating an unequal governance structure, which in their view continues to undermine the IMF’s legitimacy and effectiveness. This will remain a bone of contention between developing and developed member countries going forward, even if tempered by the permanent inclusion of the African Union in the G20 and the creation of a twenty-fifth seat at the IMF Executive Board, to be allocated to Sub-Saharan Africa.

• A G20 communique is turning heads in Morocco

• Equi-proportional IMF quota increase has been accepted—for now, says Indian finance minister

• Your guide to IMF Special Drawing Rights

• The EU’s plans to bolster its resilience against climate change, trade dependency, and an array of other crises

• Regional multilateral banks are having their moment in Marrakesh

• Decoding the Marrakesh G20 communique: Progress, but no inspiration

• How are IMF stakeholder countries working to mitigate climate change? The case of Morocco and renewable energy

• Inside Turkey’s plans to bounce back from economic shocks and policy challenges

• Staring into the gap between Africa as a global leader and a development challenge

• Georgieva’s emphasis on the positive is a reminder of the power of global collaboration

• See day four analysis

A G20 communique is turning heads in Morocco

This morning, the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings Plenary took place, with thousands of participants filling up the biggest hall on campus to watch remarks from Ukraine’s finance minister, the World Bank president, and the IMF managing director.

But don’t count me among those thousands: I was also hurriedly scrolling through the Group of Twenty (G20) communique that had just been released following yesterday’s meeting of G20 ministers and governors. While the group isn’t organizationally related to the IMF and World Bank, its member countries account for 85 percent of global gross domestic product and most of the votes at the Bretton Woods institutions. Thus, their decisions will translate into the IMF and World Bank’s new actions and policies.

So, where is the “new”? The communique released today basically repeats the one from the New Delhi Summit in September. It encourages the World Bank and all the multilateral development banks to implement the recommendations in the G20’s capital advocacy framework (over a year old now) to optimize their balance sheets and free up more lending power. However, the communique fails to mourn the tragic loss of life in Israel and Gaza—or even acknowledge the unfolding Israel-Hamas war at all.

In addition, the communique doesn’t say anything about the proposed equi-proportional IMF quota increase—indicating that the increase is less likely to come to fruition than we, on the ground, originally thought. However today, we spoke with Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman who told us that the equi-proportional quota increase has, in fact, been approved. However, we may not know for certain until the International Monetary and Financial Committee meeting tomorrow—or even until the end of the IMF’s sixteenth quota review (to determine whether it is necessary to increase the quota and revise the distribution formula), scheduled to wrap in December this year.

Equi-proportional IMF quota increase has been accepted—for now, says Indian finance minister

The equi-proportional IMF quota increase proposed by the United States “has been accepted,” Indian Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman said at Atlantic Council studios in Marrakesh. 

She said that it is a “temporary” solution, in that it is “a solution for now,” but during the next IMF four-year review cycle, “some discussions will happen” to map out how IMF stakeholder countries address the issue moving forward.

“The equi-proportional quota seems to be the less contentious way… for now” to address the IMF’s capital needs, Sitharaman argued, “because it doesn’t alter the… proportions and therefore it’s at least some more money without upsetting the balance.” However, the concerns of the countries “who are otherwise not adequately represented” still remain, she noted. 

Sitharaman spoke with GeoEconomics Center Senior Director Josh Lipsky on the ground at IMF-World Bank Week. The IMF World Economic Outlook forecast India’s 2023-2024 growth at 6.3 percent. Sitharaman chalked up that strong growth projection to the country’s agricultural industry, services sector, and manufacturing—among other aspects. But, she said, global challenges present risks to India’s growth. 

The finance minister reflected on India’s presidency of the G20, noting that New Delhi originally set out to highlight voices of the Global South throughout the year. The African Union’s joining the group “gives us immense satisfaction, Sitharaman said.  

Focusing on the Global South is important because, while they are a varied bunch of countries, “the problems which they face are fundamentally the same,” the finance minister said.  

Your guide to IMF Special Drawing Rights

The EU’s plans to bolster its resilience against climate change, trade dependency, and an array of other crises

European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis is keeping a closer eye on the EU’s relationship with China since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

“We need to engage with China in areas like climate change” (with China being the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide) and “on current geopolitical challenges” including the war in Ukraine. But “at the same time,” he cautioned at an Atlantic Council event at IMF-World Bank Week, the EU should be careful not to establish “strategic dependencies” on China as it had on Russia for its fossil fuel supplies. “We need diversified and resilient supply chains, and we cannot be dependent on a single supplier [for] a number of critical inputs.”  

The EU recently initiated an anti-subsidy investigation into imports of electric vehicles from China, which will determine whether electric vehicle supply chains in China benefit from subsidies in a way that breaches World Trade Organization rules—and whether those subsidies inflict injury on the European electric vehicle industry. “WTO members have a right to use these tools,” Dombrovskis said. “We are going to conduct this investigation in a facts-based manner, fully in line with applicable EU and WTO rules and principles.” 

He added that as the investigation proceeds, it’ll be “important that also Chinese companies… are cooperating.” 

On trade, the EU and its biggest trade partner, the United States, are approaching a deadline for negotiating an agreement on steel and aluminum trade that (if the EU gets its way) would address global steel overcapacity, encourage a “greening” of the industry, and put an end to tariffs imposed during the Trump administration. “We are making progress,” he said, adding that he is “optimistic” any remaining gaps will be filled soon. 

In responding to this decade’s polycrisis, the EU is employing the Recovery and Resilience Facility to ensure that the bloc emerges stronger. The fund has thus far disbursed 153 million euros to eighteen member countries.  

While it was originally aimed at mitigating the economic impacts of the pandemic—through investments such as digitizing public services and boosting sustainable transport—“Russia’s aggression has brought some corrections,” Dombrovskis said. One such correction is the creation of REPowerEU Plan to roll back Europe’s dependency on Russian fossil fuels—and roll out more renewable energy sources. 

Dombrovskis also discussed EU macro-financial assistance to Ukraine, saying that the bloc is “committed to [supporting] Ukraine for as long as it’s necessary.” He explained that once this assistance program wraps (there are still about 4.5 billion euros left to be paid this year) the EU will unleash a fifty-billion-euro package of assistance to Ukraine, to last from 2024 to 2027, through the EU Multiannual Financial Framework. The “EU is definitely doing its part,” he said. “It’s important that also other major players, including [the] United States, are playing their part.” 

Regional multilateral banks are having their moment in Marrakesh

In October 2020, at the peak of the pandemic, I wrote about why and how regional development banks play a critical role in COVID-19 response and recovery, arguing that the banks and the nature of their lending and operational practices have been, and remain, especially important for the agility, complementarity, and continuity of pandemic response.

It’s clear from conversations this week—on stage, in studio, and off the record—that this is perhaps even truer today than it was then as we grapple with how to respond to polycrises: COVID-19, conflict, and climate, and the inflation, debt, food insecurity, and rising inequality and poverty that result.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, with its long history in Ukraine, is at the forefront of responding to Russia’s 2022 invasion—leading from the onset in investment, advisory, and technical assistance, as well as research, planning, and coordination. Among its response measures, it has been leveraging its distinct expertise and experience working with and through the private sector. While the Asian Development Bank, with large numbers of small island developing states as well as fragile and geopolitically tense areas, is leading on climate and resilience finance and innovation, stretching its balance sheet by adjusting its disposition toward risk and expanding lending by nearly 40 percent to about $36 billion annually. To that end, the Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank are collaborating to catalyze green finance across Latin America and the Caribbean. Given the dynamics of debt and demographics on the African continent—which have been a prominent theme this week no matter the subject—the African Development Bank is uniquely positioned to lend in a way that can support policy reform and advance inclusive growth and reduce inequality with its investments. At the same time, given the scale of what’s required, more than ever it’s about coordination and leverage between regional development banks and with the World Bank and IMF.

Given this, the importance and value of regional development banks is arguably missing from the (somewhat overlooked) “Marrakech Principles for Global Cooperation” released this week, which call for enhanced collaboration between the IMF and the World Bank “and with partners.” It is a miss to skip explicitly referencing these key international financial institutions which are clearly ready to meet the moment.

Decoding the Marrakesh G20 communique: Progress, but no inspiration

The last Group of Twenty (G20) communique under India’s leadership did not break any new ground. Notwithstanding the recognition that “the G20 is not the platform to resolve geopolitical and security issues,” most of the energy spent during the negotiations seemed to have been focused on the categorization of recent geopolitical tensions.

On that front, a general expression of deep concern for “the immense human suffering and the adverse impact of wars and conflicts around the world” seemed to be an attempt to compensate for the fact that one or several participants remained opposed to condemning the Hamas attack on Israel. The communique also rehashed previously used language on the war in Ukraine and expressed concerns about attacks on food and energy infrastructure given the potentially global consequences.

On the global economy, one paragraph of the communique repeated the IMF’s World Economic Outlook and referred to the macroeconomic policy section of September’s G20 New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration. The onus is now on the IMFC’s communique, which is due tomorrow, to react to a weakening medium-term economic outlook, as well as the rise in long-term interest rates and the strong dollar. The G20 also did not use the opportunity to push for an IMF quota increase, which could indicate that important issues have yet to be resolved behind closed doors.

The remainder of the document was similarly underwhelming. One full page on the topic of strengthening multilateral development banks mostly dealt with process issues, with words like “remain,” “reiterate,” or “reemphasize” abounding. The IMF and World Bank were asked to provide a report on domestic revenue mobilization (i.e., tax measures), most likely a concession to those G20 members that emphasize the need for responsible economic management from developing countries themselves.

Reflecting the political attention paid to individual debt restructuring cases, the communique provided a cautious welcome of progress in the cases of Zambia and Ghana, and called for a swift debt treatment for Ethiopia as well as Sri Lanka (the latter being outside the G20 Common Framework).

There is no doubt that the G20 process will be reenergized by the start of Brazil’s G20 presidency on December 1, but it is hard to escape the impression that the G20 has been diminished by the political divergences within its membership. While it still appears possible to reach consensus in some important areas, the G20 is clearly no longer the dynamic forum it was several years ago.

How are IMF stakeholder countries working to mitigate climate change? The case of Morocco and renewable energy

Inside Turkey’s plans to bounce back from economic shocks and policy challenges

After a string of “policy distortions” and economic shocks, “Turkey is back,” Turkish Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek said.

Şimşek’s gave his remarks at Atlantic Council studios in Marrakesh, on-site at the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings. There, he outlined the three new Turkish economic programs to help the country bounce back, which included measures on disinflation, fiscal discipline, and structural reforms.

The finance minister explained that he wants to see inflation down to single digits over the next three years—inflation was still at 61 percent year-on-year this September. “It’s a challenging global backdrop, but we believe it is doable.”

As for the structural reforms: Şimşek pointed to several policies meant to improve the business climate, boost savings, deepen capital markets, and enhance labor market flexibility and human capital stock. He also said that Turkey is focusing on the green transition and investing in digital infrastructure.

Throughout these reforms, Şimşek said that it’ll be important to communicate with citizens so that they understand that “there are no quick fixes [and] that there are no shortcuts,” and that the reforms are designed for the medium term. “There will be trade offs,” he cautioned, adding that “for the sake of the country, sometimes you have to take harsh measures.”

At the Annual Meetings, Şimşek said that his delegation is meeting with various counterparts to boost Turkey’s economic relations. In meetings with European counterparts, he said that the discussions tend to focus on how to retighten EU-Turkey ties. “We would like to be re-anchored to [the] EU,” he said. “Europe is a source of inspiration for us… but we want Europeans also to treat Turkey with respect and as an equal partner.”

According to Şimşek, one way for the EU to show Turkey that it is an equal partner is by upgrading the EU-Turkey Customs Union, which was put into place in 1996. “The world was very different at that time,” he said, adding that “today’s enhanced free trade agreements are ahead of [the] Customs Union.” Şimşek explained that he’d like to see the customs union “expanded” to include services, agriculture, and more. “We’re not asking for any favor from our European friends; we’re asking [for]… mutually beneficial dialogue.”

Şimşek argued that the EU and Turkey should cooperate in another way: on reconstruction in Ukraine. “Peace and stability in our region is the most important global public good,” he said, so “we would like to play a constructive role, a significant role in helping rebuild the country.” He explained that combining European long-term funding with Turkish contractors could “create a great synergy.”

Regarding global governance, Şimşek said that he has been encouraged this week by discussions at the Group of Twenty about reforming multilateral development banks and equipping them with more resources to assist the Global South. And as for the IMF quota, Şimşek said that emerging markets are increasingly playing a bigger role on the world stage and their economies are increasing in size. “I think it’s important that there is better representation, better voice for everyone… We should not ignore the Global South.”

Staring into the gap between Africa as a global leader and a development challenge

Governance remains the trend line in my meetings here in Morocco. It has made an appearance in everything from my senior-level conversations with the Cameroonian delegation to discussions about the World Bank’s new president and his mandate, to more technical discussions about central bank digital currencies and new payments systems.

Thinking through these issues, I’m struck that on one hand, Africa is on the leading edge of emerging fintech like virtual currencies including CBDCs and stablecoins, while on the other, the continent is still struggling with basic representation in global institutions like the World Bank. If you’re a pessimist, you could say that many countries are still only on the lonely and winding path to the long and bumpy road of development.

But it is important to see the hope for change as I did yesterday. I sat for a conversation between one of Africa’s biggest philanthropists, Mo Ibrahim, and World Bank President Ajay Banga. Ibrahim seemed to take pleasure in pointing out the contradictions in the governance and actions of the World Bank in Africa, often comparing the Bank’s solutions for low-income countries’ problems to the better, faster, and more robust solutions deployed for Western and European countries. The crowd seemed to laugh anxiously—but it is this upfront calling to attention of the World Bank’s shortcomings that will push the Bank to change tack.

Looking forward, African countries must build a strong coalition of reform minded countries to maximize their power and voice. This coalition could more effectively push for badly needed updates to governance structures of the global economic and financial architecture—even as many Group of Seven countries seem to prefer the status quo. Africa needs these changes urgently to meet its current and future challenges.

Georgieva’s emphasis on the positive is a reminder of the power of global collaboration

There is reason for gloom at the Annual Meetings, with war still raging in Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas war newly under way, and the effects of natural disasters still reeling in countries like Morocco and Turkey. Against that backdrop, the economists meeting here are focusing on finding solutions to crises involving interest rates, equity, and slow economic growth—providing reason to have some optimism for the future.

Yesterday, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva focused on the positive of the World Economic Outlook—even though the forecast, to the dismay of many participants, forecasted slow recovery from the crises of the last few years. The positive: There is still time to bolster global resilience and tackle collective action problems like climate change. However, to do that, the world has to work together, build bridges, and invest in multilateral institutions and frameworks. And while time is running out to keep the global average temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius, Georgieva stressed that doing so may be feasible if the world adopts some form of carbon pricing—which is something the IMF is working on with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Georgieva’s second point of positivity: Low-income countries, especially those in Africa, have great potential to foster a more prosperous, inclusive future. With her characteristic “we all have a role to play” remarks, Georgieva made clear that the IMF sees itself as a steward for attracting more sustainable investment to low-income countries to create that future. The type of lending and investment the Bretton Woods institutions have in mind, however, will require more capital and increased quota investments in the institutions. This would align with new World Bank President Ajay Banga’s calls for a bigger and better bank, but also requires resolutions of debates and disagreements over quota shares held by high-, middle-, and low-income economies.  

And while Georgieva was more serious on the topic of high bond yields and above-average yield spread across countries, she pointed out that this market response is due to rising interest rates, which are a sign that central banks are waking up to the necessity to respond to inflationary pressures.

In these positive points lie the solutions that will empower countries as they look to recover more quickly from the last few years’ economic shocks.

• There’s still time to show that global collaboration is possible

• Ukraine’s finance minister on Russia’s blocked assets and why he’s reaching out to the Middle East

• How the MENA region is facing up to today’s biggest economic crises

• The numbers aren’t adding up on financing investment for climate change mitigation projects

• Where will the coalition of African countries take its message for reform next?

• See day three analysis

There’s still time to show that global collaboration is possible

From hallway conversations to heated debates in closed-door meetings, the inescapable topic this week in Marrakesh has been global governance.

The power structure of Bretton Woods institutions—despite the fact that they function reasonably well, even in the midst of growing geopolitical tension—is under increasing scrutiny.

The United States has been pushing for an increase in the capital that countries contribute to the IMF (their quotas) without proposing an increase in votes for China and other emerging markets who feel undervalued with their growing economies and stagnant vote shares. As I wrote in a new issue brief this week, the governance arrangements of the Bretton Woods institutions are fundamentally out of touch with economic reality.

Despite that, there are signs on the ground that the quota increase may be approved, which would provide an important boost for the world’s official lender of last resort—and show that global collaboration is still possible.

Across the IMF-World Bank Meeting campus, I’m also seeing global collaboration in another form: Widespread support for Ukraine among many of the IMF’s major shareholders. The IMF’s Ukraine program is largely successful because it is focused and because the Fund’s shareholders are stepping up to ensure that the program reaches its intended objectives—putting Ukraine’s war economy on a more solid footing and making further progress on improving economic governance. Today, we also sat down with Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko to map out the next steps for coordinated international support for Kyiv, including its war-risk insurance needs.

Ukraine’s finance minister on Russia’s blocked assets and why he’s reaching out to the Middle East

“A gear is shifting” among Group of Seven (G7) countries, said Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko in conversation with the Atlantic Council’s Charles Lichfield. 

On the ground in Marrakesh, Marchenko is noticing that G7 countries are ready to discuss seizing Russian assets and repurposing them to fund Ukraine’s reconstruction efforts. But if the G7 can’t come together on the Russian assets, he said he hopes that they can quickly agree on deploying the interest earned on these blocked assets for reconstruction efforts. 

Marchenko gave his remarks at an Atlantic Council event at IMF-World Bank Week. Marchenko told Lichfield, the deputy director of the GeoEconomics Center, that Ukraine’s economic situation has improved—with lower inflation rates—”due to the resilience of [the] Ukrainian people as well as support from our partners.” 

The IMF’s World Economic Outlook—released earlier this week—forecasts Ukrainian gross domestic product growth at 4 to 5 percent through 2024. Marchenko noted that the section on Ukraine was drafted at the beginning of the year, but now, Kyiv is fighting “a totally different war.” That means “it’s a modern war: We’re using drones, using a high level of munition.” Marchenko said the IMF was pessimistic about the Ukrainian forecast to account for uncertainty about the course of the war. “That’s why they predicted that Ukraine’s economy will be in… slow growth for [a] longer period of time,” he explained.

This week, Marchenko said the Ukrainian delegation has been having bilateral discussions not only with European countries to try to preserve their support but also with other countries, such as those in the Middle East, to “try to convince them to be more supportive of Ukraine.” In those discussions, he said that Ukraine also tried to “show [a] good example” of how to govern a country during war and invasion.  

But “it’s quite necessary to preserve… support for [the] next year,” he warned, because the next year will be “much [more] stressful,” with much more “uncertainty.” So while Ukraine’s economy is more stable, he said, international partners can’t “forget about Ukraine” now. 

How the MENA region is facing up to today’s biggest economic crises

As the crowds of IMF-World Bank Week participants get larger in Marrakesh, the Atlantic Council empowerME Initiative’s Racha Helwa got together with Moroccan Economy and Finance Minister Nadia Fettah Alaoui and Citi Head of Middle East and Africa Ebru Pakcan to talk about how the MENA region is facing up to today’s biggest economic crises.

Morocco is focusing on building a strong macroeconomic foundation and on its resilience, the finance minister said, explaining that the Moroccan government launched a reform program recently to diversify the economy and create a strong social state. But it won’t be a “peaceful” journey to implement these reforms, she argued, because at the same time, “we have also to deal with multiple crises that we have been going through.”

Pakcan said that private-public relationships may help MENA countries manage the risks they face. With these partnerships, there are “a lot more creative solutions that can be… devised,” she argued. Those solutions, she added, are needed to help MENA countries “actually ride the storm” of today’s crises so that it can “focus on what really matters in the future,” like climate change and digitalization.

The numbers aren’t adding up on financing investment for climate change mitigation projects

Here in Marrakesh, many speakers have emphasized the urgent need to mobilize substantial amounts of money to finance climate change mitigation and green transition projects. Reportedly, to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 and to prevent world average temperatures from rising by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius this century, global investment in such climate-related projects will need to total $2.7 trillion a year. Developing and low-income countries in particular would need to receive significant financial assistance from the international community to be able to cope with the challenges.

At the same time, both the IMF and World Bank have pointed out that in many countries, fiscal deficits are high, with government debt rising to record levels—faster than the pre-pandemic pace. Both of these institutions have emphasized that fiscal restraints are much needed to safeguard sustainability and rebuild fiscal buffers to be able to deal with future shocks. The IMF’s “Fiscal Monitor” has also recognized that citizens in many countries are averse to increased taxes by their governments.

Consequently, it should be clear that governments, including those of developed countries, will not be in a position to raise huge sums of money for climate-related investments, especially in support of developing and low-income countries.

That has led the World Bank and IMF to push for using public money to catalyze private sector climate investments in developing and low-income countries by offering various risk-sharing schemes to improve the risk-return profiles of those investment projects. However, officials looking to use public money to catalyze significant private sector investment—often at a rate of five times or more—are likely to see their hopes dashed: According to GlobalMarkets magazine, $1 of public sector lending can generate only $0.7 of private investment.

In short, while climate investment needs are huge, the numbers in terms of plausible financing sources from the public and private sectors simply don’t add up. Anyone concerned about climate change would have to be more realistic about to how to get the needed funding.

Where will the coalition of African countries take its message for reform next?

Kristalina Georgieva said it best: “A prosperous twenty-first century is only possible with a prosperous Africa.”

Here in Marrakesh, the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings are clearly underscoring African priorities, the urgency of climate action, and the need for increasing global coordination for policy solutions. Africa is front and center—fitting considering these are the first Annual Meetings to take place on the African continent since the Nairobi Meetings in 1973.

On the ground—just as they did in 1973—policymakers, central bankers, and international economists are looking for ways to alleviate global poverty, boost economic activity, and reinforce programs that can support sustainable development solutions. As decision makers hopping from pavilion to pavilion debate how to address growing public debt, elevated interest rates, and rising geopolitical tensions between the world’s largest economies, it is important to look at the changing trends across the African continent.

It is becoming clearer how African countries are a part of the solution to global issues, whether it is on matters of war and peace, economic development, or global governance. In regard to governance, African countries are asserting their agency in multilateral fora. A great example of this effort is the posture African countries present on Bretton Woods reform, consistently driving their message at global convenings such as recent Group of Twenty meetings in India, the UN General Assembly in New York, and here at the IMF-World Bank Meetings in Marrakesh. Against this backdrop, African countries are facing new and emerging challenges from the shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic; the spike in food, fuel, and fertilizer products due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine; and natural disasters aggravated by a changing global climate, among others. 

Despite the growing impetus for pan-African positions on things like World Bank reform, more needs to be done. Changing the political calculus of traditional powers such as the United States, France, Germany, and other Group of Seven countries (and beyond) will be important to bring reform efforts into reality. African leaders should continue to look for ways to highlight the urgent need for reforming these institutions, specifically with audiences that may be unfamiliar with the need for reforms, while continuing to drive a coalition for change. The challenges facing African countries are no longer theoretical or in the future, and the Bretton Woods institutions and multilateral development banks must take steps to meet the changing, complex, and interconnected development needs of African countries without delay.

• Signs of inspiration in dark times

• What’s next for monetary policy and Europe’s fiscal rules, according to Spain’s Nadia Calviño

• The finance world braces for impact from the Israel-Hamas war

• Africa’s demographics matter—but they’re not the only ones that do

• With the Bank abuzz, Banga begins…

• A tale of two sovereign debt restructuring processes: Why Zambia and Sri Lanka differ

• See day two analysis

Signs of inspiration in dark times

As day three wraps at the World Bank-IMF Annual Meetings, the buzz is building as all quarters of campus kick into high gear—and seats are becoming harder to find in the “town square” where I’m enjoying local musicians giving melody and voice to the storied history, warmth, and resilience of the Moroccan people, who are hosting this event just weeks after a devastating earthquake.

Though the hot sun continues to shine, the mood has been darkened for some following the release of the IMF’s flagship World Economic Outlook, which forecast a more subdued recovery, and following reality checks about the extent of global debt distress. For those in the World Bank conversations, me included, talk of resilience and growth felt more uplifting.

Still there’s a sense of urgency on the ground, as participants quickly realize there is too much work to be done and plenty of opportunity at hand.

On that note, there was extra pep in my step today as it’s October 11, which means it’s International Day of the Girl—a chance to recognize the rights, celebrate the achievements, and amplify the opportunity of the world’s one billion girls and young women. And where better to mark the occasion than in Africa—the youngest continent where, if empowered and enabled, girls can help communities and countries realize a double demographic dividend through increased youth economic participation and closing gender gaps. I was reminded of this in a conversation I had with the World Bank’s Global Director for Gender and in my behind-the-scenes conversations with the inspirational generational leaders comprising the IMF youth fellows.

So heading into the remaining days of deliberation and debate, I’m hoping for meaningful movements and commitments to accelerate development, address debt, and accentuate inclusive growth on a livable planet.

What’s next for monetary policy and Europe’s fiscal rules, according to Spain’s Nadia Calviño

Just a day after the IMF released its World Economic Outlook—which forecast that Spain, among other countries, would have strong growth in 2023 and 2024—Spanish Economy Minister Nadia Calviño joined GeoEconomics Senior Director Josh Lipsky for a conversation on the ground at IMF-World Bank Week.

Calviño chalked up Spain’s good forecast in part to its “diversified energy mix.” “A high penetration of renewables and a very diversified energy mix… has enabled Spain to withstand better than others the blow coming from Russia’s war against Ukraine.”

Seeing Spain’s growth, Calviño said it would be “quite wise” for the European Central Bank to pause interest rate hikes. “You have countries such as Spain with strong growth [and] low inflation. Other countries are very close to a recession and have higher inflation,” she explained. “So we better get it right because we need to ensure that we manage… inflationary expectations.”

Currently, the EU is undergoing a review of its fiscal rules on government spending and taxes to avoid a debt crisis. She signaled the need for commitment to a new framework—one that enables growth, job creation, and the green transition—by the end of this year.

Calviño looked back to the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings, saying that while “the global economy has shown to be more resilient than many expected,” that “the world has become even more complicated” with conflict on the rise. “That makes it even more important that we gather here” at the Annual Meetings, to “find solutions.”

But Calviño’s stance on China hasn’t changed since the Spring Meetings, where she said that the EU cannot turn its back to China or ignore it. “The EU is a global trade powerhouse, and we need to keep our relations with all the main trading partners,” she said. “At the same time, we need to ensure that the global framework and our trade policies ensure that there is a level playing field and [a] fair trading framework.”

The finance world braces for impact from the Israel-Hamas war

The shockwaves of the Israel-Hamas war have finally reached Marrakesh. It took several days—as it often does in the technocratic world of international economics—for financial leaders gathered here at the Meetings to grasp that the conflict could affect everyone.

Here on the ground, the full scale of the devastating human tragedy and military conflict unleashed by Hamas’s assault on Israel last Saturday is coming into focus—and with it a focus on the war’s economic ramifications. Several conversations are happening at once. 

First and foremost, there is growing horror as reports about the terrorist attacks and fallout in Israel and Gaza play on TV screens and phones inside and outside the official venue for the Meetings.

There is also discussion of the global economic fallout. Energy prices have understandably been a big focus, with memories of the 1973 Yom Kippur War and ensuing oil embargo front of mind for ministers. But as many of the economists milling about the pavilions have noted, the global energy market has shifted dramatically in the fifty years since that war. The world doesn’t solely rely on the Middle East for energy. And—for now—the conflict hasn’t spread through the region.

Then there’s the shekel and Israel’s economy. Israel’s central bank intervened to prop up the currency by selling thirty billion dollars in foreign reserves, but the shekel’s slump continues. There is wider concern that foreign investment in Israel will dry up and create a recession in the Israeli economy.

With regard to Gaza, the question is about reconstruction—whenever that time comes. Will the World Bank and other development banks play a role and step in with aid? A European commissioner initially signaled that the Commission would stop sending some aid to Palestinians, but that decision was quickly reversed by the European Union. There are open questions in Marrakesh right now about 1) what kind of aid will flow to Gaza in the near term and 2) what kind of money will be requested in the long term. Because these are questions for the development banks, the IMF has, so far, been able to sidestep the questions.

But don’t expect avoidance of these issues to continue. By the end of the week, the ministers and governors in Marrakesh will realize what many around the world already see clearly: What is unfolding in Israel and Gaza will have global political and economic impacts.

Africa’s demographics matter—but they’re not the only ones that do

The Moroccan government has been keen to shine a light on its identity as a North African, growing economy. The resilience of Morocco and the Moroccan people, who are hosting a great Annual Meetings week despite a devastating earthquake and previous cancelations due to COVID-19, has also been spotlighted. Africa—a diverse, growing, and bustling continent that is often overlooked at conferences of international organizations—is finally getting the attention and press it deserves.   

Demographic challenges and the threat aging societies pose to the world economy are being brought up at these Annual Meetings almost as frequently as the climate crisis. Demography is the critical area where Africa has the advantage over other regions. While European countries rapidly age, fertility is slowing down in the United States, and even China is entering an era of demographic aging. Africa’s high birthrate and young labor market have the potential to massively boost the continent’s emerging market economies. This will, however, require inclusive political stability, equity investment, and the prioritization of educational and labor market skills funding. For the time being, many African ministers and officials are reveling in the chance to directly pitch for more investment in their region, and IMF and World Bank officials appear interested in highlighting newer funds (like the IMF’s Resilience and Sustainability Trust) that have benefited sustainable investments in the region.  

With the Bank abuzz, Banga begins…

On day 2 of the World Bank-IMF Annual Meetings in Marrakesh, the Bank’s activity got underway in earnest with a number of flagship and civil society events. The mood was arguably more upbeat than “across campus” as the IMF released its latest World Economic Outlook portraying a dim macro picture with slowing growth and widening divergence worldwide. 

On-the-ground conversations—which touched upon everything from resilience to jobs-driven growth to digital inclusion—recognized the compound crises facing the world (although disproportionately impacting the Global South) while recognizing, if not celebrating, the opportunity. Across the conversations between officials and civil society, inclusion, especially of women and youth, was a repeated priority. There were other big themes, too, across these conversations: interconnectedness; jobs and livelihoods, and how they are critical for resilience, climate adaptation, and climate change mitigation; and improved and diffuse digital foundations, which can fuel economic dynamism and increase transparency while also strengthening systems and the provision of public services necessary for responding to shocks.

Capping the day, Ajay Banga—who took the helm as president of the Bank in June—made his formal Meetings debut with a much-anticipated town hall with civil society, where he locked in his newest mission for the Bank: “Ending poverty on a livable planet.” It’s a reflection of the fact that the number of poor people has increased after decades of decline as significant pre-pandemic gains have been lost; it also reflects how responding to climate change goes hand-in-hand with efforts to advance development and end all forms of poverty. Alongside the evolution roadmap, Banga (or Ajay, as he prefers) believes it can be done by “doing what’s right, not convenient” to “first build a better Bank, then build a bigger Bank”: a better Bank that stretches every dollar and leaves no one behind; a bigger bank that “allows what works to scale.” Over the next few days, the Bank and its partners will need to get specific on how this “knowledge and money” Bank will come to fruition.

A tale of two sovereign debt restructuring processes: Why Zambia and Sri Lanka differ

Different developments in the Zambian and Sri Lankan sovereign debt restructuring processes have commanded the attention of participants in the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings in Marrakesh, highlighting the difficulties still remaining in the international effort to improve the restructuring framework.

Zambia, having defaulted on its external debt of over $32 billion in 2020, reached agreement with its official bilateral creditor committee (including China) in June 2023 on terms to restructure the debt, giving the country a 40 percent reduction in the present value of its bilateral debt of $6.3 billion. However, the country has had to wait until now for the bilateral creditors to develop language on the comparability of treatment in the memorandum of understanding that satisfied China—so that it could be signed, reportedly by the end of the Meetings this week. This has raised the hope that China could participate in the official bilateral creditor committee; the committee could eventually agree on a deal despite delays.

By contrast, Sri Lanka defaulted on its fifty-billion-dollar external debt in April 2022; with the country not being viewed as low-income, it is not eligible for the Common Framework for Debt Treatment. As a result, Sri Lanka has had to negotiate separately with various creditor groups, including the Paris Club, Japan, and India (on $4.8 billion of debt), as well as China’s Export-Import Bank (on $4.3 billion of debt)—but not the China Development Bank (which it owes $3 billion of debt, but the bank is considered to be a commercial creditor). This process has increased the complexity of coordination problems for the restructuring negotiations—leading to delays in the first review of the Sri Lankan program with the IMF needed for additional disbursement to the country. Further complicating the comparability of treatment problem, China has announced that its Export-Import Bank has agreed to restructuring terms with Sri Lanka ahead of scheduled meetings between the Sri Lanka and Paris Club creditors this week in Marrakesh.

This unwieldy process should be improved, basically by extending the Common Framework to include vulnerable, middle-income countries so that official bilateral creditors have to form a committee to negotiate jointly with the debtor country.

• EBRD president: Supporting Ukraine’s reconstruction must happen now

• Why everyone—from participants to officials—should keep in mind Africa’s demographics

• On-the-ground signs that the IMF and client countries are diverging on monetary tightening priorities

• Why a cookie-cutter approach won’t work for debt restructuring

• Inside the IMF’s new approach to China

• A “big push” and a “first step” toward reaching Africa’s potential

• Keep an eye out for small victories

• Zambia may be days away from a debt restructuring plan. Here’s what it wants other countries to know about dealing with creditors.

• With its young and talented population, Africa has great economic potential; but “demographics are not destiny”

• The recent developments that may throw a wrench into global financial stability

• The global growth forecast hasn’t changed—but plenty more has in the World Economic Outlook

• Will the World Economic Outlook’s “soft landing” forecast flame out?

• What the “ups” and “downs” of the World Economic Outlook show about the world’s biggest economies

• See day one analysis

EBRD president: Supporting Ukraine’s reconstruction must happen now

As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy continues to meet with Western leaders in a search for support and military assistance, the Atlantic Council GeoEconomics Center’s Charles Lichfield sat down with Odile Renaud-Basso, president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, to talk about the bank’s support to Kyiv. 

“We are focusing a lot on the private sector… and infrastructure in particular,” she said, explaining that the EBRD is paying particular attention to gas and electricity companies to keep the economy running. 

When asked whether it is time to begin focusing on reconstruction assistance, Renaud-Basso said that there isn’t “a clear sort of separation” between supporting Ukraine in war and in reconstruction. “What is already needed now is to reconstruct what has been destroyed and we don’t know whether there will be further destruction—there probably will be.” 

Recently, EBRD shareholders granted the bank the ability to invest in six Sub-Saharan African countries, expanding its mandate after determining that its approach to investing in the private sector—specifically in small and medium-sized enterprises and green projects—“would add value” and would “bring something different [to] the table.”  

The EBRD currently works in over thirty countries. Renaud-Basso explained that when a country’s democratic values aren’t in line with the EBRD’s, the bank does as much as it can to “ensure progress in this area.” “Helping to develop the private sector independent from government… will help develop a middle class that will help contribute to democratization,” she argued. Currently, with the Israel-Hamas war, the EBRD—which invests in the West Bank—is reviewing its project. 

Why everyone—from participants to officials—should keep in mind Africa’s demographics

Demographics matter—and they matter a lot. IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva also seems to agree; here at the Annual Meetings in Marrakesh, she has repeatedly emphasized that the only region in the world where long-term growth has the potential to accelerate is Africa because of its young population.

But how young is Africa’s population compared to elsewhere? The answer: very young. More than two-thirds of Africa’s population is under the age of thirty, and 40 percent are under the age of fourteen. Only 3 percent of African residents are sixty-five and above. Moreover, within thirty years, Africa’s population is expected to double from 1.4 billion to 2.8 billion. In other words, by the early 2050s more than a quarter of the world’s projected population of 10 billion will be on the continent.

Age breakdown of population

What does this mean for the African economy and the global economy? First, while the rest of the world will be aging at varying rates, Africa is going to be blessed with a young and vibrant labor force for many decades to come. If African countries can get the necessary capital, institutional reforms, and job creation policies, that young labor force can lead to robust growth rates for the continent. This will in turn increase the average African household’s income, leading to higher aggregate demands for consumer goods and services produced both in Africa and globally. The global aggregate demand could skyrocket if the income of a quarter of the world’s population increases by, say, 10, 20, 50, or 100 percent.

Second, over the next few decades, high-income and emerging economies will age rapidly and face severe labor shortages while Africa will have an ample supply. Hence, through effective labor migration policies, the world (especially high-income and emerging economies) can benefit significantly from Africa’s young labor force and keep itsdoors open for business for longer.

Population 65+ as a percentage of the total population

But without sound institutions and policies and investments targeted toward human capital development and job creation, Africa’s young and rapidly growing population—pushed to migrate in search of economic opportunity—could become a source of political and social instability both for the continent and elsewhere in the world. Thus, it is imperative tha­­t delegations discuss these issues at the Annual Meeting in Marrakesh.

On-the-ground signs that the IMF and client countries are diverging on monetary tightening priorities

The launch of an IMF working paper on inflation shocks over the past fifty years wound up showcasing conflicting priorities between the IMF and the academics, central bankers, and ministry officials in attendance—many of whom are from IMF client countries.

At the heart of the disagreement is not whether countries need to undertake monetary tightening to reduce inflation, but when it is appropriate to change course and lower interest rates in a way that public spending and investment become less costly. The IMF wants inflation to come back firmly to its target before easing is considered; the IMF official behind the working paper pointed to several “success” stories that actually resulted in hard, not soft, landings.

At the event, ministry and central bank officials pushed back that the current and persistent episode of inflation is not comparable to previous shocks, as the macroeconomic situation today is compounded by geopolitical, demographic, and climate risks. But for the IMF, economic orthodoxy pays off in the medium term. Given the wording and phrasing of attendees’ questions, macroeconomic officials from client countries and those facing other monetary pressures (such as pegging to the dollar) seem to be more concerned about delivering short-term economic prosperity and growth and hedging against external risks.

Why a cookie-cutter approach won’t work for debt restructuring

Over the past six months, progress has been made in taking the sovereign debt restructuring framework forward.

That was the consensus of panelists in a discussion, hosted by the GeoEconomics Center at IMF-World Bank Week in Marrakesh. The progress is important as more low-income countries face debt distress—with the sovereign bonds of twenty-one countries trading above a one thousand basis point spread over US Treasuries. These countries urgently need a speedy restructuring process to help them get back on their feet.

Progress, however, really means the ability of various stakeholders in sovereign debt—debtor countries, bilateral official creditors, multilateral development banks, private-sector creditors, and civil society organizations—to be in a room (the Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable, launched in April 2023) and discuss issues. A better understanding has been reached among the participants especially when it comes to difficult issues like the cut-off points for calculating the amount of debt to be restructured, the role of multilateral development banks in sovereign debt restructuring, the treatment of domestic debt in restructuring, the principle of comparability of treatment between various classes of creditors, and the discount rate to be used to calculate the extent of debt reliefs granted to debtor countries.

But concrete agreements of terms still depend on case-by-case country applications. For example, in the case of Zambia, there has been agreement about using a discount rate of 5 percent, but the agreement is not universal—many private creditors think that is too low and unrealistic.

On the comparability of treatment—an issue that has held up the signing of a debt restructuring memorandum of understanding for Zambia after the announcement of agreed terms in Paris in June—agreement on concrete language has been achieved that paves the way for a deal between Zambia and its official bilateral creditors to be signed soon, reportedly by the end of the annual meetings. However, these terms cannot simply be replicated in other countries’ cases.

Participants and observers of the annual meetings should keep this in mind as they follow developments on the sovereign debt restructuring front in the next few days.

Inside the IMF’s new approach to China

While the World Economic Outlook (WEO) made small downgrades in its forecast for China, the Fund’s view is even bleaker than the numbers suggest. Back in April, the WEO highlighted China’s rebound after its harsh zero-COVID shutdowns and confined its worries about the country’s property crisis to a single paragraph. This time, by IMF standards, both the WEO and Global Financial Stability Report take off the gloves and delve into the downsides, making clear that they see China as a potential risk to the global economy.

The WEO gives considerable attention to China in its opening chapter, highlighting the linked problems of the real estate downturn, soaring youth unemployment (each getting a chart), “subdued” consumer confidence, declining industrial output and business investment, and “weakening” exports. It even presciently singles out the debt issues at giant developer Country Garden, which today signaled a default on its international obligations. China is listed as a risk to the global economy, with the WEO’s “downside scenario” lowering China’s growth “as much as -1.6 percent in 2025.”

The GFSR builds a case for “financial stability concerns” in China. Its economic analysis closely tracks the WEO, but it adds on by addressing the financial vulnerabilities of some provincial governments (with a chart), the deep problems of local government financing vehicles exposed by the property crisis (three charts), and the recent worries about the country’s wealth management and trust industries. The report recommends to Beijing that “contingency planning should be developed to manage potential contagion” in the financial sector. Interestingly, both reports call for fiscal policy to be shifted toward supporting households—a step that the government has resisted—with the WEO suggesting such a policy would be preferable to “increasingly ineffective expensive investment in infrastructure.”

A “big push” and a “first step” toward reaching Africa’s potential

If you keep up with our Bretton Woods 2.0 Project, you know that I’m a numbers guy. Here are a couple of the numbers from my latest issue brief that I’m keeping in mind as I talk with finance ministers and central bank governors on the ground in Marrakesh:

• Severe poverty rates globally declined drastically over the past five decades, from 45 percent to 10 percent. Yet, one-third of the African population still lives in severe poverty.
• Keeping in mind that the fifty-four African economies are heterogeneous, 44 percent of the African population doesn’t have access to electricity. Put into perspective: 80 percent of the total 750 million people who don’t have access to electricity in the world are in Africa.
• And finally, the continent leads in lack of access to other forms of basic infrastructure; 73 percent lack access to safely managed drinking water and sanitation services.

Because of its young and growing population, its massive natural resources, and its strategic location, Africa has tremendous potential that (if unleashed) could move hundreds of millions out of poverty and propel growth in the global economy. For this to happen, Africa needs a big push and deeper engagement from the Bretton Woods institutions and the global investment community. However, African leaders need to take the first step by instituting good governance practices that would attract investors to the continent. The combination of the “big push” and this “first step” can be transformative.

Keep an eye out for small victories

Morocco has spared no effort to make feel delegates and guests welcome in Marrakesh. The conference venue has been constructed especially for this occasion, reminiscent of Bedouin tents, with ample outdoor features that remind delegates of the hot (and harsh) climate conditions that Moroccans and a large part of humanity face in their everyday lives.

In staying with the theme, as is usual for such meetings, there are lofty proclamations about how the world’s problems could be solved if everyone found a way to work together. Expectations abound that the ongoing revamp of the multilateral development banks’s business model and the proposed quota (or capital) increase for the IMF could provide urgently needed resources for climate change mitigation and poverty reduction in developing countries. Observing delegates from all corners of the world engaged in earnest conversations, one could be tempted to believe that larger solutions are in the realm of the possible.

Alas, like a Fata Morgana in the Sahara desert, appearances can be deceiving. Delegates were only given so much room to negotiate by leaders back home. And here the signs are not good, even beyond geopolitical tensions. Climate targets are not being met, and development assistance has been shrinking relative to what is needed. Increasing the capital base for multilateral lending (if agreed) will certainly help, but it is unlikely to be the game changer that many had hoped for.

Nevertheless, the Group of Twenty and Bretton Woods meetings still provide an important room for dialogue in troubled times. Behind the slogans and polished communiques, small victories are often won in private conversations, one country or issue at a time. The value of these meetings sometimes lies more in personal relationships that are established, a fact that was brought home during COVID-19 when professional networks ensured continuity in international dealings until in-person meetings became possible again.

With darker geopolitical and conjunctural clouds on the horizon, the sunny days of Marrakesh may soon fade from memory. But the hospitality of the Moroccan hosts will no doubt carry over to the next time the delegations meet to live up to almost impossible expectations yet again.

Zambia may be days away from a debt restructuring plan. Here’s what it wants other countries to know about dealing with creditors.

With Zambia’s debt restructuring process capturing attention here on the ground in Marrakesh, Atlantic Council Senior Directors Josh Lipsky and Rama Yade pulled aside Zambian Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane to get a sense of what is happening behind the closed doors of negotiations. 

Musokotwane told them that the problems it has encountered in debt restructuring negotiations “to a large extent, [have] been resolved” and that his team is “hoping that [it] will sign the memorandum of understanding soon.” Such a deal is expected this week at the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings. 

“We’ve moved very far ahead” on it, he added. 

With many countries around the world facing debt distress—after a series of economic crises shocked the world over the past few years—the Zambian finance minister provided advice for other countries gearing up to face their creditors in negotiations. “The most important thing is to recognize and accept you have a problem,” he said. “This sounds easy, but it’s not always the case, especially for governments that created a problem.” He added that properly recognizing debt problems will help a country “reach towards a solution.”  

In addition, the finance minister advised that countries solidify their partnerships with Bretton Woods institutions because “they are the ones that are bridges between you and the creditors” and vouch for a country’s credibility and willingness to undertake reforms. But “it is not enough to have the IMF and World Bank speak for you,” he said. “You yourselves must demonstrate that you’re serious about correcting the situation. You must undertake the reforms.” 

With its young and talented population, Africa has great economic potential; but “demographics are not destiny”

For the first time in fifty years, the Annual Meetings of the World Bank-IMF are taking place in Africa. It’s good timing: The meetings come as the African Union begins its membership in the Group of Twenty, elevating its voice and influence in the global economic order. The fact that the Meetings are being held in Africa is also quite fitting: The continent and its citizens often disproportionately experience the effects of the world’s biggest challenges; but Africa is also home to remarkable opportunity.

In addition, the location of these Meetings is a testament to the resilience of the African continent’s people and the dynamism of its economies and cultures. That was a big theme echoed through the packed “tent” during an IMF opening session yesterday that was kicked off by Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. At that same event, Moroccan Minister of Economy and Finance Nadia Fettah Alaoui emphasized the important contribution women are making to the dynamism of Morocco’s economy, pointing to a few of the government’s policies that aim to advance women’s economic empowerment and participation. Women trailblazers in African business and finance discussed how—through corporate leadership, investment innovation, and risk taking (along with effective policy)—countries on the continent can capitalize on the energy and talents of their young and entrepreneurial populations in order to foster inclusive growth.

However, as the panelists also noted, demographics are not destiny: Inclusive growth is going to take scale; it’s going to take financing and resources (and dealing with debt); it’s going to take technology, including artificial intelligence; it’s going to take investing in human capital; and it’s going to take effective governance and public trust.

Despite that tall order, there is optimism and inspiration on the ground in Marrakesh. Africa’s promise is clearly palpable.

The recent developments that may throw a wrench into global financial stability

It was telling that the Global Financial Stability Report (GFSR) presentation started not with the usual presentation by the IMF’s financial counselor but went directly into a Q&A session, starting with a discussion of the sharp rise in government bond yields in recent weeks. The IMF’s Tobias Adrian put a brave face on this development, which came too late to be assessed for the GFSR, characterizing it as being in line with monetary tightening and adding that it is not being accompanied by disorderly market conditions.

On second look, however, the risks appear more concerning. The GFSR’s second chapter carries the explicit warning that, in an adverse scenario, a wide set of banks could experience significant capital losses, including several systemically important institutions in China, Europe, and the United States. Adrian’s concluding message, that policymakers could certainly prevent bad outcomes, sounds less reassuring in this context, given that the bond market sell-off was in part driven by political developments in some large countries.

The global growth forecast hasn’t changed—but plenty more has in the World Economic Outlook

The latest World Economic Outlook released in Marrakesh today predicts unchanged global growth of 3 percent this year. Behind that unchanged forecast: The United States and China’s fluctuating growth essentially net out, with the United States receiving a 0.3 percentage-point upgrade and China receiving a 0.2 percentage-point downward revision.

But these forecasts are vulnerable to change courtesy of risks in both countries. The United States’ upward revision may not fully incorporate the impact of a longer period of 5 percent bond yields and 8 percent mortgage rates which have become more likely since late summer; while China’s 5 percent predicted growth is at the top of the current range of estimates of 2 to 5 percent. Both predictions may be optimistic.

What is clearer is the lower global growth trajectory over the next five years—down to 3.1 percent compared with the five-year rate of 3.6 percent estimated before the COVID-19 pandemic. The world economy is not expected to recover the pre-COVID growth trajectory—reflecting the enduring scarring caused by the past few years of global shocks.

Will the World Economic Outlook’s “soft landing” forecast flame out?

The IMF’s World Economic Outlook foresees a soft landing for the global economy, but it also paints a distressing picture for emerging and developing countries and a pessimistic medium-term outlook. The IMF is right to point out the imbalances in the global outlook, but it overlooks how domestic inequality in advanced economies could throw the global economy off kilter. Pent-up anger at the rise in living costs will make it more difficult to conduct fiscal policy, exemplified by political dysfunction in the US Congress and the growing support for radical parties in some countries.

The recent sell-off in bond markets is at least in part a reflection of political uncertainty. The World Economic Outlook has again had the misfortune of coming out too soon after major market developments, but the IMF would do well to address the implications of higher long-term interest rates for the macro outlook and financial stability during the coming days in Marrakesh.

What the “ups” and “downs” of the World Economic Outlook show about the world’s biggest economies

It finally happened. The IMF revised down China’s projected GDP growth for both 2023 and 2024. Many thought this would happen in July, and when it didn’t, all eyes were on today’s release of the World Economic Outlook. But is it revised down enough? Five percent for this year is still very optimistic. Our new report released last week, “Running out of Road: China Pathfinder 2023 Annual Scorecard,” shows just how much China is slowing post-COVID.

What’s interesting is that the US forecast was revised up (to 2.1 percent in 2023 and 1.5 percent in 2024). So this means that on the whole, global growth remains nearly unchanged from the previous forecasts, but the composition has shifted.

But remember: The World Economic Outlook was “put to bed” several weeks ago—so none of this takes into account the impact of the war in Israel. The IMF’s chief economist addressed the issue a few minutes ago saying there could be energy impacts, specifically when it comes to higher oil prices, but it’s just too early to say. The IMF seems to think the impact on energy prices is transitory, but the situation could escalate or expand and suddenly create another energy shock for the global economy. That’s an especially problematic situation for Europe, as it gears up to face the winter and tries to adapt to the lack of Russian energy.

On the bright side, India is forecasted to be the fastest-growing major economy—revised up to 6.3 percent in 2023. I’ll ask their finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, about this when I interview her in Marrakesh on Friday.

• Six themes to watch as the Meetings kick off

• Fragmentation is threatening developing economies in many ways. Climate is one of them.

• Two conflicting moods prevail as financial leaders gather

• The pressure is rising on the IMF and World Bank to increase climate financing and restructure debt

• Take calls for international cooperation on commodities markets seriously

• The private sector has a tall order to fill on climate investment

• The world needs realistic fiscal solutions now—before it’s too late

Six themes to watch as the Meetings kick off

As the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings get underway, our experts put their heads together on the biggest themes to expect from the week. Below are their takes: 

Martin said that the “accumulation of risks” and whether the world can achieve a soft landing after multiple economic shocks will dominate minds across the Meetings.  

On debt restructuring conversations, Martin was skeptical that much would happen beyond “the usual kind of global sparring between China and the rest,” seeing as China has blocked attempts to restructure sovereign debt in the past. Hung said that “the international community here really should put the spotlight on China and put pressure on them to cooperate.” 

Nicole listed climate adaptation and poverty reduction as key themes. Martin pointed specifically to financing for development and climate adaptation, reporting that there are “huge expectations” that there’s going to be agreement on financing multilateral development banks. Hung said to also keep an eye on new World Bank President Ajay Banga to see whether he can convince governments to increase their contributions to the Bank to facilitate climate- and development-related grants and loans to low-income countries. 

Nicole called the Meetings “Banga’s first big show,” explaining that attendees will be watching to see what messages he raises. “But also, the expectations are really high in terms of what he will do with the private sector to really leverage and mobilize private finance,” given his experience in the sector, she said. 

Martin pointed to arguments for restoring a division of labor between the IMF and World Bank, essentially letting the Bank focus on issues such as climate change and the IMF focus on macroeconomic issues. “I would expect this to make some waves,” Martin said. Nicole said that “the concern about mission creep… is real,” but there is still some “role for the IMF to play in development [and] in climate.” Hung agreed, saying that the IMF’s role in the climate-change issue lies in “advising governments of the risks they have to be prepared to deal with, the policy to mitigate the risks,” but “not financing.” 

Each of the experts raised the topic of the proposed “equi-proportional” increase in the IMF’s quota resources, which will require countries to contribute more capital yet maintain the same voting shares—drawing criticism from members who feel as though they are undervalued, such as China and several emerging-market economies. It “may run into some resistance,” warned Martin. But, Nicole argued, “you can’t have inclusive growth if you don’t have inclusive governance.” 

Fragmentation is threatening developing economies in many ways. Climate is one of them.

This year’s IMF-World Bank Annual meetings—held in Africa for the first time in fifty years—must yield practical solutions and policy decisions that will protect low-income and developing economies against the multifaceted impacts of global geoeconomic fragmentation.

Africa’s fifty-four economies are home to nearly 1.4 billion people or 17.4 percent of the world’s population. However, they account for only about four percent of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. At the same time, twenty-two out of the world’s twenty-six poorest economies and twenty-three out of the world’s fifty-four lower-middle income economies are in Africa. Compared to others, these economies are heavily dependent on agriculture, forestry, and fishing for their economies, which is directly and negatively impacted by climate change.

To protect the livelihoods of billions in Africa and elsewhere, large CO2 emitters such as China, the United States, the European Union (EU), and other Group of Seven (G7) economies—together responsible for more than half of global CO2 emissions—must take serious steps to reduce their emissions and speed up their green transitions.

However, the global green transition is facing a headwind that has been gaining strength. Geoeconomic fragmentation between the world’s largest economies and increasing trade barriers worldwide are poised to threaten the global economy; for example, in relation to the trade of environmental goods—which are central to green transition—China and the countries that are part of the G7 and EU are highly dependent on each other. Geoeconomic fragmentation has the potential to massively interrupt that trade and, by extension, the energy transition.

The IMF hit on this topic in its World Economic Outlook this year, in a chapter dedicated to the impact of geoeconomic fragmentation on food security and the green transition. It estimates that with geoeconomic fragmentation, investments in renewable energy and electric vehicles may potentially decrease by up to 30 percent by the year 2030, in contrast to an unfragmented global supply chain. Such a decline would severely slow down the green transition, with significant negative impacts on the climate, especially for the low-income economies that bear disproportionate climate-change effects. This is in addition to the mushrooming economic costs of geoeconomic fragmentation for the continent in terms of higher food and energy prices as well as deadlocks in debt restructuring. Realistic solutions that will protect low-income and developing economies are needed.

Two conflicting moods prevail as financial leaders gather

Flying into Marrakesh this weekend, I could see clearly how the city is split in two. The older part of the city—a medina originating from the eleventh century—is nestled within red clay walls that separate it from the newer parts of the city, where gleaming hotels line the roads and nearly every international brand is represented.

Finance ministers and central bank governors from over 180 countries are gathering right now in Marrakesh for the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings, the first time the Meetings are being held on the African continent in fifty years. And the mood—just like the city—is split in two.

There’s optimism: The IMF is hinting that tomorrow it will revise its projections upwards and that there is now an increased chance of a “soft landing” not just for the United States, but for the entire global economy. But there’s also worry: War in Europe, and now in Israel, has reminded the fourteen thousand participants at these Meetings how quickly geopolitics can change their calculations.

It is not lost on anyone here that the last time these Meetings happened in Africa was 1973—just days before the start of the Yom Kippur War, which led to an oil embargo that sent the price of gas skyrocketing.

Once again, foreign policy and finance have become intertwined. And that’s why the Atlantic Council has come to the Meetings: to help map how Bretton Woods institutions can navigate this new era of geoeconomics.

The pressure is rising on the IMF and World Bank to increase climate financing and restructure debt

Volatility in global financial markets spiked over the weekend after the Israeli government declared war following an attack from Hamas that killed hundreds of people. Oil prices rose by 5 percent at one point (before snapping back to about 3 percent), stock markets notched down worldwide, and safe haven flows pushed the US dollar and US Treasury bond prices up—adding more pressure on emerging bond markets. On average, sovereign bonds of emerging market countries trade at around eight hundred basis points above US Treasuries—with twenty-one countries facing a spread of around one thousand basis points: Basically, they’re in distress. In particular, Ethiopia is viewed as likely to default next, with spreads approaching five thousand basis points. Sri Lanka and Ghana still languish in their sovereign debt restructuring processes; meanwhile, Zambia seems like it may sign a MOU with official bilateral creditors at the end of this week’s Meetings.

These developments, coupled with escalating geopolitical rivalry, represent a somber backdrop for the opening of the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings in Marrakesh—making it even more critical for the Bretton Woods Institutions to develop policies that address emerging market countries’ biggest challenges. Those policies should include mobilizing climate financing and speedily restructuring sovereign debt, among others.

Take calls for international cooperation on commodities markets seriously

As the Marrakesh meetings proceed, it will be important not to lose sight of the bleak outlook contained in one of the very first documents released: The third chapter in the IMF’s World Economic Outlook on the potential risks posed by the fragmentation of commodities markets. The analysis (summarized here) warns about the impact of deepening global divisions on commodities trade. This trend—affecting everything from wheat to lithium—could increase inflationary pressures, reduce global growth, and even slow the energy transition.

As the world witnessed after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, wheat shortages and rising fuel prices hit the poor hardest. As the chapter points out, “the average low-income country imports more than 80 percent of the wheat it consumes,” and over forty percent of those imports come from only three countries. That means that additional shortages caused by “global fragmentation” could sharply increase food insecurity across the developing world. And while the model shows that the overall “global economic costs appear modest” from such disruptions, low-income countries that rely heavily on agricultural imports would be “disproportionately affected.”

Given that in the aftermath of COVID-19 the number of people living in extreme poverty rose for the first time in decades, there should be concern that deepening geopolitical tensions will only increase the plight of low-income communities. In addition, a slower “green transition” will only add to the burden on developing countries as they are among those already feeling the most pain from climate change. It is something to keep in mind as the Meetings this week inevitably produce calls for international cooperation.

The private sector has a tall order to fill on climate investment

Chapter 3 of the IMF’s Global Financial Stability Report emphasizes the need to mobilize private financing and investment to emerging market and developing countries—who would need two trillion dollars annually by 2030 to fight climate change and adapt to its effects, five times more than currently planned $400 billion in climate investments planned for the next seven years. As public investment is limited, private funds will have to make up for 80 percent to 90 percent of the needed climate investment. Private climate investment needs to be scaled up dramatically to fit this tall order; for example, climate investments account for only a portion of the more than $2.5 trillion of assets under the management of environmental, social, and governance mutual funds.

In the chapter, the IMF then proceeded to review a list of oft-repeated measures by emerging market and developing countries to attract private investment—such as strong macroeconomic policies; deepening financial markets; policy predictability within a robust governance framework; better climate data, taxonomy, and disclosure; and risk sharing and guarantees by multilateral development banks. These are good policy ideas, but they’re not easy to implement—and they have not yet been able to generate the level of private climate investment that is needed. Against this backdrop, attention has turned to the World Bank’s Private Sector Investment Lab—comprised of chief executive officers of financial institutions and former officials aiming to bring more private financing to emerging market countries—watching to see whether the investment lab will be able to come up with concrete and actionable ideas.

The world needs realistic fiscal solutions now

In IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva’s curtain raiser speech last week, she called attention to the estimated global economic loss of $3.6 trillion caused by global shocks since 2020. More distressingly, she pointed out, the losses have been distributed very unequally, falling disproportionately on vulnerable developing and low-income countries while only one country—the United States, with the help of expensive fiscal rescue measures—has seen its gross domestic product rebound over pre-COVID levels. Now, fiscal risks are acute for all countries, and there is an urgent need for governments to rebuild fiscal space to be in a position to react to and rebound from future shocks. Furthermore, deteriorating international cooperation—due to rising geopolitical competition and distrust—has fragmented the global economy, slowing its growth.

While having described very concisely the challenges, Georgieva didn’t fully detail realistic policy measures to help the world rebound from this decade’s shocks and crises. There is an urgent need to raise two trillion dollars (needed annually, according to estimations) to help developing and low-income countries adapt to climate change and meet sustainable development goals. Formulating these policies at this week’s meetings is mission critical for the IMF and World Bank: Their failure to spur change within the next ten years would position the world on a trajectory toward increasing fiscal risks.

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On September 18, 2023, the Atlantic Council’s North Africa Program in partnership with the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) hosted a hybrid event, “New Power Dynamics in the MENA Region after the Ukraine Crisis.” The event featured an array of expert panelists who shed light on regional tensions, cooperation patterns in the eastern Mediterranean, and North Africa’s role in regional and international power competition.

The event opened with remarks by Fred Kempe, President and CEO of the Atlantic Council; Alessandro Gonzales, Deputy Chief of Mission of the Italian Embassy to the United States; and Giampiero Massolo, President of the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI); with closing remarks by Lorenzo Fruganti, Junior Research Fellow, Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI). The discussion encompassed three thought-provoking panels, each featuring renowned regional experts and practitioners. Each section was moderated separately to facilitate diverse questions and was followed by a Q&A session.

Takeaways

I. Shifting Relations Since the Ukraine War
The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has raised questions about many of the assumptions of the United States led global order. At the outset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it was presumed that America’s partners in the Middle East would perceive Russia as a threat, as Western countries did. This, however, proved to be incorrect. The United States failed to recognize discontent among its Middle Eastern partners. Dr. Mark Katz explained that due to the perceived inadequate support from the United States in the region – notably the absence of US intervention following the Iranian drone strikes on Saudi Arabia in 2019 and criticism directed at specific governments, such as candidate Biden’s statement to treat Saudi Arabia as a pariah state – MENA countries did not feel obligated to back the United States against other global powers.

Many policy experts also predicted that Russia’s presence in the region would diminish following its invasion of Ukraine. Instead, Moscow managed to bolster its position despite the economic challenges manifested by the war. Nikolay Kozhanov, in an effort to explain this phenomenon, pointed to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s leveraging of economic advantages and resources in the Middle East and North Africa. Russia provides, for example, essential agricultural supplies to countries like Egypt. These pre-existing relationships have allowed Russia to manage its economic situation while maintaining an influential role and exerting power in the region, especially in the face of global shortages.

The Russia-Ukraine war has also highlighted the importance of relations in the face of global power competition. China, while seeking to bolster its own power, must balance its relationship with the United States and simultaneously support Russia and North Korea in their confrontations with the West. China’s role is further complicated, Gangzheng She noted, by its evolving role in the Middle East. While Russia is reliant upon China, Gulf states have options. They consider China as a contributor or an alternative option to their interests and security but are unlikely to purposefully diminish their relationship with the United States. In essence, currently in the process of understanding its global role and is hedging its bets rather than adopting a definitive stance in the region. For example, while China actively participated in peace negotiations between Riyadh and Tehran, it maintained a more reserved posture to prevent further regional escalation, distinct from its 1950 North Korea war involvement.

II. Tensions and Cooperation Patterns in the East-Med
Over the past decade, new leadership has emerged in the Eastern Mediterranean as economic and political conditions have evolved, creating new patterns of tension and cooperation. The 2015 discovery of the Zohr gas field in Egypt’s Exclusive Economic Zone marked a new chapter in its economic ventures as well as its bilateral relations. The resources enabled Egypt to foster greater economic ties with Israel through liquefied natural gas (LNG) initiatives. According to Dalia Ziada, Egypt’s leadership role in the Eastern Mediterranean was not premeditated, rather it emerged organically from economic imperatives and national security considerations. Egypt’s newfound leadership did not go unopposed. It faced, what Ziada termed “Eastern Mediterranean momentum,” stemming from Turkey’s intervention in Libya. But this momentum is also what drew global attention to the region’s geostrategic significance, positioning Egypt as a key player.

Like with Egypt, the discovery of natural gas reserves in Israel’s Exclusive Economic Zone changed the scope of its interests. Natan Sachs pointed out that while there were obvious economic benefits from this discovery, especially considering the surge in gas prices caused by the war in Ukraine, it also created new concerns for regional dynamics. The natural gas reserves, for example, created security challenges as they could be a target of Hezbollah attacks on maritime facilities. Diplomatically, Israel is also in a tricky position. While the United States is a major ally of Israel, it must maintain relations with Moscow, given Russia’s presence in Syria. Sachs concluded that Israel must aim to maintain a pragmatic approach, striving to strike a balance between the United States and Russia while safeguarding its security interests.

Despite the prevalence of competition in the Eastern Mediterranean region, the past year has displayed signs of increased cooperation and adjustment to the economic powers of Egypt and Israel. Turkey’s unequivocal support for the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas strained regional relations, especially with Egypt and Israel. Consequently, Turkey saw an increased marginalization in the region, which Soner Cagaptay explained, led to a twofold response: military action in the Libyan civil war and improved diplomatic relations with Egypt and Israel. General Haftar of Libya’s eastern government sought to take control of Libya’s western capital city Tripoli. While Haftar had support from certain Emirati, Egyptian, Greek, and Russian factions, the United States and the West opposed this new offensive. Turkey’s military intervention, which prevented Haftar from succeeding, was met with praise from the West and allowed a favorable recalibration of Turkey’s position in the region.

Simultaneously, in an effort to end its regional isolation, Turkey sought to improve diplomatic relations with Egypt and Israel. Turkey hoped to align itself with what Cagaptay termed as the “new Middle Eastern quad” of Egypt, Israel, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. This diplomatic process required significant political concessions, most notably discontinuing public support for the Muslim Brotherhood, and consenting to a power-sharing arrangement in Libya. The agreement required Turkey to acknowledged Egypt’s sphere of influence in the East but preserved its own influence in the West. This realignment was marked by the meeting of President Erdogan and President Sisi for the first time in a decade. Turkey, at the time, had also begun pursuing stronger ties with Israel by encouraging robust economic cooperation, energy collaboration, and pipeline diplomacy.

III. The Role of North Africa in Regional and International Power Competition
North Africa has historically avoided great power competition between Russia, China, and the United States, but is now drawn in by the effects of the Ukraine war. While Russia’s interests in the MENA region have not changed, the means through which Russia exerts influence in North Africa have evolved. Jon B. Alterman emphasized how these means, such as the deployment of the Russian affiliated private military corporation Wagner Group, complicate the situation in the region, specifically in Libya and may impact Egyptian investments in Russia.

While Russia is playing an indirect but active role in North Africa, Alessia Melcangi noted the change in European policies and approaches toward the Mediterranean and North Africa. She observed a shift from active engagement to a more passive stance. This trend is especially prevalent among European countries and their former colonies. Melcangi contends that this transformation is a critical oversight. The diminishing role of Europe in the region creates a void for other actors to fill and could create a new front for great power competition.

Some trends suggest that North African countries will not be picking sides in this competition any time soon though. Intissar Fakir contended that Morocco and Algeria do not align with Russia or the West in their foreign policy interests. Rather, their decisions are influenced by regional factors such as the Western Sahara dispute and ties with Israel, rather than the war in Ukraine. The dynamics between North African countries are also determined by these regional factors. Morocco’s relationship with Israel, formalized December 2020 as a signatory to the Abraham Accords normalization treaty, has strained its ties with Algeria. The countries find themselves engaged in low-level military competition, largely focused on aerial defense. Morocco and Algeria benefit from maintaining diplomatic tension while avoiding active conflict, as a significant crisis could potentially destabilize the entire region.

Recommendations
Dr. Katz suggested that the United States should change its method of engagement in the region to acknowledge these governments are autonomous and resistant to external directives. To effectively engage with them, the United States must adopt a policy of non-interference when it comes to policy formation. Additionally, Dr. Katz urged the West to focus on practical, material assistance instead of the current emphasis on abstract principles relating to human rights and democratization. Providing reassurance, support during conflicts, and addressing concerns related to Iran’s influence are key factors in building closer alignment between the United States and MENA governments and producing favorable policy outcomes.

Cagaptay recommended that the United States acknowledge Turkey’s distinct geopolitical profile in the region, as its influence stretches from the Caucasus to the Persian Gulf to the broader Middle East. The ability to constructively engage with Turkey is essential to United States foreign policy interests across these intersecting regions. Turkey holds a unique and evolving role as a middle power and NATO member. The United States must recognize and utilize Turkey’s position in order to advance its interests and foster cooperation in the MENA region.

Sachs asserted that both Israel and Saudi Arabia serve as valuable regional allies to enhance American influence and partnerships in the Middle East. He also suggested that Israel should cooperate with Lebanon to protect its maritime border and critical assets. This strategic alignment would have implications that extend beyond the region, impacting global dynamics and U.S. interests in the context of great power competition.

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As the body ultimately with the most influence on prosperity, governments must ensure the correct balance of interventions to ensure citizens’ economic, political, and legal freedoms are upheld.  

The following essay will explore the nature of the particular balancing act that exists, and which must be maintained, between the economic and legal freedoms currently outlined by the Nigerian federal government, and the arguments that are to be made for either expanding upon or decreasing government intervention with regards to those freedoms so as to ultimately ensure the overall prosperity of the Nigerian public. To this end, this essay will be in two halves: The first, an assessment of the federal government’s approach to economic freedoms, with particular emphasis on the role of subsidies and subsidy reform in poverty reduction. The second half will address the central importance of order and security (the “legal freedoms” as identified by the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Indexes),¹ and the role they play in underpinning societal prosperity more broadly. 

At the time of writing (January 2023), a general election is looming large in Nigeria. Exactly a century after the nation’s first general election—albeit to a colonial legislative council—the public will return to the polls in February and March 2023 to elect a new president and national assembly, and state governors and state houses of assembly, respectively. Any election cycle brings with it an intense period of scrutiny and speculation as to how a new administration will seek to address the elusive balance. The issues at stake are significant: the past few years have seen the nation’s security situation deteriorate drastically,² with non-state armed actors and bandits continuously encroaching within the nation’s borders, threatening livelihoods and civil liberties. Economically, a country whose meteoric development once led to it being dubbed a “rising star” in West Africa has stagnated, leaving 80 million in poverty by 2020, up from 68 million just a decade before.³  

With broad prosperity amongst the Nigerian people clearly lacking, it would seem the balance between economic and legal freedoms in Nigeria, when viewed through the lens of government involvement and intervention, is in need of alteration. With a focus on the correlation and causality between economic freedom, security, and prosperity, the Nigerian government could engineer a return to past economic successes. 

Economic freedom and the state’s intervention 

The economic potential of this former “rising star” still exists—after all, Nigeria remains the continent’s largest economy. It is a question, in part, of redressing the elusive balance in order to release said potential. Though there are myriad ways in which this can be approached, from a private sector perspective, the government’s first step should be to reassess its relationship with its economic freedoms—and focus on the level of intervention the state is willing to forgo to create the space for economic growth, and therefore greater prosperity, in the medium to long term.  

At present, Nigeria is not alone in its cautious approach to free trade. Protectionist policies have increased on a global scale in recent years, and this trend is anticipated to continue as the war in Ukraine rages on. In Nigeria, the past two decades have seen import bans, tariffs, and foreign exchange restrictions slow the flow of goods into the country,⁴ culminating with the closure of its land borders to goods in 2019—a move that contrasted sharply with the nation’s outward push for wider West African market integration in the shape of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which Nigeria joined that same year. The government’s rationale for closing the borders was that it was an attempt to mitigate cross-border illicit trade, and to curb the smuggling of goods, the federal government wished to increase production of, particularly rice.⁵ World Bank analysis at the time found that the decision in fact contributed to higher inflation—particularly in relation to food items such as rice, despite the relatively low impact the policy had on agricultural output. By the following year, Nigerians were paying 100 percent more for the same goods basket, resulting in a negative impact on consumption.⁶ Though the reasoning for these protectionist policies may be sound, more often than not they represent a significant missed opportunity, since a more open approach to free trade has been shown to support poverty reduction. As Jonathan Lain and Jakob Engel note in their article on the World Bank’s 2022 report: A Better Future for All Nigerians: Nigeria Poverty Assessment 2022, the ripple effects of open trade in the shape of increased investment, and knowledge and technology transfer (as well as the crucial competition it brings), all serve to boost job creation, raise domestic value added, and finally reduce the price of goods available to the Nigerian public. In short, by removing trade barriers rather than creating new ones, the government would be reducing poverty levels in Nigeria.⁷

Indeed, data aggregated in May 2022 by the World Bank’s Household Impacts of Tariffs (HIT) analysis (which accounts for both the value of what households produce as well as what they consume) indicates that, were trade fully liberalized in Nigeria, household income would increase by an average of 3.8 percent, whilst simultaneously seeing a reduction in the share of people living in poverty by 2.3 percent. More specifically, the HIT data suggests average incomes would be set to increase across all states, with the sole exception of Cross River, whilst poverty was predicted to increase in just four of the thirty-six states—Benue, Cross River, Edo, and Ondo. Liberalization would have a mitigable negative impact on some vulnerable Nigerians in those four states, in part due to the mix of income-generating activities that are prevalent in those regions. Lain and Engel argue that mitigation of these potential risk factors could take a variety of forms: In the short term, it could entail social protection schemes from the government to support those whose well-being is at risk. In the medium to long term, deeper reforms, in part aided by the act of liberalization itself, could include the improvement of infrastructure, which, if coupled with an increase in private investment from abroad, would result in significant and much needed domestic job creation.⁸

Another policy emblematic of the government’s stranglehold on economic freedoms is the enduring presence of a range of subsidies whose existence is widely recognized as inhibitive to overall prosperity. Nowhere is this clearer than in the state’s approach to fuel subsidies. Though the rationale for this historic subsidy is to allow its citizens to benefit from the fact that it is an oil-producing nation, the benefits are widely argued to be hugely outweighed by the drain it places on the federal government’s financial reserves, a drain that only intensifies in times of economic volatility—the likes of which we are currently experiencing due to the on-going war in Ukraine. Furthermore, it is widely acknowledged that these subsidies do little to benefit poorer households due to their already low consumption expenditure. According to World Bank estimates, the nominal cost of the petrol subsidy reached a staggering 1.43 trillion naira in 2021, amounting to approximately 0.8 percent of GDP—double the government’s spending for that year on health and social protections combined.⁹  

At present, the government is on course to spend an estimated 3.36 trillion naira until mid-2023, when the subsidy is due to end.¹⁰ Since as long ago as 1982, several governments have attempted—unsuccessfully—to reform subsidies. The repeated failures illustrate the scale and complexity of the challenge of subsidy reform. However, Jun Erik Rentschler of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies is among those who have argued that, in other countries, past reforms of similar subsidization policies suggest a successful change is possible, if approached adroitly. He suggests that if 100 percent of existing subsidies were removed, and the funds reallocated via direct cash transfers to the poor, there would be an instant and significant reduction in poverty levels.¹¹  

Though any sweeping generalizations should be made with caution, the above exercise does make for a compelling argument for subsidy removal and redistribution of revenue for improvement of both short-and long-term prosperity through poverty reduction. Overall, when one considers this in tandem with the possibilities that a broadening of economic freedoms via the liberalization of trade could bring, the opportunities for a tangible improvement to national prosperity (when assessed in terms of household income particularly) are compelling.  

Legal freedom and the state’s intervention  

Within the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes’ definition of legal freedoms sit two crucial measures: those of order and security, which “evaluate the ability of the state to protect citizens from harm.”¹² An absence of these factors in any society makes for perhaps the most immediate indicator of a lack of prosperity with regards to more tangible short-term factors such as health, education, general rights, or indeed citizen happiness. However, for the purposes of this essay, we will emphasize the correlation between order and security on one hand, and income as a measure of prosperity on the other. Though the previous section argued for an increase in economic freedoms through liberalization of trade, there is an argument to be made for an intensified government approach with regards to security and order. Namely, sparing nothing to engage more decisively with the issues of security and order—and to ensure the legal freedoms of the Nigerian people—are fundamental means to ensure greater economic prosperity. 

This is perhaps best illustrated in the case of the Boko Haram insurgency in the north of the country, which has had a marked impact on the region’s agricultural sector for well over a decade. The group has been known to levy taxes on farms and on the sale of agricultural products in the regions it takes over,¹³ and its presence has also been shown to lead to a “sharp decline in agricultural production, as farmers suffer the consequences of a destruction of assets, lost access to farm inputs, and in some cases faced total displacement.” According to a report by the World Bank, between 2010 and 2015 the northeast region suffered an accumulated output loss of US$8.3 billion.¹⁴ As is to be expected, the loss of work and severe reduction in agricultural output due to sustained attacks in the region have a significant impact on the cost of food for average households. This, in turn, leads to inflation and subsequently a reduction in people’s incomes, ultimately leading to a reduction in overall prosperity. 

In the longer term, these perennial security challenges and the difficult economic conditions they entail lead to a more pervasive impact on prosperity in the form of the so called “brain drain,” as skilled Nigerians seek to leave the country in search of both security and financial reward. As Adebisi Adenipekun rightly observes in his article on the brain drain phenomenon: “The push factor in Nigeria transcends the challenges with the healthcare system. . . . Healthcare providers and their families are not immune to the impact of inflation, increased rates of banditry, and kidnapping experienced in the country.”¹⁵ With those able to leave doing so in droves (between 2021 and 2022 alone, the United Kingdom received 13,609 healthcare workers from Nigeria¹⁶) and those who choose to stay suffering from a significant impact on their economic well-being, there is little doubt that a redress of the security and order balance in Nigeria is a priority for its government.  

However, significant funding gaps have emerged in Nigeria’s security forces over the past two decades, inhibiting any improvements. In 2022, Nigeria’s budget for military defence expenditure was about 1.19 trillion naira ($2.87 billion), amounting to 0.6 percent of GDP.¹⁷ That same year, spending on fuel subsidies across the country amounted to about 4.4 trillion naira ($10 billion), measuring 2.20 percent of GDP.¹⁸ At present, Nigeria has one of the lowest military-to-population ratios in the world, the Nigerian military stands at 223,000 with a military personnel per 1,000 capita of 1.14. In contrast, the United States military stands at 2.13 million with a military personnel per capita of 6.5, China has 4.02 million personnel with 2.9 per capita, Egypt has 1.3 million personnel with 13.21 per capita and Indonesia has 1.1 million personnel with 4.11 per capita.¹⁹ These figures highlight the significant disparity in the availability of the military personnel between Nigeria and these countries in comparison to their population sizes. With increased security threats posed by insurgencies in the northeast, conflict between herders and farming communities in the northwest, and the high levels of recurrent abductions and banditry across the nation, this force requires commensurate funding in order to guarantee order and security for the Nigerian public. 

Both the more tangible threats to physical safety, and longer-term issues such as food insecurity and mass migration that are in part a direct result of these threats, lead to the following conclusion: a reevaluation and ultimate strengthening of government’s role in the shaping of the nation’s legal freedoms—with particular reference to order and security—is needed to ensure prosperity in both the immediate and long term. Ultimately, hypotheticals surrounding the liberalization of trade or the removal of subsidies prove aimless if they fail to take into account the fact that they are underpinned by security needs that must also be met. 

Conclusion 

As a businessperson, one may enjoy the freedom of hypothesizing from the sidelines, and perhaps indulging in a degree of blue-sky thinking, that is not enjoyed by those in government. In exploring these two indicators of prosperity—economic and legal freedoms—in the context of an excess or lack of government intervention, the equation that emerges is one of significant potential surplus with regards to the former, with a marked level of need in the latter. How then would this equation look were government to liberalize trade, remove subsidies, and redirect funding to nurture other freedoms, such as security and order? Could this, perhaps, be a step toward solving the elusive equation of true, sustained prosperity? One thing, however, is left in no doubt: Nigeria boasts immeasurable potential, and with its abundant natural resources and a young, growing population, its star has the potential to rise once again. 

Danladi Verheijen is CEO of Verod Capital, a leading West African private equity firm.

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I was in Marrakech, Morocco, walking with my 89-year-old mother, when the earthquake struck Haouz last Friday. After the earth shook, my mother couldn’t stop shaking. I gently carried her out of the family home, which may no longer be the refuge that it once was only seconds earlier. 

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