If Americans are studying Africa, Africa needs to study America for a balanced engagement across public policy, civil society, corporate sector and at personal levels, writes Amukelani Charmaine Matsilele. American studies have been undertaken in other parts of the world but not in Africa. This is so much so that American studies is conflated with US…
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INTRODUCTION: With the global rise of the digital economy, Africa has become a playground for the US and China, respectively the first and second largest economies in the world by GDP. Over the past couple of years, the global competition between the two powers has played out on the African continent. In recent years, this…
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Africa-US City Networking Forum and Academic Symposum 13-14 April 2021 & 20 April 2021 Introduction This concept note is for the convening of an Africa-US city networking forum and an academic symposium in April 2021. These activities will proceed as follows: • The networking forum will be held virtually 13-14 April bringing together multiple representatives…
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For decades, there has been a focused interest in the study of Africa by American universities through academic centres, programs and think tanks. There are currently over 40 institutions in US universities that study Africa. Their focus and areas of study are varied, ranging from foreign policy to cultural issues. This penetrative gaze on Africa…
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Introduction This concept note lays out initial thoughts and proposals for a new project on Africa-US-China engagements in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector. It focuses on the competition between the US and China in Africa’s digital sphere while also infusing African responses to the said competition. This initiative devolves from the global rise…
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The comprehensive victory of the Democratic Party in the United States November 2020 elections is the best outcome that South Africa and Africa could have hoped for…. The Democratic Party is an old opponent of apartheid, from as far back as the Kennedy administration 60 years ago. In 1986 the Democratic Party marshalled the Republican…
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Since the first impeachment of US President Donald Trump in late 2019, developments in American politics have riveted African audiences on an unparalleled scale. Although the US Senate acquitted Trump in early 2020, the subsequent electioneering period alongside the ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic sustained Africa’s year-long interest in the high drama that unfolded in…
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The speakers were: Amini Kajunju, Executive Director of the International University of Grand Bassam (IUGB) Foundation; Dr Philani Mthembu, Executive Director at the Institute for Global Dialogue; Arsène Brice Bado, PhD, Vice-President for Academic Affairs at CERAP/Université Jésuite in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire; Dr Bob Wekesa, Partnerships, Research and Communications Co-ordinator at the African Centre for the Study of the…
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The Covid-19 pandemic has provoked multiple geostrategic uncertainties among nations and regions and schisms in various levels of global governance. Faced with the growing unpredictability of these developments, analysts are hard put as they gaze into the crystal ball to figure out global geopolitical trends and prospects in the coming months, let alone years. It…
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Diplomacy practised by Information and Communication Technology (ICT) platforms and capabilities has grown exponentially over the short duration of the COVID-19 pandemic. In part, this is because digital technologies were already rising in importance as avenues for the conduct of foreign policy work. This series was devised with the aim of making an African conceptual-cum-empirical…
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