CFR invited the presidential candidates challenging President Trump in the 2020 election to articulate their positions on twelve critical foreign policy issues. Candidates’ answers are posted exactly…

The ten leading Democratic presidential candidates square off at 8 p.m. (EST) tonight in Houston for a third round of debate. ABC News and Univision will be televising the exchange. We’ll see if toni…

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently completed his first trip to Africa in his current role in the Trump administration. Over three days, he visited Dakar in Senegal, Luanda in Angola, and Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, where he also visited the head of the African Union. During the trip, Secretary Pompeo advocated for a stronger U.S.-Africa relationship amidst China’s growing role on the continent. 

President Faure Gnassingbe of Togo will face six other candidates in the election, including longtime rival Jean Pierre Fabre. Fabre, a human rights activist, was nominated as the leader of Togo's main opposition party, National Alliance for Change, late last year. Thanks in part to the fragmented opposition, Gnassingbe is favored to win.

This update represents violence in Nigeria and related to Boko Haram in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger from February 8 to 14, 2020.

In its February update, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) includes numerous new words of Nigerian origin. Many of the words relate to food preparation, urban transportation, the shortening of conventional English words, and the incorporation of words from indigenous languages. For example, ‘mama put’ refers to female food venders, ‘okada’ are passenger-carrying motorcycles, ‘guber’ refers to gubernatorial, and ‘danfo’ is the Yoruba work for urban minibuses.

In Africa, observers are acutely aware of how ill-prepared most countries are for responding to a major pandemic. With more than a billion people undergoing rapid urbanization, weak healthcare systems, and growing economic ties with China, Africa would appear to be highly vulnerable to the spread of the coronavirus.

This update represents violence in Nigeria and related to Boko Haram in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger from February 1 to 7, 2020.

The number of cases of Ebola in the eastern Congo continues to fall, and there had been speculation that the World Health Organization’s Emergency Committee would remove the designation of Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) from the outbreak. However, at its February 12 meeting, the Committee voted unanimously to keep the designation.

After thirty-seven years in power, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe was toppled via a military coup in November 2017. His successor and former vice president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, promised a break from Mugabe’s authoritarian rule and economic mismanagement, declaring a “new Zimbabwe” that is “open for business.” After two years in power, to what extent has Mnangagwa delivered on his promises? In short, it’s bleak.