16 September 2020

17 September 2020

30 September 2020

Viral infection is one environmental factor that may contribute to the initiation of pancreatic β-cell destruction during the development of autoimmune diabetes. Picornaviruses, such as encephalomyocarditis virus (EMCV), induce a pro-inflammatory response in islets leading to local production of cytokines, such as IL-1, by resident islet leukocytes. Furthermore, IL-1 is known to stimulate β-cell expression of iNOS and production of the free radical nitric oxide. The purpose of this study was to determine whether nitric oxide contributes to the β-cell response to viral infection. We show that nitric oxide protects β-cells against virally mediated lysis by limiting EMCV replication. This protection requires low micromolar, or iNOS-derived, levels of nitric oxide. At these concentrations nitric oxide inhibits the Krebs enzyme aconitase and complex IV of the electron transport chain. Like nitric oxide, pharmacological inhibition of mitochondrial oxidative metabolism attenuates EMCV-mediated β-cell lysis by inhibiting viral replication. These findings provide novel evidence that cytokine signaling in β-cells functions to limit viral replication and subsequent β-cell lysis by attenuating mitochondrial oxidative metabolism in a nitric oxide–dependent manner.

In addition to their well-known role in the control of cellular proliferation and cancer, cell cycle regulators are increasingly identified as important metabolic modulators. Several GWAS have identified SNPs near CDKN2A, the locus encoding for p16INK4a (p16), associated with elevated risk for cardiovascular diseases and type-2 diabetes development, two pathologies associated with impaired hepatic lipid metabolism. Although p16 was recently shown to control hepatic glucose homeostasis, it is unknown whether p16 also controls hepatic lipid metabolism. Using a combination of in vivo and in vitro approaches, we found that p16 modulates fasting-induced hepatic fatty acid oxidation (FAO) and lipid droplet accumulation. In primary hepatocytes, p16-deficiency was associated with elevated expression of genes involved in fatty acid catabolism. These transcriptional changes led to increased FAO and were associated with enhanced activation of PPARα through a mechanism requiring the catalytic AMPKα2 subunit and SIRT1, two known activators of PPARα. By contrast, p16 overexpression was associated with triglyceride accumulation and increased lipid droplet numbers in vitro, and decreased ketogenesis and hepatic mitochondrial activity in vivo. Finally, gene expression analysis of liver samples from obese patients revealed a negative correlation between CDKN2A expression and PPARA and its target genes. Our findings demonstrate that p16 represses hepatic lipid catabolism during fasting and may thus participate in the preservation of metabolic flexibility.

Cellular energy demands are met by uptake and metabolism of nutrients like glucose. The principal transcriptional regulator for adapting glycolytic flux and downstream pathways like de novo lipogenesis to glucose availability in many cell types is carbohydrate response element–binding protein (ChREBP). ChREBP is activated by glucose metabolites and post-translational modifications, inducing nuclear accumulation and regulation of target genes. Here we report that ChREBP is modified by proline hydroxylation at several residues. Proline hydroxylation targets both ectopically expressed ChREBP in cells and endogenous ChREBP in mouse liver. Functionally, we found that specific hydroxylated prolines were dispensable for protein stability but required for the adequate activation of ChREBP upon exposure to high glucose. Accordingly, ChREBP target gene expression was rescued by re-expressing WT but not ChREBP that lacks hydroxylated prolines in ChREBP-deleted hepatocytes. Thus, proline hydroxylation of ChREBP is a novel post-translational modification that may allow for therapeutic interference in metabolic diseases.

The synthesis of cholesterol requires more than 20 enzymes, many of which are intricately regulated. Post-translational control of these enzymes provides a rapid means for modifying flux through the pathway. So far, several enzymes have been shown to be rapidly degraded through the ubiquitin–proteasome pathway in response to cholesterol and other sterol intermediates. Additionally, several enzymes have their activity altered through phosphorylation mechanisms. Most work has focused on the two rate-limiting enzymes: 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl CoA reductase and squalene monooxygenase. Here, we review current literature in the area to define some common themes in the regulation of the entire cholesterol synthesis pathway. We highlight the rich variety of inputs controlling each enzyme, discuss the interplay that exists between regulatory mechanisms, and summarize findings that reveal an intricately coordinated network of regulation along the cholesterol synthesis pathway. We provide a roadmap for future research into the post-translational control of cholesterol synthesis, and no doubt the road ahead will reveal further twists and turns for this fascinating pathway crucial for human health and disease.

The development of a chronic, low-grade inflammation originating from adipose tissue in obese subjects is widely recognized to induce insulin resistance, leading to the development of type 2 diabetes. The adipose tissue microenvironment drives specific metabolic reprogramming of adipose tissue macrophages, contributing to the induction of tissue inflammation. Uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2), a mitochondrial anion carrier, is thought to separately modulate inflammatory and metabolic processes in macrophages and is up-regulated in macrophages in the context of obesity and diabetes. Here, we investigate the role of UCP2 in macrophage activation in the context of obesity-induced adipose tissue inflammation and insulin resistance. Using a myeloid-specific knockout of UCP2 (Ucp2ΔLysM), we found that UCP2 deficiency significantly increases glycolysis and oxidative respiration, both unstimulated and after inflammatory conditions. Strikingly, fatty acid loading abolished the metabolic differences between Ucp2ΔLysM macrophages and their floxed controls. Furthermore, Ucp2ΔLysM macrophages show attenuated pro-inflammatory responses toward Toll-like receptor-2 and -4 stimulation. To test the relevance of macrophage-specific Ucp2 deletion in vivo, Ucp2ΔLysM and Ucp2fl/fl mice were rendered obese and insulin resistant through high-fat feeding. Although no differences in adipose tissue inflammation or insulin resistance was found between the two genotypes, adipose tissue macrophages isolated from diet-induced obese Ucp2ΔLysM mice showed decreased TNFα secretion after ex vivo lipopolysaccharide stimulation compared with their Ucp2fl/fl littermates. Together, these results demonstrate that although UCP2 regulates both metabolism and the inflammatory response of macrophages, its activity is not crucial in shaping macrophage activation in the adipose tissue during obesity-induced insulin resistance.

Cancer cachexia is characterized by reductions in peripheral lean muscle mass. Prior studies have primarily focused on increased protein breakdown as the driver of cancer-associated muscle wasting. Therapeutic interventions targeting catabolic pathways have, however, largely failed to preserve muscle mass in cachexia, suggesting that other mechanisms might be involved. In pursuit of novel pathways, we used untargeted metabolomics to search for metabolite signatures that may be linked with muscle atrophy. We injected 7-week–old C57/BL6 mice with LLC1 tumor cells or vehicle. After 21 days, tumor-bearing mice exhibited reduced body and muscle mass and impaired grip strength compared with controls, which was accompanied by lower synthesis rates of mixed muscle protein and the myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic muscle fractions. Reductions in protein synthesis were accompanied by mitochondrial enlargement and reduced coupling efficiency in tumor-bearing mice. To generate mechanistic insights into impaired protein synthesis, we performed untargeted metabolomic analyses of plasma and muscle and found increased concentrations of two methylarginines, asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) and NG-monomethyl-l-arginine, in tumor-bearing mice compared with control mice. Compared with healthy controls, human cancer patients were also found to have higher levels of ADMA in the skeletal muscle. Treatment of C2C12 myotubes with ADMA impaired protein synthesis and reduced mitochondrial protein quality. These results suggest that increased levels of ADMA and mitochondrial changes may contribute to impaired muscle protein synthesis in cancer cachexia and could point to novel therapeutic targets by which to mitigate cancer cachexia.

Methionine, through S-adenosylmethionine, activates a multifaceted growth program in which ribosome biogenesis, carbon metabolism, and amino acid and nucleotide biosynthesis are induced. This growth program requires the activity of the Gcn4 transcription factor (called ATF4 in mammals), which facilitates the supply of metabolic precursors that are essential for anabolism. However, how Gcn4 itself is regulated in the presence of methionine is unknown. Here, we discover that Gcn4 protein levels are increased by methionine, despite conditions of high cell growth and translation (in which the roles of Gcn4 are not well-studied). We demonstrate that this mechanism of Gcn4 induction is independent of transcription, as well as the conventional Gcn2/eIF2α-mediated increased translation of Gcn4. Instead, when methionine is abundant, Gcn4 phosphorylation is decreased, which reduces its ubiquitination and therefore degradation. Gcn4 is dephosphorylated by the protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A); our data show that when methionine is abundant, the conserved methyltransferase Ppm1 methylates and alters the activity of the catalytic subunit of PP2A, shifting the balance of Gcn4 toward a dephosphorylated, stable state. The absence of Ppm1 or the loss of the PP2A methylation destabilizes Gcn4 even when methionine is abundant, leading to collapse of the Gcn4-dependent anabolic program. These findings reveal a novel, methionine-dependent signaling and regulatory axis. Here methionine directs the conserved methyltransferase Ppm1 via its target phosphatase PP2A to selectively stabilize Gcn4. Through this, cells conditionally modify a major phosphatase to stabilize a metabolic master regulator and drive anabolism.

Oxygen regulates hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) transcription factors to control cell metabolism, erythrogenesis, and angiogenesis. Whereas much has been elucidated about how oxygen regulates HIF, whether lipids affect HIF activity is un-known. Here, using cultured cells and two animal models, we demonstrate that lipoprotein-derived fatty acids are an independent regulator of HIF. Decreasing extracellular lipid supply inhibited HIF prolyl hydroxylation, leading to accumulation of the HIFα subunit of these heterodimeric transcription factors comparable with hypoxia with activation of downstream target genes. The addition of fatty acids to culture medium suppressed this signal, which required an intact mitochondrial respiratory chain. Mechanistically, fatty acids and oxygen are distinct signals integrated to control HIF activity. Finally, we observed lipid signaling to HIF and changes in target gene expression in developing zebrafish and adult mice, and this pathway operates in cancer cells from a range of tissues. This study identifies fatty acids as a physiological modulator of HIF, defining a mechanism for lipoprotein regulation that functions in parallel to oxygen.

Peptidoglycan (PG) is an essential constituent of the bacterial cell wall. During cell division, the machinery responsible for PG synthesis localizes mid-cell, at the septum, under the control of a multiprotein complex called the divisome. In Escherichia coli, septal PG synthesis and cell constriction rely on the accumulation of FtsN at the division site. Interestingly, a short sequence of FtsN (Leu75–Gln93, known as EFtsN) was shown to be essential and sufficient for its functioning in vivo, but what exactly this sequence is doing remained unknown. Here, we show that EFtsN binds specifically to the major PG synthase PBP1b and is sufficient to stimulate its biosynthetic glycosyltransferase (GTase) activity. We also report the crystal structure of PBP1b in complex with EFtsN, which demonstrates that EFtsN binds at the junction between the GTase and UB2H domains of PBP1b. Interestingly, mutations to two residues (R141A/R397A) within the EFtsN-binding pocket reduced the activation of PBP1b by FtsN but not by the lipoprotein LpoB. This mutant was unable to rescue the ΔponB-ponAts strain, which lacks PBP1b and has a thermosensitive PBP1a, at nonpermissive temperature and induced a mild cell-chaining phenotype and cell lysis. Altogether, the results show that EFtsN interacts with PBP1b and that this interaction plays a role in the activation of its GTase activity by FtsN, which may contribute to the overall septal PG synthesis and regulation during cell division.

Environmental factors, such as viral infection, are proposed to play a role in the initiation of autoimmune diabetes. In response to encephalomyocarditis virus (EMCV) infection, resident islet macrophages release the pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-1β, to levels that are sufficient to stimulate inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) expression and production of micromolar levels of the free radical nitric oxide in neighboring β-cells. We have recently shown that nitric oxide inhibits EMCV replication and EMCV-mediated β-cell lysis and that this protection is associated with an inhibition of mitochondrial oxidative metabolism. Here we show that the protective actions of nitric oxide against EMCV infection are selective for β-cells and associated with the metabolic coupling of glycolysis and mitochondrial oxidation that is necessary for insulin secretion. Inhibitors of mitochondrial respiration attenuate EMCV replication in β-cells, and this inhibition is associated with a decrease in ATP levels. In mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs), inhibition of mitochondrial metabolism does not modify EMCV replication or decrease ATP levels. Like most cell types, MEFs have the capacity to uncouple the glycolytic utilization of glucose from mitochondrial respiration, allowing for the maintenance of ATP levels under conditions of impaired mitochondrial respiration. It is only when MEFs are forced to use mitochondrial oxidative metabolism for ATP generation that mitochondrial inhibitors attenuate viral replication. In a β-cell selective manner, these findings indicate that nitric oxide targets the same metabolic pathways necessary for glucose stimulated insulin secretion for protection from viral lysis.

Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) superfamily members covalently link either a single ADP-ribose (ADPR) or a chain of ADPR units to proteins using NAD as the source of ADPR. Although the well-known poly(ADP-ribosylating) (PARylating) PARPs primarily function in the DNA damage response, many noncanonical mono(ADP-ribosylating) (MARylating) PARPs are associated with cellular antiviral responses. We recently demonstrated robust up-regulation of several PARPs following infection with murine hepatitis virus (MHV), a model coronavirus. Here we show that SARS-CoV-2 infection strikingly up-regulates MARylating PARPs and induces the expression of genes encoding enzymes for salvage NAD synthesis from nicotinamide (NAM) and nicotinamide riboside (NR), while down-regulating other NAD biosynthetic pathways. We show that overexpression of PARP10 is sufficient to depress cellular NAD and that the activities of the transcriptionally induced enzymes PARP7, PARP10, PARP12 and PARP14 are limited by cellular NAD and can be enhanced by pharmacological activation of NAD synthesis. We further demonstrate that infection with MHV induces a severe attack on host cell NAD+ and NADP+. Finally, we show that NAMPT activation, NAM, and NR dramatically decrease the replication of an MHV that is sensitive to PARP activity. These data suggest that the antiviral activities of noncanonical PARP isozyme activities are limited by the availability of NAD and that nutritional and pharmacological interventions to enhance NAD levels may boost innate immunity to coronaviruses.

Africa Aware: Relations between Ethiopia and Sudan Audio bhorton.drupal 9 April 2022

This episode of Africa Aware examines the relationship between Ethiopia and Sudan.

Ahmed Soliman provides an overview of the Africa Programme’s work on cross-border conflict as part of the XCEPT project.

First, we speak to Kholood Khair on the steady deterioration in relations between Sudan and Ethiopia. Then Abel Abate Demissie discusses how recent political developments in Ethiopia and Sudan have impacted relations between the two countries.

This podcast was produced with support from the Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) project, funded by UK Aid from the UK government. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the UK government’s official policies.

It is also part of a series of outputs on Ethiopia’s political transition.

Priorities for implementing Ethiopia's national dialogue 11 May 2022 — 1:00PM TO 3:00PM Anonymous (not verified) 3 May 2022 Online

Experts discuss challenges and priorities in shaping an inclusive and effective national dialogue in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia is grappling with numerous contentious national issues – not least persistent conflict in several parts of the country – which underscore the need for large-scale dialogue and reconciliation efforts to address the country’s deep-rooted societal and political divisions. Ethiopia’s newly established National Dialogue Commission – whose 11 commissioners were appointed in February 2022 – has begun a four-phased process of preparations for a dialogue, with its initial stage focused on stakeholder engagement and local knowledge mobilization.

There are major challenges, however, in ensuring inclusivity amidst ongoing conflict and questions on how a country-wide process will sit alongside local dialogue initiatives and wider mediation and peacebuilding efforts. Linking the process to constitutional bodies will also be an important priority to ensure dialogue outcomes are effectively implemented.

At this public event, panellists will exchange perspectives on how to shape an effective national dialogue in Ethiopia, including priorities for building a credible National Dialogue Commission and the roles and responsibilities of other national, regional and local-level actors. They will also discuss key implementation mechanisms and long-term priorities for trust-building and cultivating a conducive environment for inclusive dialogue.

This webinar is part of a series of events and outputs on Ethiopia’s political transition.

This event will also be broadcast live on the Chatham House Africa Programme’s Facebook page.

Towards just transition in Africa: Green financing for urban energy solutions and job creation 9 June 2022 — 7:30AM TO 11:00AM Anonymous (not verified) 18 May 2022 Nairobi and online

This event explores the major openings and potential impediments to the development of a just transition policy in Africa.

Global climate policies towards a ‘just transition’ under the Paris Agreement should also align with and support African states’ national sustainable development priorities. In particular, the need for decent and fair job creation and the establishment of sufficient, resilient and sustainable power supply, accessible to all, and efficient energy use.

Achieving green growth requires innovative and more accessible financing models, especially as wealthy nations’ financial pledges have fallen short. Ahead of the ‘African COP27’ set to take place in Egypt in November 2022, there is a need for transformational strategic thinking and context-specific action from African governments, civil society, businesses and financiers in their green financing demands and national implementation plans.

Sustainable urban energy solutions represent a critical zone of opportunity for the development of new and more reliable green finance pathways. Africa’s rapidly expanding cities present a significant economic opportunity and source of growth. However, urban centres are also where income and energy inequalities are at their starkest. The acceleration of sustainable energy generation and use could have a transformative impact on SMEs and livelihoods across value chains.

At this event, participants will discuss the major openings and potential impediments to the development of a credible ‘just transition’ policy in Africa towards net zero goals, with a particular focus on establishing and enhancing links between green financing innovation, employment creation, sustainable power supply and generation, and sustainable energy usage and consumption in an urban environment.

This event is held in partnership with the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA). It is part of a series on Towards Just Transition: Connecting Green Financing and Sustainable Job Creation in Africa, supported by the Chatham House Sustainability Accelerator.

This event will be held in English and French with simultaneous interpretation.

Climate migration: Ways ahead from the next generation The World Today rsoppelsa.drupal 25 May 2022

Ella Dennis and Mike Higgins talk to young activists seeking solutions as global warming wreaks havoc in sub-Saharan Africa

Africa has the lowest carbon emissions per capita yet the highest rate of temperature increase in the world. Rising levels of desertification, drought and flooding are already forcing millions of Africans to relocate to find more stable livelihoods. 

The continent’s youth will bear the brunt of this climate migration problem. It is estimated that by 2050, Africa will be home to 86 million internal climate migrants.

How is climate migration already affecting sub-Saharan Africa and what frameworks could tackle it? To begin to answer those questions, five young activists from across the region, who are members of Chatham House’s Common Futures Conversations, took part in a panel discussion at the world’s first youth-led Conference on Climate Migration, convened in April by the Alliance for Citizen Engagement, a nonpartisan think tank based in the US. 

The conversation and follow-up discussions focused on a common problem – climate migration brings people into conflict and puts pressure on infrastructure. 

In Kenya, droughts have left 3.5 million people hungry and the chronic flooding of several lakes in the Rift Valley has displaced hundreds of thousands, said Gerald Muchiri, 29, a social scientist from Kenya. One result has been outbreaks of violence between pastoralists such as the Orma people and the farmers of the Pokomo community, said Laura Mukhwana, 33, a PhD student in Kenya. She believes this violence is likely to worsen. ‘Inter-group conflicts will pose even larger security concerns for surrounding communities as climate migration intensifies,’ she said.

Suleman Nuhu, 24, a farmer and veterinary student from Nigeria, said farmer-herder conflicts were his country’s most significant climate-migration issue. The movement of nomadic tribes from the north had affected him personally: ‘Nomads have trespassed on [my family’s] farms many times while moving with their livestock, destroying our crops.’ 

Changes in climate also force people to move from rural to urban areas. Nigeria, for instance, struggles with the so-called ‘Lagos problem’, said Temiloluwa Lawal, 25, a lawyer and researcher from Nigeria. An estimated 22 million people, a number that is rising fast, are crammed into a city smaller than Greater London. While not on the same scale, Zimbabwe experiences comparable challenges, said Tinotenda Dube, 29, a Zimbabwean finance director. Thanks to drought, unemployed rural migrants arriving in cities ‘put excessive pressure on service delivery against a low tax base,’ he said. ‘People, including close family members of mine, are crowded in dilapidated homes because they cannot afford to pay rent for decent housing.’ 

But there is hope, say the activists. Dube believes that affordable housing is an ‘integral component of [tackling] the climate migration crisis’. 

In Zimbabwe, he has developed a low-cost home finance model that, he said, has helped more than 250 low-income households find good-quality accommodation. Alongside this initiative, Dube has co-founded a property and construction company, Solinfra Zimbabwe Private Ltd, to provide low-cost housing. 

Muchiri is taking action in Kenya, founding an NGO called Social Assistance Welfare to tackle public health issues, he said: ‘As climate migration becomes more intense, I expect preventable health issues to increase throughout the region, and thus see Social Assistance Welfare as an important mitigation.’

In Nigeria, Nuhu noted that to help reduce conflict between farmers and herders social-media campaigns are encouraging pastoralists to move from nomadic livestock farming to more efficient intensive systems, using ranching and grazing reserves. ‘As for food security problems, the best mitigation is to reduce reliance on rain-fed agriculture through irrigation schemes,’ he said. 

All five agreed that, in their experience, the youth of sub-Saharan Africa could be better informed about climate migration. But they took encouragement from the fact the young are passionate about tackling issues arising from the broader climate crisis. 

In Kenya, Mukhwana pointed to successful youth projects around agro-forestry and tree-planting. She added that there is ‘a growing movement of urban youth who are advocating for climate justice, such as the Kenyan Youth Environmental Network and Fridays for the Future Kenya’. It was pleasing too, she said, that when the Kenyan government revised its contributions to the Paris Climate Accords it staged a week-long youth conference to include their opinions.

‘Overall, I am quite hopeful about how the youth are mobilizing themselves in Kenya,’ she added.

Find out more about Chatham House’s Common Futures Conversations
 

What will authorizing the return of US troops mean for Somalia? Explainer Video aboudiaf.drupal 17 June 2022

Ahmed Soliman examines what the reintroduction of US military means for Somalia.

He says the strategy remains to try and reduce al-Shabaab’s threat, suppress its ability to carry out operations, and target its senior leadership.

There is more of a recognition now that the focus needs to be on restoring an effective security sector within Somalia and ensuring their forces are ready, but this also requires better coordination between the federal government and federal member states which it is hoped will happen in this new administration.

What challenges does the new president of Somalia face? Explainer Video aboudiaf.drupal 28 June 2022

Ahmed Soliman examines the challenges the new president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud faces in his first 100 days as president.

Key issues for the new administration are a deteriorating situation with regards to drought as close to half the population are facing food insecurity due to a fourth failed rainy season.

Combined with an inflation rate above ten per cent, many Somalis are at risk of famine and starvation. Many areas of the country are affected from the pastoralist regions to those which house IDP camps around the capital city and other towns, all being exacerbated by the war in Ukraine as Somalia was importing much of its wheat imports from Ukraine and Russia.

Towards just transition in Africa: Green financing for nature-based solutions and rural resilience 21 July 2022 — 9:30AM TO 1:00PM Anonymous (not verified) 30 June 2022 Libreville and online

This hybrid event in Libreville explores just transition policy and green financing for nature-based solutions, with a particular focus on the integration of job creation priorities in conservation and rural resilience.

Global climate policies towards a ‘just transition’ under the Paris Agreement should align with and support African states’ national sustainable development priorities – in particular, the need for decent and fair job creation, as well as resilient and sustainable land, environment, and ecosystem management policies.

Achieving green growth requires innovative and more accessible financing models, especially as wealthy nations’ financial pledges have fallen short. Ahead of the ‘African COP27’ set to take place in Egypt in November 2022, there is a need for transformational strategic thinking and context-specific action from African governments, civil society, businesses and financiers, in their green financing demands and national implementation plans.

Preservation of biodiversity and nature is not only critical in the global fight against climate change but is also vital for conservation-based economic development. Natural capital stocks, such as terrestrial and marine ecosystems and biodiversity, produce benefits that support societal and individual well-being and economic prosperity, such as clean air, fresh water, regulation of water flows and pollination of crops – while also acting as important carbon sinks. Financing environmental protection must go beyond compensation and contribute to creating fair social and economic conditions for incentivizing conservation.

At this hybrid event in Libreville, participants will discuss green financing for nature-based solutions, particularly the integration of plans for job creation in conservation and rural resilience within just transition planning.

This event is part of a series on Towards Just Transition: Connecting Green Financing and Sustainable Job Creation in Africa, supported by the Chatham House Sustainability Accelerator.

This event will be held in French and English with simultaneous interpretation.

This event will also be broadcast live on the Chatham House Africa Programme’s Facebook page.

COP27: Navigating a difficult road to Sharm El-Sheikh Expert comment NCapeling 6 July 2022

Against a backdrop of rising urgency, COP27 in Egypt will bring all aspects of climate action into the spotlight – but especially the role of the host country.

As COP26 drew to a close in Glasgow, Egyptian officials announced their priorities for COP27, emphasizing climate finance and climate adaptation – a new approach given previous COPs mainly focused on mitigation, reducing emissions to limit climate damage.

This was followed by the COP27 presidency outlining its vision at MENA Climate Week 2022 to achieve ‘substantive and equal progress’ on all aspects of the negotiations, and Egypt emphasizing its intention to focus on implementing existing carbon reduction targets rather than pushing for further carbon cuts.

Egypt argues it is hosting COP27 on behalf of African nations and that, while it is promoting the interests of the developing world, it will be an impartial arbiter. However it is also useful to consider its priorities from the Egyptian government’s perspective.

Agenda drivers

Egypt has long prioritized climate finance and adaptation because it remains in need of technical and financial support to adapt, especially in agriculture and tourism.

It plans to expand its access to climate funding and investment, an area in which Egypt has been relatively successful as it currently receives 27 per cent of all multilateral climate finance in the MENA region and has issued the region’s first sovereign green bonds.

With public debt currently 94 per cent of GDP, Egyptian officials have also called for debt relief for Egypt and other developing countries.

Egypt’s Climate Change Strategy reflects this approach, aiming to enhance Egypt’s rank on the Climate Change Performance Index in order to ‘attract more investments and acquire more climate funding’.

Limiting the mitigation scope and the focus on finance also echoes Egypt’s own reluctance to make carbon reduction commitments. The Egyptian nationally determined contribution (NDC) – its 2030 pledge under the Paris Agreement – does not include any quantifiable emission reduction targets.

Egypt is one of only a few countries which failed to submit an updated NDC in 2021 and its upcoming update will not include an economy-wide carbon reduction target.

Egypt has also never published a long-term strategy and has no decarbonization plans despite independent estimates it should cut rising emissions by one-quarter by 2030, and by two-thirds by 2050 to be aligned with the Paris Agreement. This partly explains why observers rate Egypt’s climate action as highly insufficient.

Furthermore, Egypt’s championing of ‘moving from pledges to implementation’ without having quantifiable carbon reduction pledges of its own effectively exempts it from both pledging and implementation.

As a developing country, Egypt’s negotiating position is supported by UNFCCC provisions which recognize differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities of nations.

Its proposal to focus COP27 on the implementation of climate action and finance pledges is important in consolidating progress. But not pushing for more emission reductions at this critical moment risks derailing global decarbonization momentum and undermining global climate action.

According to optimistic estimates, if current climate pledges were implemented the world would still remain on track for 2°C of warming by the end of the century, with far worse impacts than if warming was curbed at 1.5°C.

Under a 2°C scenario, 37 per cent of the global population could regularly be exposed to extreme heat waves compared to 14 per cent in a 1.5°C warmer world, with developing countries expected to be worst-affected.

A 2°C trajectory also runs the risk of tipping points such as the melting of ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland, triggering runaway climate change. Time to change the warming trajectory is running out as the latest IPCC assessment warns the window of opportunity is now ‘brief and rapidly closing’, and the UN Secretary General recently called for faster carbon cuts by the end of 2022 to avoid a ‘climate catastrophe’.

A different energy transition

Egypt opted not to join any of the voluntary sectoral coalitions at COP26 on reducing methane, clean energy transition, transition to zero-emissions vehicles, or moving beyond oil and gas.

This position is explained by its growing role as an exporter and advocate for fossil gas in the energy transition. Egypt is the second-largest producer of natural gas in Africa and is emerging as a fossil gas hub for the eastern Mediterranean, which is shaping its domestic energy policy.

Its 59GW electricity generation capacity is almost double the peak demand and is dominated by gas-powered electricity generation, which currently represents 42 per cent of all Africa’s gas generation.

Egypt’s climate policy is also shaped by fossil gas, and its national Climate Change Strategy encourages the expansion of gas use by promoting a transition to compressed natural gas for vehicles, the expansion of its domestic natural gas network – despite having universal access to electricity – and shifting to a gas-fuelled shipping sector.

Egypt also voiced support for other African countries to extract and deploy fossil gas and oil resources, making it one of the protagonists of the ‘great fossil gas pushback’. These advocates defend the right of developing countries to deploy fossil gas as a ‘transition fuel’ and champion its necessity to solve energy poverty.

But their position is not shared by all African and developing countries, and is rejected by some civil society groups, who argue it risks locking in greenhouse gases and local emissions for decades as well as delaying future development of low carbon energy systems.

Egypt’s huge spare generation capacity has contributed to a slowdown in renewable energy projects over the past two years. With renewables representing just 6GW, Egypt is expected to miss its renewable energy target for 2022, set at 20 per cent of generating capacity.

Engaging Egypt better

But these positions are more malleable than they seem, and Egypt is open to dialogue – not just on refining the COP27 agenda but also on reviewing its own climate priorities and leveraging its energy sector for a more ambitious transition.

Review: Decolonization and its discontents The World Today mhiggins.drupal 1 August 2022

Jenna Marshall on a lively if flawed argument to find a way forward in a debate that has descended ‘into acrimony’.

Against Decolonization: Taking African Agency Seriously
Olufemi Taiwo, Hurst, £14.99

Decolonization was once heralded as a moment of potential and possibility for the formerly imperial world to chart a new way forward no longer tied to the apparatus of empire.

It marked a period of transition to nation states – and an expansion of a rights-based international community that would dispense with the morally bankrupt regime of racism, dispossession and subjugation that characterized colonialism.  
 

The descent of the decolonization debate

Half a century later, the debate surrounding decolonization has descended into acrimony. Some factions cast the issue of decolonization as a sustained attack on British and western culture writ large; other disparate voices coalesce around related social justice issues such as inequality, climate change and education. 

Decolonization has become ubiquitous in the public domain – and its ubiquity is the problem. In Against Decolonization, Olufemi Taiwo renounces a concept he conceives as having been emptied of serious study and analytical purchase; one incapable of addressing the complexities of modern global politics and more importantly, Africa’s place in it. 

Although the book attacks the inexhaustible ways in which the ‘trope of decolonization’ has been deployed, Taiwo is less bothered by the purported failures of scholars he deems ‘decolonizers’ and focuses his attention instead on the political landscape of African countries, past and present. 

Central to the book’s argument are two distinct scholarly strands on decolonization. The first, legal focus, centres on the political and economic forces of state-building. The second essays an ‘ideology’ of decolonization that rests on ‘forcing an ex-colony to forswear on pain of being forever under the yoke of colonization any and every cultural, political, intellectual, social and linguistic artefact, idea, process, institution and practice that retains even the slightest whiff of the colonial past’. 

Whether one should characterize the latter as simply a field of study or a potential set of policy arrangements remains unclear – yet what is certain is that it is too nebulous, too elastic, too open-ended to offer any substantive model or mechanism to understand postcolonial Africa. 
 

Correcting Eurocentric narcissism

 The decolonization research agenda in Africa came to prominence during the Cold War period of national liberation struggles.

The intellectual project that followed centred on dismantling Eurocentrism as colonial subjugation through its promotion of the West as the crucible of legitimate and scientific knowledge. Since then, scholars have argued that decolonization itself has become compromised by its enduringly Eurocentric gaze at the expense of the agency of African thinkers, creatives and statesmen and women. 

Taiwo seeks to correct this narcissism – and the omissions left in its wake – by introducing lesser-known Africans and pan-African scholars and cultural figures. These voices, he hopes, will illuminate issues often ignored by ‘decolonizers’ and spark a ‘renewed interest in an appreciation of the many different ways in which African thinkers have responded to the colonial experience’.
 

The decolonization of language

Taiwo challenges the decolonization of language as an oversold promise.

Romanticizing an imagined, pristine African pre-colonial past, he says, ultimately leads to nativism and atavism. As a case in point, Taiwo highlights bureaucratic instances of ‘language policy planning’ to deploy African languages in places such as Niger, Mali, Cameroon, Senegal and Nigeria that were hindered by multilingualism, education and high rates of illiteracy.

The author goes on to confront the abstract language of decolonization, which, he says, allows western scholars to unproblematically engage with the concept without any serious consideration of their own complicity in upholding systems of exclusion. It entrenches their own institutional power within the academy, amplifies their perspectives at the expense of others, and limits the possibilities for understanding the problems of world politics with deleterious effects on policy.

It is a serious claim, but there are issues to be addressed: Taiwo assumes there is coherence among scholars of decolonization, which is not the case. 

When Taiwo approaches how to foster political systems that cater to the needs of their citizens he dismantles the binary of ‘West as modern’ v ‘Africa as traditional’. Chieftaincies as traditional African governance, he points out, were the product of colonial anthropology, not Africans themselves. From the Fanti Confederation of 1871 to the Egba United Government in what is now Nigeria, Taiwo demonstrates that there has been a sustained tradition towards demands for democratic values. 

As he concedes an intellectual neglect of African philosophers that underlies the design and operations of Africa’s political institutions, Taiwo’s initial dismissal of the significance of cultural decolonization deserves another look. How should political and economic drives toward self-determination be advanced in the absence of knowledge shaped and mediated through African lived experiences?

In this respect, the tale of two decolonizations – the legal alongside the ideological – suggest an unhelpful, if not false, binary.
 

The problem of reconciling modernity and colonialism

What resonates throughout the book is the idea that Europe cannot profess to hold an exclusive intellectual claim to modernity. Its universal aspirations are open to all of humanity, allowing those who have historically been marginalized to be worldmakers. 

The idea that modernity and colonialism are irreconcilable is problematic. For instance, Taiwo argues that the curtailment of capitalism in Africa by restricting the growth of the middle classes while limiting competition between African capitalists and the metropole is the consequence of colonialism.

Yet the celebrated cultural anthropologist Sidney Mintz established an understanding that the matter for debate is not whether non-westerners were part of the modern system, but how and to what degree they were included and able to actualise its ideals. 

The emerging capitalist world economy needed non-western lands and labour, and so they were conscripted to this end. Recent abolitionist and black radical scholarship has built on this argument to maintain that capitalism not only requires inequality for it to function but that race – as a mechanism for producing ‘difference’ – enshrines it.

Acknowledging the unacknowledged

In the end, Taiwo communicates a palpable frustration at the state of academic discourses on contemporary Africa under the guise of emancipatory and radical scholarship. He offers an alternative approach whereby African students might rid themselves of a faddism that is ‘at best unsatisfactory’ and at worst produces ‘confusion, obscurantism, if not outright distortion and falsification’.

Yet out of this irritation, Taiwo’s greatest contribution in Against Decolonization might be to urge an acknowledgement of how and to what degree decolonization has become subdued and its political possibilities curtailed. He ultimately urges us to reconsider the purpose of the decolonization academic movement as an ethics to abide by rather than a social theory of the postcolonial world. 

This requires those ‘decolonizers’ on whose careers the term is built to adopt greater intellectual humility – to resist the posture of the anarchist radical scholar armed for the ‘good fight’. Instead, they should apply a scholarly curiosity to genuinely engage with those already on the battlefield, so to speak; those ‘doing the work’ in practice, but who have been unacknowledged until now.

Youth innovation can help shape the future of African cities Expert comment LToremark 16 August 2022

To meet the challenges of rapid urbanization, African governments must harness the potential of young innovators to help shape the future of African cities.

It is projected that 1.3 billion people will be living in Africa’s cities by 2050, an increase of almost 1 billion from today, and largely driven by young people migrating to urban centres in search of work. As the continent’s urban population grows, cities will need to adapt by nurturing new economic ecosystems to create jobs, while managing the environmental, social and political pressures that urbanization brings.

The evolution of Africa’s cities is critical for meeting the demands of its youth population and must be co-created with them. Africa’s young innovators are already proving to be an asset in shaping the future of African cities and, if they are allowed to flourish, they could be at the forefront of finding much-needed solutions to the continent’s vast urban challenges.

Growing tech hubs

African countries are increasingly benefitting from growth in technology ecosystems, which are often clustered within cities. There are currently more than 600 tech hubs helping to incubate innovative solutions across cities in Africa. Between 2015 and 2020, the number of start-ups receiving funding grew six times faster than the global average. In 2021 alone, start-ups raised over $4billion in funding – twice as much as in 2020.

But significant challenges remain. While the number of new start-ups is an encouraging indication of the entrepreneurialism and creativity of Africa’s youth, job creation on the level required will demand that they grow and scale up to generate more and higher quality jobs. Research on scaling up in Africa is sparse but research by Endeavor suggests that in Nairobi – one of Africa’s top tech ecosystems – only 5 per cent of companies are able to sustain growth of 20 per cent or more each year, yet they created 72 per cent of new jobs in the previous three years. For Africa to fully harness the potential of digital innovation, making cities the best place for young people to launch ideas and grow them into thriving businesses must become a priority policy for African governments. 

Barriers to scale

On the most basic level, business growth needs access to the services that make cities more liveable and help both urban residents and firms become more productive, such as healthcare, transport, water and sanitation. African cities already struggle to provide their residents – in particular the poorest and most vulnerable – with equitable, reliable, affordable and quality access to these services, in a sustainable manner. And these challenges will only get more acute as urban populations rise rapidly, often without any kind of integrated planning.

For example, an estimated 70-80 per cent of municipal solid waste in Africa is recyclable, yet only about 4 per cent is currently recycled, with more than 90 per cent of waste ending up in uncontrolled dumpsites and landfills. As Africa’s urban population grows, these conditions are likely to worsen – unless there is urgent action. New technology has the potential to help by creating a positive feedback loop between innovation, service delivery and growth. For example, to bridge the waste management gap, innovators are exploring various tech-enabled circular economy models. These solutions are often ground-breaking and have the potential to leapfrog traditional waste management infrastructure. Crucially, they are also formalizing a largely informal sector and creating new jobs.

Across the continent, start-ups like Kaltani, Mr Green Africa and Freetown Waste Transformers build processing facilities to turn waste into energy or reusable products, such as construction materials. Others, like Scrapays, Regenize and Soso Care, are helping households and businesses sell off their recycled materials for cash and virtual currencies or exchange them for critical services, such as micro health insurance premiums. Such start-ups help empower informal waste pickers or agents with tech-enabled tools and target low-income urban communities that would not normally prioritize recycling.

Help or hindrance from the top?

But Africa’s young people cannot do this alone – government decision-makers must become catalysts for entrepreneurial leadership. This requires nurturing a mindset that sees young innovators as Africa’s biggest resource, not a threat. While the importance of young people to Africa’s development is acknowledged in various high-level regional treaties, patterns of inhibition and outright hostility from political ‘elites’ suggest that the disruptive nature of technology start-ups and their access to significant capital through venture capital funding models – unlike existing rent-seeking business models with government control – threatens the political establishment.

The growing use of tech solutions also leads to increased transparency and efficiency of service delivery, which in turn leads to increased demand for government accountability and pressure to adopt more liberal policies. Until there is a shift towards catalysing entrepreneurial leadership, there is a stronger incentive for political elites to leverage their powers to co-opt successful technology businesses, or otherwise try to control them for political gain, than let them flourish. This shift in mindset will be critical to unlocking the full potential of Africa’s young innovators.

The Climate Briefing: The nexus of water security and climate policy Audio NCapeling 22 August 2022

Examining the crossover between water security and climate change with the next two COPs taking place in regions with a history of being water stressed.

What should policymakers and negotiators from the Middle East and Africa working on water security focus on at COP27?

What does it mean to achieve water security? What are the main barriers or challenges? How is water security relevant to climate change?

This podcast was produced in collaboration with the UK Aid-funded Knowledge, Evidence and Learning for Development (K4D) programme which facilitates the use of evidence and learning in international development policy and programming.

Towards just transition in Africa: Continental coordination on green financing and job creation 6 October 2022 — 7:00AM TO 3:30PM Anonymous (not verified) 8 September 2022 Addis Ababa and online

At this hybrid conference in Addis Ababa, speakers take stock of preparations ahead of the ‘African COP27’ in November and discuss the key priorities for streamlining continental cooperation on policy approaches to just transition.

At this hybrid conference in Addis Ababa, speakers will take stock of policy efforts and preparations ahead of the ‘African COP27’ in November and discuss the key priorities for streamlining continental cooperation on policy approaches to just transition.

Global climate policies towards a ‘just transition’ under the Paris Agreement should align with and support African states’ national sustainable development priorities – in particular, the need for decent and fair job creation, as well as resilient and sustainable land, environment and ecosystem management policies.

They must also be cognizant of African nations’ urgent requirements for sustainable and accessible energy to underpin economic development. Achieving green growth requires innovative and more accessible financing models, especially as wealthy nations’ financial pledges have fallen short. It also requires clarity and cooperation to unlock investment in both renewable and transitional energy.

African countries face collective climate and employment-related challenges. However, policymaking often remains regionally siloed according to differing political, energy sector and ecological realities. There is a need for transformational strategic thinking and context-specific action from African governments, civil society, businesses and financiers, in their green financing demands and national implementation plans.

At this hybrid conference in Addis Ababa, speakers will take stock of policy efforts and preparations ahead of the ‘African COP27’ in November and discuss the key priorities for streamlining continental cooperation on policy approaches to just transition, job creation and green financing.

This event is the third in a series on Towards just transition: Connecting green financing and sustainable job creation in Africa, supported by the Chatham House Sustainability Accelerator.

A natural climate change priority for Africa Expert comment LJefferson 28 September 2022

Nature-based solutions can protect African nations’ shared natural endowment and meet the needs of their people.

Africa’s principal climate change negotiators have long understood the important contribution of ‘nature-based solutions’ (NBS) in delivering land (and sea) based options as part of the goals of the Paris Agreement. Limiting temperature rises to only 1.5°C by 2050 will demand finding innovative ways to protect Africa’s vast natural endowment that also meets the equally acute needs of its people. Nature-based solutions may do both.

The urgency for Africa cannot be overstated. At a Chatham House conference in Libreville, the Gabonese minister for the environment highlighted that if global warming surges by 2.5° or 3°C the impact would be at least 6°C for Africa. Decision-makers on the continent and across the world need to understand that ‘business as usual’ cannot be an option given the potential for loss of life, conflict and chaos.

Adaption, mitigation, or both?

Although adaptation to climate change has hitherto tended to be the continent’s main concern, there has also been growing recognition of the ways that Africa’s natural environments, from forests and grasslands, to peatlands and coastal and marine ecosystems, all also mitigate its impacts by sequestering carbon. The Congo Basin alone is said to store upwards of 4 per cent of global emissions annually.

These environments are under increasing pressure. Deforestation is a sad reality, caused mostly by unsustainable and extensive agricultural practices focused on cash crops for export more than food production to feed local populations. And arguing that African states and peoples should slow the development of their economies and infrastructure in response to a crisis born of the already-industrialized world does not find a responsive audience in a continent hungry for jobs and opportunity.

Nature-based solutions offer an answer to this conundrum. There is growing evidence that natural habitats both help avoid losses from climate change-related disasters and can drive economic growth. There is thus potential for NBS to tackle both adaptation and mitigation challenges at relatively low cost.

NBS – the rocky road from commitment to policy

It was logical therefore for Africa and like-minded countries to work to integrate NBS more strongly into the climate change agenda at COP26. The final Glasgow Climate Pact duly emphasized the importance of protecting ecosystems. The Global Forest Finance Pledge signed in the margins was also significant. African focus, with COP 27 in Egypt soon to take place, is now on domestic implementation and delivery of these pledges. The new African Union Climate Change and Resilient Development strategy (2022-2032) sets out many of the challenges and opportunities.

Choosing the right development pathway is tough, requiring political will and inclusive governance. Besides the challenge of securing alternative national revenue if a country moves away from fossil-intensive fuels – particularly acute for Africa’s resource-producing states – there is a dizzying array of policy decisions to be taken. African governments need to choose the most appropriate renewable energy sources, secure alternative livelihoods and continue to meet basic needs of the most vulnerable in the context of radical restructuring.  

Towards African solutions

There can be no one-size-fits-all answer to these questions – it is sadly still necessary to underline the enormous geographic, cultural and political diversity of the continent – but African experts have begun to draw together some emerging common themes from work already underway.  

Maintaining the ‘status quo’ in agricultural practices is no longer an option. Emphasis on sustainable agriculture is urgently needed andthat includes the elaboration of a ‘new deal’ between nature and people.  

Conservation also needs to be reframed as an economic opportunity, particularly in the elaboration and development of ecosystem services that deliver the true value of Africa’s forests, and that involve, value and reward local communities, respecting their rights and livelihoods.

Regional cooperation is likewise key, including on the management of forest, wildlife and water resources – Africa’s ecosystems do not respect arbitrary political boundaries, and accomplishing the dual feat of protecting cross-border systems at the same time as realizing their economic potential will demand effective collaboration, as well as training, education and communication at all levels.

The imperative of finance

A further imperative will be securing sufficient developed country financing – whether that be to secure value for net sequestration and effective forest management or for models of context-appropriate ‘smarter’ sustainable rural conservation and ecosystem resilience.

Reflections at 100: Empire and decolonization Audio MVieira 1 November 2022

How did leading academics and policymakers think about and impact imperialism and decolonization from the 1920s to 1970s?

This episode of Reflections at 100, marking the centenary of International Affairs, looks at how empire and decolonization have been discussed in the journal.

Isabel and Krisztina speak to Meera Sabaratnam about how thinkers and policymakers from the 1920s to 1970s understood both empire and then decolonization. Meera highlights four tensions present within the discussions, and how these may impact the international order today.

Inderjeet Parmar delves deeper into the influence of Chatham House at the time and situates these discussions in the broader think-tank and global context.

Reflections at 100 is a mini-series accompanying the journal’s centenary Archive Collections. The collections bring together articles from our archive which speak to the past, present, and future of current affairs issues. In each podcast episode we speak to editors and contributors to the collection and explore what the research tells us about policymaking today. 

Explore the Archive Collection, free to access until mid-November 2022, including Meera’s introduction: 100 years of empire and decolonization.

International Affairs was started at Chatham House in 1922 to communicate research to members who could not attend in person. Over the past 100 years it has transformed into a journal that publishes academically rigorous and policy relevant research. It is published for Chatham House by Oxford University Press. Read the latest issue here. 

Africa-Japan relations and evolving multilateralism 23 November 2022 — 9:00AM TO 10:30AM Anonymous (not verified) 17 November 2022 Online

This panel discussion reflects on the outcomes of TICAD 8 in 2022 and looks forward to TICAD 9 in 2025.

The eighth edition of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), held in Tunisia from 27–28 August 2022, marked the second time that Japan’s now-triennial summit was hosted in an African country, after TICAD 6 was held in Kenya in 2016.

The summit was attended by 48 representatives of African countries and at least 20 heads of state and government and included a pledge by the Japanese government to commit $30 billion in public and private finance to Africa over the next three years.

In reaffirming the three pillars of TICAD 8 – revolving around the economy, societal resilience, and peace and stability – the newly adopted Tunis Declaration (28 August 2022) also outlined some of the key projects underpinning Japan’s pledge, including a $4 billion fund for a Green Growth Initiative with Africa (GGA).

2023 will mark 30 years since the inception of TICAD in 1993 and ten years since the African Union (AU)’s adoption of its flagship Agenda 2063, on which the Tunis Declaration placed distinct emphasis.

This panel discussion reflects on the outcomes of TICAD 8 in 2022 and looks forward to TICAD 9 in 2025, exploring wider developments in summitry, Africa-Asia relations, and modes of multilateralism.

Questions explored include:

• How has international summitry evolved over the past three decades since the inception of TICAD in 1993, which represented the first periodic high-level summit engagement with Africa by a ‘non-traditional’ partner?
• Looking ahead to TICAD 9 in 2025, what are the priorities for enforcing the stated tenets of TICAD – ‘African ownership, international partnership, inclusivity and openness’ – in cooperation efforts?
• What lessons can be drawn from TICAD’s co-partnership approach (with the African Union Commission and others) – particularly given increasing calls for AU membership of the G20 and Prime Minister Kishida’s pledge at TICAD 8 to support a permanent African UNSC seat during its non-permanent membership in 2023–24? Beyond membership, what are the priorities for furthering agency?
• How are Africa-Asia relations evolving and diverging? How are Japan and other Asian countries perceived by different African countries?

This event is the third in the Chatham House – Japan House London webinar series (2022-2023). The series is held in partnership with Japan House London. You can watch previous webinars from the series here.

Sudan’s gold boom: Connections to conflict and transnational impacts 7 December 2022 — 2:00PM TO 3:30PM Anonymous (not verified) 24 November 2022 Online

At this event, experts will discuss Sudan’s gold sector, its connections to conflict, and transnational impacts. 

At this webinar panellists will discuss Sudan’s gold sector, its connections to conflict, and transnational impacts.

Sudan is one of the largest gold producers on the continent, with the industry constituting Sudan’s foremost source of hard currency since the secession of South Sudan in 2011 and resulting loss of oilfields.

The gold rush that has ensued has had important implications for domestic and transnational conflict dynamics. Military actors and armed groups have sought control of gold-producing areas in the peripheries and to capitalize on the flow of labour migrants, against a wider backdrop of conflict partly stemming from contestation for control between central and local actors.

International interests are prominent, including increased Russian involvement in the sector, while gold smuggling has also interlaced with mercenary activity in neighbouring CAR, Chad and Libya.
 
At this event, panellists will discuss Sudan’s gold trade, its connections to conflict, and transnational impacts, including the international politics of Sudan’s gold extraction and role of armed groups. It will also explore the environmental and socio-economic dimensions of gold in Sudan’s border areas. 
 
This roundtable is an output of the Cross-Border Conflict: Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) research programme, funded by UK Aid from the UK government.
 

Africa in 2023: Continuing political and economic volatility Expert comment NCapeling 6 January 2023

Despite few African trade and financial links with Russia and Ukraine, the war in Ukraine will cause civil strife in Africa due to food and energy inflation.

Africa’s economy was recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022 when a range of internal and external shocks struck such as adverse weather conditions, a devastating locust invasion, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine – all of which worsened already rapidly-rising rates of inflation and borrowing costs.

Although the direct trade and financial linkages of Africa with Russia and Ukraine are small, the war has damaged the continent’s economies through higher commodity prices, higher food, fuel, and headline inflation.

The main impact is on the increasing likelihood of civil strife because of food and energy-fuelled inflation amid an environment of heightened political instability.

Key African economies such as South Africa and Nigeria were already stuck with low growth and many African governments have seen their debt burdens increase – some such as Ethiopia and Ghana now have dollar debt trading at distressed levels – and more countries will follow in 2023.

On average the public sector debt-to-GDP ratio of African countries stood at above 60 per cent in 2022. The era of Chinese state-backed big loans and mega-projects which started 20 years ago in Angola after the end of its civil war may be coming to an end but Chinese private sector investments on the continent will continue through its Belt and Road Initiative and dual circulation model of development.

Great and middle powers building influence

Geopolitical competition in Africa has intensified in 2022, particularly among great powers such as China, Russia, the US, and the EU but also by middle powers such as Turkey, Japan, and the Gulf states.

The sixth AU-EU summit held in Brussels in February 2022 agreed on the principles for a new partnership, although the Russian invasion of Ukraine which followed disrupted these ambitions. Japan’s pledge of $30 billion in aid for Africa at TICAD 8 in August 2022 was clearly made due to the $40 billion pledged at the China–Africa summit in November 2021.

The US also launched a new strategy to strengthen its partnership and held a second US-Africa Leaders’ summit in Washington in December, the first since 2014. Russia’s ambition has been curtailed by its invasion of Ukraine, postponing its second summit with African states to 2023.

The imposition of international sanctions complicated its trade and investments, and military support such as that provided by Russian paramilitary group Wagner focused on Mali, Libya and the Central African Republic (CAR) has been curtailed.

The strategic importance of Africa has resulted in all the UN P5 members calling on the G20 to make the African Union (AU) its 21st member in 2023 under India’s presidency.

International competition to secure Africa’s critical and strategic minerals and energy products intensified in 2022 and, in the energy sector, European countries are seeking to diversify away from Russian oil and gas with alternative supplies, such as those from Africa.

Western mining companies and commodity traders are also increasingly seeking alternative supplies from Africa. Decarbonization is becoming a driver of resource nationalism and geopolitical competition in certain African mining markets, home to large deposits of critical ‘transition minerals’ such as copper, cobalt, graphite, lithium, or nickel.

COP27 was hosted in Egypt in November and gave African leaders an opportunity to shape climate discussions by pushing priority areas such as loss and damage, stranded assets, access to climate finance, adaptation, and desertification. Climate adaptation in Africa is a key condition to preserving economic growth and maintaining social cohesion.

The Horn of Africa, particularly Somalia, is suffering from one of the worst droughts in memory. The geopolitical and geoeconomic ramifications of the war in Ukraine has directly impacted the African continent by contributing to food and cooking oil inflation and humanitarian aid delivery.

Thoughout 2022 the AU was undergoing intensive reform and it struggled to respond to the growing number of security crises across the continent. Hotspots in 2023 will be in the western Sahel and Lake Chad Basin, eastern DRC, and northern Mozambique, all of them crossing state borders.

In Mozambique, a 2019 peace deal assisted by the United Nations (UN) will see the last ex-guerrillas from Renamo demobilized in 2023 to reintegrate into civilian life – some having been recruited in 1978.

In eastern Congo, M23 – one of around 120 armed groups – resumed its conflict against the central government. After lying dormant for several years, it took up arms again in 2021 and has been leading an offensive in eastern DRC against the Congolese army.

According to the UN, Rwanda has been supporting M23, and Kenya’s parliament approved in November the deployment of about 900 soldiers to the DRC as part of a joint military force from the East African Community (EAC) bloc – DRC joined the EAC in March.

In the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia saw an uneasy ceasefire agreed between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

Islamist militant groups in Africa further expanded their territorial reach in 2022, particularly in the western Sahel where al-Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates are competing for influence and continued to make inroads.

The drawdown and exit of western forces from Mali, both the French Operation Barkane and international contributions for the UN’s MINUSMA mission there, adds new dimensions to regional security challenges.

Mali’s decision in May to withdraw from the G5 Sahel has also eroded the regional security architecture. Jihadist activity may spread further into coastal states which has resulted in international partners such as France and the UK redesigning their security assistance strategies for the region.

Coups on the increase again

Since 2020, there have been successful military coups in Burkina Faso (twice), Chad, Guinea, Mali (twice), and Sudan, and failed ones in the CAR, Djibouti, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Niger, and possibly Gambia and São Tomé and Príncipe.

Three national elections illustrate the state of African democracy in 2022. In Angola’s August elections, the ruling MPLA lost its absolute majority with the opposition UNITA winning the majority in Luanda for the first time.

China-Africa relations Explainer jon.wallace 18 January 2023

What are China’s objectives in Africa, how valid is the concept of ‘debt trap’ diplomacy, and what are China’s military ambitions in the region?

A brief history of China-Africa relations

Africa has been crucial to China’s foreign policy since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1947. China supported several African liberation movements during the Cold War, and for every year since 1950 bar one, the foreign minister of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has first visited an African country.

China’s new foreign minister Qin Gang visited five African countries and the African Union in January 2023. Wang Yi, the former foreign minister, visited 48 African countries and premier Xi Jinping undertook 10 visits to Africa between 2014 and 2020.

In 1971, the votes of African countries were instrumental in winning the PRC control of China’s seat in the UN General Assembly and Security Council – displacing representatives from Chinese nationalist forces, who had been defeated in the civil war and now governed Taiwan.

In the following decades, China’s focus in Africa switched to eliminating all remaining recognition for Taiwan’s government. Burkina Faso, Malawi, Liberia, Senegal and others all switched their recognition from Taiwan to the PRC. Eswatini is the only African nation still to recognize Taiwan’s government in 2023.

In 1999 China created its ‘Going Out’ strategy, which encouraged Chinese companies to invest beyond China.

The strategy was a statement of China’s growing economic might and created a new wave of Chinese engagement in Africa. It was also an important source of employment for Chinese citizens working on new infrastructure projects.

In November 2003 the first tri-annual Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit was held in Beijing. FOCAC was created to improve cooperation between China and African states and signalled China’s growing strategic initiative in Africa.

In 2013, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was launched by Xi Jinping, featuring an ambition to reinvigorate the old silk trading route along the East African coast. This should theoretically have seen Chinese investment concentrated in East Africa, but many other African states also sought opportunities through the BRI, making the initiative quickly expand in scope and ambition.

The BRI saw a huge number of signature infrastructure projects built across Asia and Africa, funded by Chinese loans whose size, nature and origin were often opaque. Some African countries became badly exposed to Chinese lending during this period. 

Chinese investment peaked around 2016. Since then, Chinese loans to African governments declined significantly, falling from $28.4 billion in 2016 to $1.9 billion in 2020 – partly due to changing priorities in domestic Chinese politics, and partly due to the apparent difficulty African countries had repaying loans.

China’s investment in Africa

China has taken a position contrary to Western governments in its African investment. It characterizes its loans as mutually beneficial cooperation between developing countries, promising not to interfere in the internal politics of those it loans to.

In this respect it presents itself in contrast to Western countries, who are accused by China and some African governments of arrogant, democratic posturing – often by former colonial powers that looted African resources during the 18th and 19th centuries.

China has learned by doing, and the reality of large-scale investments taught Chinese investors the limits of their approach. For instance, during the South Sudanese civil war, China had to deal with representatives of various forces opposed to the government to maintain the Greater Nile Oil Pipeline, operated by the China National Petroleum Corporation.

China has not made significant efforts to export communist ideology in Africa since the Cold War ended, claiming that Chinese communism could not be replicated outside of China.

However, ideological links exist between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the rulers of a state like Ethiopia, whose Prosperity Party has origins in ‘revolutionary democracy’ and Marxist-Leninism.

China’s National People’s Congress has formal relations with 35 African parliaments and the CCP International Liaison Department (ILD) has relations with 110 political parties in 51 African countries.

Western politicians have increasingly voiced fears that China’s intentions in Africa are predatory, intended to create a network of African states that are obliged to service their debts by offering China access to resources, trade opportunities and locations for military bases.

Debt trap diplomacy

US commentators often describe Chinese policy in Africa as a ‘debt trap’, part of a deliberate strategy to loan unmanageable sums to African countries, draw them into China’s sphere of influence, and force unfair commitments upon them.

Some African nations do have extensive Chinese loans and are suffering from out-of-control debt, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the invasion of Ukraine, and high interest rates. But their situations cannot be entirely blamed on Chinese loans. States including Kenya and Zambia have poorly managed their debt to all creditors, not only China.

Meanwhile, other African countries have created realistic, manageable debt arrangements with China without the tremendous risk and uncertainties that characterized some major BRI projects.

China also faces significant problems due to its extensive loans made during the BRI boom period, as it will struggle to force repayment while maintaining its image as a friend of developing nations.

BRI projects were largely uncoordinated and unplanned, with credit offered by competing Chinese lenders. This contradicts the idea of a coherent ‘debt trap’ policy by China.

However, the idea that China may use debt strategically, to expand its influence in the African content and secure access to resources, cannot be completely dismissed. China is an emerging superpower in strategic competition with the US. Building stronger economic relationships in Africa would be a logical step in its aspirations to be a global power.

Africa’s strategic priorities and global role 27 January 2023 — 1:00PM TO 2:00PM Anonymous (not verified) 18 January 2023 Chatham House and Online

At this hybrid event, HE John Dramani Mahama, former president of the Republic of Ghana, will discuss his ideas on the key economic and governance reforms required for economic stability and prosperity across Africa.

Ghana recently became the fourth country, after Chad, Ethiopia and Zambia, to seek debt treatment under the G20 Common Framework in January 2023 – reflecting the culmination of a series of internal and external shocks affecting the wider region, including extreme weather events, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

Prospects for economic recovery and growth, nevertheless, remain positive in many parts of the continent, with the African Development Bank (AfDB), for example, reforecasting economic growth of 5.5 per cent in East Africa in 2023. Coordinated reforms can help to deepen regional integration and promote long-term economic prosperity, particularly in light of Africa’s evolving regional economic governance structures, notably the fledgling African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) headquartered in Accra.

At this hybrid event, HE John Dramani Mahama, former president of the Republic of Ghana, will discuss his ideas on the key economic and governance reforms required for economic stability and prosperity across Africa. He will also discuss priorities for regional integration and Africa’s role and responsibilities in global economic governance.

Building carbon markets that work for Africa 31 January 2023 — 2:00PM TO 3:30PM Anonymous (not verified) 19 January 2023 Online

At this webinar, held in partnership with UNDP, speakers share experiences on carbon market advancement in Africa, highlighting challenges and obstacles.

Carbon finance offers a major opening towards meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement but progress across regions has been uneven, with the African continent accounting for just 15 per cent of voluntary carbon credits issued globally in 2021.

Harnessing the potential of carbon markets may offer one route towards closing the significant shortfall in climate financing for Africa, as well as accelerating transition in cooking and energy solutions and limiting deforestation.

Article 6 of the Paris Agreement requires significant adjustment of regulatory and policy frameworks at national level in order to align with emerging global imperatives within carbon markets. Various stakeholders, including the private sector, need to take these realities into considerations as they seek to meet commitments towards a more sustainable future.

Governments and the private sector alike need to address the obstacles that have held back Africa’s participation in carbon markets, and should explore all options including both the compliance and voluntary markets, and market-based alternatives such as emissions trading schemes and carbon taxes.

At this webinar, held in partnership with UNDP, speakers share experiences on carbon market advancement in Africa, highlighting challenges and obstacles. Speakers also explore in-country experiences and make proposals on how Africa might benefit from a functional global carbon market.

A critical juncture for Sudan’s democratic transition Expert comment LJefferson 28 March 2023

International pressure is essential to reach an agreement that establishes a credible civilian government.

The signing of the Framework Agreement (FA) on 5 December 2022 between Sudan’s military leaders and its leading pro-democracy parties is a major step to reversing the damage done by the disastrous military coup in October 2021.

The FA removes any formal role for the military in Sudan’s politics. A civilian head of state and prime minister will select the cabinet and chair the Defence and Security Council. The armed forces will be prohibited from non-military business activities and security sector reform will lead to a unified, professional and non-partisan national army. Elections are due to take place at the end of a two-year transitional period. 

Signatories included General Abdel Fatah Al Burhan, chair of the Sovereign Council and head of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemedti), his deputy and Commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and more than 40 civilian entities, including the Forces of Freedom and Change- Central Council (FFC-CC), a few other political parties, former armed movements, civil society organizations and professional associations. However, the agreement has faced criticism from the street for not being sufficiently radical, has been overshadowed at times by heightened tension between the two military leaders, and has seen sabotage attempts by supporters of the Bashir regime.

Building consensus on the Framework Agreement

The agreement meets most of the demands of the anti-coup camp, at least on paper. Yet doubts persist as to whether the military are genuine about handing over power, particularly among the neighbourhood-based resistance committees – the heart of the youth-led mobilization that forced the military to recognize the failure of their power grab. Peaceful protests against the coup have seen 125 killed and over 8,000 injured by government security forces. Many want to see Burhan and Hemedti held accountable.

Recognizing the need to expand popular support, FFC-CC leaders have been reaching out to other pro-democracy forces to build a united civilian front. They report increased buy-in from some resistance committees in the last few months, recognizing that street protests alone were not sufficient to overthrow the coup, and that engagement with the military is necessary to find a way out of the impasse.

The FA offers the only currently available path to embedding civilian politics in Sudan and has received active diplomatic support from UNITAMS, AU and IGAD (who form the Tripartite Mechanism), the Troika of the US, UK and Norway, alongside the EU, as well as Saudi Arabia and the UAE (who are members of ‘the Quad’ with the US and UK).

Broader public participation has also been developed through a series of conferences, facilitated by the Tripartite Mechanism, on five contentious issues – dismantling the old regime, the Juba Peace Agreement, Eastern Sudan, Transitional Justice and Security Sector Reform. Recommendations will be incorporated in a final political agreement. 

The political process has been overshadowed by increasingly visible tension between Burhan and Hemedti, seen in parallel foreign visits, conflicting public statements, and a heavy military presence in Khartoum. But concerns that SAF and the RSF were heading towards confrontation appear to have been assuaged thanks to international pressure and preliminary agreements reached between military and civilian signatories of the FA on security sector reform and integration. In a significant breakthrough, both sides have now agreed to draft the final agreement and transitional constitution, with the aim of forming a civilian government by 11 April.  

Potential spoilers and interests from Sudan’s regions

Progress has been made, but significant challenges remain, notably from supporters of the former Bashir regime in ‘the deep state’ and from Sudan’s historically marginalized peripheries. Old regime elements have been intensifying social media campaigns to derail the agreement and drive a wedge between the SAF and RSF, and have been accused of deliberately inciting instability in the peripheries to undermine the democratic transition. 

The Popular Defence Forces, established by the National Islamic Front in the 1990s, have been reactivated under different names in several parts of the country and there are reports of mobilization and recruitment of armed militias in Darfur. The recent public appearance of Ali Karti, the Secretary-General of the Islamic Movement, who has close relations with Islamists in SAF, has also caused renewed concern.

Two Darfuri armed movement leaders who signed the October 2020 Juba Peace Agreement (JPA) and are members of the current military-led government, have not signed the FA, allegedly due to concerns about their representation in the next government.

Despite intensive efforts to bring them on board, there is continuing disagreement over the inclusion of other members of ‘the Democratic Bloc’, a political alliance backed by Sudan’s influential neighbour Egypt, which is reportedly angry at being excluded from the Quad. The FFC-CC say that the door is open for the two Darfuri leaders and some other political parties, but they will not allow the agreement to be ‘diluted’ with political forces who intend to torpedo the transition, including by imposing a weak prime minister.

Both Burhan and Hemedti have courted support from the regions. Burhan used the 2020 SAF takeover of Al Fashaga in the contested eastern border region with Ethiopia to boost his national standing and secure backing from local tribal leaders; while Hemedti has sought to position himself as a champion of the peripheries, particularly in his Darfur heartlands, while simultaneously advancing his business interests.

Competition between them in building domestic powerbases, as well as alliances with neighbouring states, risks reigniting tensions, particularly given deep grievances and contrasting ambitions between and among Sudan’s diverse regional leaders and communities.

Africa Aware: Supply chains, land contestation, conflict Audio NCapeling 30 March 2023

This episode examines relations between Ethiopia and Sudan as part of an XCEPT project mini-series.

The war in northern Ethiopia since November 2020, and subsequent conquest of disputed farmlands in Al-Fashaga by the Sudanese army on the Ethiopia-Sudan border, has brought into focus the importance of agricultural commodities such as sesame as a potential driver of land contestation and conflict. 

The panel discusses the interrelation of commodity and conflict supply chains, land contestation, and boundary disputes in the Horn of Africa, with a particular focus on the regions of Wolkait/Western Tigray in northwest Ethiopia and Al Fashaga in eastern Sudan.

This podcast was produced with support from the Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) project, funded by UK Aid from the UK government.

Purpose: The ⁶⁸Ga-PSMA PET/CT is a commonly used imaging modality in prostate cancers. However, few studies have compared the diagnostic efficiency between ⁶⁸Ga-PSMA and ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT and evaluated whether a heterogeneous metabolic phenotype (especially PSMA-FDG+ lesions) exists in patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). We determined the added value of ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT compared to ⁶⁸Ga-PSMA PET/CT in CRPC patients and identified CRPC patients who may benefit from additional ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT. Methods: Data of 56 patients with CRPC who underwent both ⁶⁸Ga-PSMA and ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT from May 2018 to February 2021 were retrospectively analysed. Patients were classified into two groups with or without PSMA-FDG+ lesions. The differences in patient characteristics between the two groups and predictors of patients who having at least one PSMA-FDG+ lesion were analysed. Results: Although both the detection rate (75.0% vs. 51.8%, P = 0.004) and positive lesion number (135 vs. 95) of ⁶⁸Ga-PSMA PET/CT were higher than ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT, there were still 13/56 (23.2%) patients with at least one PSMA-FDG+ lesion. The prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and Gleason score were both higher in the patients with PSMA-FDG+ lesions than in those without PSMA-FDG+ lesions (P = 0.04 and P<0.001, respectively). Multivariate regression analysis showed that the Gleason score (≥8) and PSA (≥7.9 ng/mL) were associated with the detection rate of patients who had PSMA-FDG+ lesions (P = 0.01 and P = 0.04, respectively). The incidences of having PSMA-FDG+ lesions in low-probability (Gleason score<8 and PSA<7.9 ng/mL), medium-probability (Gleason score≥8 and PSA<7.9 ng/mL or Gleason score<8 and PSA≥7.9 ng/mL), and high-probability (Gleason score≥8 and PSA≥7.9 ng/mL) groups were 0%, 21.7%, and 61.5%, respectively (P<0.001). Conclusion: Gleason score and PSA are significant predictors for PSMA-FDG+ lesions, and CRPC patients with high Gleason score and PSA may benefit from additional ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT.

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Researchers use dynamic PET imaging with target-selective tracer molecules to probe molecular processes. Kinetic models have been developed to describe these processes. The models are typically fitted to the measured PET data with the assumption that the brain is in a steady-state condition for the duration of the scan. The end results are quantitative parameters that characterize the molecular processes. The most common kinetic modeling endpoints are estimates of volume of distribution or the binding potential of a tracer. If the steady state is violated during the scanning period, the standard kinetic models may not apply. To address this issue, time-variant kinetic models have been developed for the characterization of dynamic PET data acquired while significant changes (e.g., short-lived neurotransmitter changes) are occurring in brain processes. These models are intended to extract a transient signal from data. This work in the PET field dates back at least to the 1990s. As interest has grown in imaging nonsteady events, development and refinement of time-variant models has accelerated. These new models, which we classify as belonging to the first, second, or third generation according to their innovation, have used the latest progress in mathematics, image processing, artificial intelligence, and statistics to improve the sensitivity and performance of the earliest practical time-variant models to detect and describe nonsteady phenomena. This review provides a detailed overview of the history of time-variant models in PET. It puts key advancements in the field into historical and scientific context. The sum total of the methods is an ongoing attempt to better understand the nature and implications of neurotransmitter fluctuations and other brief neurochemical phenomena.

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Visual Abstract