Africa

Africa is home to approximately 1.4 billion people[1], about 16 percent of the world’s population, yet its continental share in global trade remains below 3 percent[2], according to the World Trade Organization (WTO). This suboptimal proportion of world trade is compounded by Africa's limited intra-continental trade. During the 26th Africa Business Conference (ABC) held at Harvard Business School (HBS) on the 17^th of February 20, 2024, industry experts, policymakers, students, faculty members, and entrepreneurs converged to interrogate these concerns and explore opportunities for improving intra-African trade. 

The Africa in Focus series is a forum for the intellectual and critical analysis of processes and policies from the continent and its engagement with the international community. Through thoughtful and dynamic programming, Africa in Focus brings greater African perspectives into broader policy conversations at HKS.

When the U.S. military trains other states’ forces, it tries to impart liberal norms such as respect for human rights. But when liberal norms clash, these soldiers prioritize loyalty to their unit, the military, and shared goals.

Thank you to the Harvard Kennedy School Africa Caucus and the Belfer Center for the opportunity to deliberate with you today. Thank you Thomas Kisimbi for the kind introduction, and your generosity in taking your valuable time to shaping this event and my time at Harvard.

When winning rebels face intense security threats during civil wars, rebel field commanders are more likely to remain obedient during war-to-peace transitions because they have less incentive to challenge newly installed rulers and less capacity to mobilize supporters outside the postwar military hierarchy.

Modern states recurrently buttress their militaries with legionnaires—soldiers who are neither citizens nor subjects of the governments for which they fight. Legionnaire recruitment is a function of political constraints on a government's ability to enlist citizens and its perceptions of external territorial threats.

Election violence varies significantly within countries, yet how and why are undertheorized. An analysis of gubernatorial elections in Nigeria reveals the conditions under which elites recruit popular social-movement actors for preelection violence.

This paper responds to a topic from the Army War College’s Key Strategic Issues List, 2018-2020: Evaluate the ramifications of China’s and/or Russia’s interests in Africa for U.S. land forces and suggest options, both to compete and to cooperate, to further U.S. interests.

While U.S. land forces may benefit from competition or cooperation with Chinese elements in Africa, I judge that they possess limited agency to compete or cooperate in the context of these definitions. Therefore, I will take a whole-of-government approach to furthering U.S. interests in Africa vis-à-vis China.

In post-conflict societies, divisions can emerge between returnee and nonmigrant groups, which can in turn lead to violence and destabilization when government institutions favor one group over another.

As part of the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship’s (PETR) event series, Ambassador Romana Vlahutin, Ambassador at Large for Connectivity in the European External Action Service, addressed the EU’s new Connectivity Strategy in conversation with Philippe Le Corre, PETR affiliate and senior fellow with Harvard Kennedy School's Mossavar-Rahmani Center on Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School.