Day: February 17, 2021

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Our COVID Conundrum

We face a massive conundrum: while more and more global problems are coming our way, almost all our problem-solving power remains ensnared by the apparatus of the nation state.  States are inherently insular, and self-obsessed. The mythos of an imagined community, ...

Africa’s Most Indebted Countries Caught in a Vice Between Creditors and Credit Ratings Agencies

Chad, Zambia, and Ethiopia are among a growing number of African countries seeking debt relief under the G20's common framework (CF) and while that might provide some temporary relief, one of the world's largest credit ratings agencies warned on Tuesday that it's going to come at a ...

Kenya to Finally Extend the SGR to the Ugandan Border… Without Any Chinese Financing

Kenya's parliament approved funds to extend the Standard Gauge Railway from Naivasha in the Rift Valley all the way to Malaba on the border with Uganda. Several years ago, this extension was known as "SGR Phase 3." President Uhuru Kenyatta's requests for the financing of this phase ...

Zimbabwe to Kick Off Vaccination Drive Using Newly-Arrived Chinese Jabs

The Zimbabwe government will begin a national COVID-19 vaccination campaign on Thursday using the first batch of Chinese-made Sinopharm jabs that arrived in Harare on Monday.  Health workers, police, and military personnel will be first to receive injections.  ...

Landry Signé: The U.S. Can Catch Up to China in Africa…But It Has to Move Fast

A robust discussion is underway in Washington, D.C.'s think tank and policymaking circles over what the Biden administration's future Africa policy should look like. Although there's been no formal announcement of any new initiative, there does seem to be an emerging consensus that the disproportionate focus on ...

Analysis from Cobus van Staden

China-Led Study Proposes Global Energy Network

A globally connected network of solar and wind energy could provide three times the global energy demand by 2050 at a lower cost than independent national power systems. This is the finding of a study led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in collaboration with researchers from the United States and Denmark.

The study focused on how areas with high solar and wind capacity (such as deserts) can be linked to ...

Counterpoint: Why Some in Africa Remain Frustrated With the U.S. and Choose to Embrace China Instead

While U.S. stakeholders are working to figure out what they want to do in Africa, they would be advised to listen carefully to some of the widely-held frustrations about America's less-than-supportive attitudes towards the continent over the years, which bubbled to the surface during the Trump administration. ...

UAE PM Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Tweets in Chinese to Congratulate Xi Jinping on Mars Mission

It's rare for the head of a foreign state to tweet in Chinese, but today the UAE's Sheikh Mohammed congratulated China, and President Xi Jinping specifically, on the Tianwen-1 spacecraft joining the Emirates' own Hope Probe in its orbit around Mars. ...

The Future of Chinese-Financed Infrastructure in Kenya

The China Road and Bridge Corporation is building a massive new half-a-billion dollar expressway right through the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. But this project is very different than previous Chinese-financed infrastructure initiatives in Kenya, like the ailing Standard ...