Africa (Sub-Saharan) Archives

Energy Finance Is Making The Fuel Crisis Worse

In November 2025, Mauritius Commercial Bank closed a $400 million financing facility to expand floating power plant operations across Africa. Four months later, in response to attacks by the United States and Israel, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, drastically curtailing oil supply and spiking oil prices globally.The countries now absorbing the worst of that price shock did not become vulnerable when the first missile struck. Their economic vulnerability was written into contracts signed years earlier.

Growing energy demands, immediate need, and planning for the future are often framed as in-tension for countries plotting out their energy futures. Unfortunately, thanks to current structuring of debt and financing for energy infrastructure projects, these tensions are often manifest in contracts, when they don’t have to be. Clearer up-front information on vulnerability to oil shocks, as well as a better rebalancing towards renewable infrastructure that takes into account their resilience to price shocks, would go a long way towards lessening the acute financial strain placed on infrastructure by an energy crisis.

Create a renewable infrastructure carve-out in the LIC Debt Sustainability Framework, assessing clean energy loans on long-term fiscal impact rather than upfront cost.
Build oil price shock scenarios into every debt sustainability assessment for fuel-dependent countries as a primary scenario, not a footnote.
Distinguish between debt that creates price-exposure risk and debt that eliminates it, treating them differently in debt ceiling calculations.
Introduce a climate shock carve-out allowing temporary suspension of debt ceiling rules when fiscal distress stems from an externally generated energy price spike.
Require disclosure of contingent fiscal liabilities in long-term energy contracts as a condition of debt sustainability assessments.

Floating Power Prices

The standard floating power plant contract is a take-or-pay agreement: governments pay whether they use the electricity or not, at a fuel cost tied directly to global oil prices. There is no price ceiling. Contract terms run ten to twenty years. Every design feature transfers risk downward, from the company onto the government, and from the government onto the population least able to absorb it.

Ghana signed one of these agreements in 2014 with Karpowership, a Turkish floating power plant operator, in response to a genuine electricity crisis. By 2024, Ghana had accumulated $3 billion in total energy sector debt, with $379 million owed to Karpowership alone. In 2025 — before Hormuz closed, before oil reached $100 per barrel — Ghana required a $1.47 billion emergency bailout just to stabilize its energy finances. The war did not create Ghana’s crisis. It arrived on top of one already in progress.

Sierra Leone paid $90 million to Karpowership in 2025 alone and still faces daily blackouts. Across the Caribbean, over 90 percent of electricity generation runs on imported fossil fuels. Fossil fuel imports in the Eastern Caribbean averaged $444 million per year between 2016 and 2021 — more than 17 percent of the entire trade balance. Guyana is paying $0.32 per kilowatt-hour for powership electricity. Solar costs $0.09. That gap, compounded across every hour of every day, is the fiscal cost of the emergency decision. It is being paid right now, on top of an oil shock that nobody modeled into the original contract.

The institutions responsible for overseeing these countries’ fiscal health are not ignorant of the risk. Demetrios Papathanasiou,Global Director of Energy and Extractives at the World Bank, stated in May 2023 that “poorer countries are stuck in a vicious cycle where they pay more for electricity, cannot afford the high upfront cost of clean energy, and are locked into fossil fuel projects.” The World Bank coined the term “fuel trap.” Its Caribbean research identified fossil fuel dependency as a “major fiscal vulnerability” years before Hormuz closed.

Mixing In Renewables

At the January 2025 Mission 300 Africa Energy Summit — ten months before the war started — the World Bank committed $40 billion and the African Development Bank committed $18 billion to African electrification, with half of the funding aimed at renewable energy projects. Several country plans embedded in that commitment include natural gas investments as part of a more traditional mix of energy infrastructure. Some of that power capacity is being floated, literally, through offshore ship-based power generation. Karpowership’s chief commercial officer stated in October 2025 that “almost every day a new country approaches us.” These floating power plants can rapidly offer energy generation, reacting capacity within two weeks of a deployment, but they run on liquid fuel initially, before transitioning to natural gas in months. While immediate, their reliance on fossil fuels makes that expanded capacity particularly vulnerable to price shock. Funds meant to steer countries towards energy independence and renewables can end up committing governments to the vulnerable and volatile fossil fuel markets.

The mechanism connecting these failures is the IMF-World Bank Debt Sustainability Framework for low-income countries. The framework governs how much countries can borrow before lenders flag fiscal distress. In practice, it treats a solar infrastructure loan and a powership contract as equivalent — assessing both against the same debt ceiling without distinguishing between debt that creates long-term fiscal fragility and debt that eliminates it. A solar farm carries high upfront cost and near-zero operating cost. A powership contract carries low upfront cost and permanently variable operating cost tied to global oil prices. Under the current framework, the solar loan looks riskier. The Iran war has demonstrated which one actually is.

Economists and the Carnegie Endowment have proposed a specific reform: create a carve-out for renewable infrastructure investment, assessed on long-term fiscal impact rather than upfront cost. Build oil price shock scenarios into every debt assessment for fuel-dependent countries as a primary scenario, not a footnote.The UK government made exactly this call at the 2025 IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings, urging “full integration of climate and nature risks and the benefits of adaptation investments.” The Iran war has now provided the empirical data that makes that argument unanswerable.

Solutions, Distilled

The IMF should act on it. Specifically:

Create a renewable infrastructure carve-out in the LIC Debt Sustainability Framework, assessing clean energy loans on long-term fiscal impact rather than upfront cost.
Build oil price shock scenarios into every debt sustainability assessment for fuel-dependent countries as a primary scenario, not a footnote.
Distinguish between debt that creates price-exposure risk and debt that eliminates it, treating them differently in debt ceiling calculations.
Introduce a climate shock carve-out allowing temporary suspension of debt ceiling rules when fiscal distress stems from an externally generated energy price spike.
Require disclosure of contingent fiscal liabilities in long-term energy contracts as a condition of debt sustainability assessments.

If those reforms had been in place in 2014 when Ghana signed its Karpowership contract, the official debt assessment would have modeled what that contract costs when oil hits $100 per barrel. It would have assessed the renewable alternative on its long-term fiscal benefit rather than penalizing it as debt. Ghana might still have signed, the emergency was real. But the decision would have been made with accurate information, visible to every creditor and development partner at the table.

The $400 million Karpowership expansion facility is live. The company is in active negotiations with new countries. The next Ghana is being contracted now, by governments with no better options, assessed by a framework that cannot see the risk it is underwriting. The Iran war did not reveal a hidden vulnerability. It confirmed a prediction that the institutions’ own researchers had already published. The question is whether the people writing the next round of checks have read what their analysts wrote, and whether, this time, they will act on it.

Amber Dembnicki is an independent policy analyst and writer covering geopolitics and international policy.

From the Sahel to Saint Paul, Curtailing Security Force Abuse Prevents Violence

In January, Americans became immediately and tragically familiar with the spectacle of masked and armed agents of Federal security forces shooting civilians in broad daylight. The horrific violence from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) against people in Minnesota, particularly the killings of protestors Renee Good and Alex Pretti, match the threat to everyday society seen in places abroad where security forces operate with reckless impunity. Immediate deescalation is necessary in Minneapolis, along with a commitment to avoid similar violence in other cities, but we must acknowledge that it is unlikely this administration will end their campaign to remove undocumented immigrants through seemingly any means. The systemic security force abuse that is accompanying ICE’s presence across American cities and hidden in detention centers will have lasting damage, particularly on already vulnerable immigrant communities and requires comprehensive prevention efforts by civil society and local government.

This kind of violence is not new, even in the United States where police abuse has resulted in numerous deaths, though its deliberate provocation by a Presidency against the people of a US state is unique. In the past protecting civilians from such violence was seen as a crucial part of US foreign policy, as part of a holistic effort to combat the conditions that foster violent extremism.

I have spent my career designing and managing conflict prevention, counterterrorism and security assistance policy and programs in Africa. I am not the first to remark on the striking similarities occurring on American streets with what I witnessed in multiple authoritarian African countries. I’ve sat in traffic, protected by diplomatic plates, eyes down and afraid to truly look, as police officers beat a man who was refusing, or couldn’t pay a bribe. I’ve designed security assistance programs across the Sahel that have been canceled due to massive military attacks against unarmed civilians in the name of counterterrorism. I’ve interviewed young people who defected from Boko Haram to learn why they joined, and personal or family abuse by security officials was often a primary reason.

Strengthen hyper-local resilience networks
Rebuild trust in security forces through community-engaged policing at the state and local level
Ensure a gender-sensitive approach
Provide psychosocial support and counseling to those that have suffered or witnessed security force abuses

I live in Washington DC, one of the first cities to be targeted by the Trump administration’s campaign to round up immigrants without regard for accepted standards of engagement. Like many in the community who pulled together through a patchwork system of signal chats, I drove kids to school who no longer felt comfortable walking or taking the metro. On our drives, we frequently witnessed masked agents pulling people, mostly men, from their cars and violently pressing them against the doors or shoving them to the ground, instantly handcuffed behind their back. Sometimes we drove past in silence, avoiding eye contact because it was too difficult. Other times they chatted in Spanish, identifying friends who lived in nearby buildings and texting them to make sure they knew to stay home. One day, the dreaded news came through: one of their fathers had been abducted on the street on his way to work. After being transferred from one detention facility to another, he told his family that the conditions were so terrible that he felt he had no choice but to self deport.

Although media attention is focused intently on Minneapolis now, ICE is still present in Washington and many other cities around the country, and their violent tactics have become emboldened and sanctioned by political officials. In fact, rather than simply being a tactic, ICE violence has become a policy, and a means to promote and enforce power.

Decades of research in Africa has shown that lack of trust in government, security force impunity, and general perception of marginalization are factors that can lead to recruitment by violent extremist organizations, especially when triggered by a “tipping point” event such as violent abuse by security forces. While there is no indication of increased violence among communities targeted by ICE, American civil society, and eventually the American government, should be attentive to these risks and take steps to prevent increased marginalization and risk of violent non-state groups forming in response to the abuses they have faced.

As the large-scale public response in Minneapolis and micro-level networks to protect and support neighbors across the country have shown, communities are resilient in the face of state sponsored violence. I’ve seen this personally through hundreds of community-based organizations I’ve worked with across Africa that have developed with limited resources to protect their people who face violence from both the government and non-state armed groups.

Federally sanctioned security force violence has harmed a sacred social contract between Americans and the government, but there are ways to prevent longer term damage. Although the context between the African countries where I have worked and the United States is very different, international experience and evidence suggest that states, cities and civil society could focus on the following actions to mitigate the risks of continued state violence and repression:

Strengthen hyper-local resilience networks: Protection and support that occurs closest to home such as Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs), neighborhood committees, or churches/houses of worship can provide a sense of belonging that reduces real or perceived marginalization. These frontline groups may be able to help develop strategies and capacities to resist violence. Many of these networks exist organically but can be strengthened with external financial or organizational support, however it’s important not to overwhelm their authenticity.
Rebuild trust in security forces through community-engaged policing at the state and local level: This approach is not new to the American context where some law enforcement entities have spent decades building relationships and trust within immigrant communities. Rebuilding or developing positive relationships that effectively address non-immigration related crime will require redoubling these efforts and focusing on transparency and independence from immigration enforcement. Lessons can be drawn from Kenya, for example, where there has been significant challenges of police misconduct and political interference.
Ensure a gender-sensitive approach: Although many of the people impacted directly by ICE’s violence are adult men, women’s lives are also changed particularly if they must take on additional roles to support their family financially to compensate for the loss of one income if a spouse is detained or deported. A gender sensitive approach should also consider the impact on boys and young men, whose role in the family and society may also be shifting.
Provide psychosocial support and counseling to those that have suffered or witnessed security force abuses: Given the risk that security force abuses can be a tipping point towards violence, it is critical to address this trauma early and provide ongoing counseling particularly for youth. Psychosocial support has been identified as a critical aspect of peacebuilding, reintegration of former fighters, and post conflict reconstruction following many types of violent conflict in Africa.

In the near term, these actions will fall to civil society, state and local government, and private citizens. The Trump administration has decimated many federal government services that address community violence prevention and detection domestically and abroad in the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) Justice, and State, as well as the FBI, including funding for NGOs. But beyond that, as was the case in many other countries I have worked in, the use of sanctioned state sponsored violence is intentional. As opposed to many countries, where political leadership acknowledges the need to address systemic security force abuses but fails to control it in practice, in the United States, such abuse continues to be promoted as acceptable. The tragic deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, as well as the deaths of at least 53 people held in detention by DHS, are a direct result of the consistent sanctioned violence by security forces. This violence continues around the country, in neighborhoods where national media has gathered to witness it and in others where the harm is documented only by bystanders, and it is causing both short- and long-term damage to this country, and requires a holistic response.

Margot Shorey is an expert on counterterrorism and conflict prevention and previously served in the Department of State Bureaus of African Affairs and Conflict and Stabilization Operations.

Good Business Requires Better Governance

Kate Hixon is the Advocacy Director for Africa at Amnesty International USA and Kehinde Togun is the Managing Director for Public Engagement & Partnerships at Humanity United and a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for International Policy.

When Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the Trump administration’s vision for foreign policy, he said every decision must answer three questions: does it make the U.S. safer; does it make the U.S. stronger; does it make the U.S. more prosperous? The administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) quickly decided that many existing policies and agencies failed to affirmatively answer these three questions. As a result, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was rapidly dismantled; attacks were launched against any program or policy that focused on human rights or good governance; and defenestration began of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. All these actions signaled to the private sector that the U.S. is open for business, no matter the human rights cost.

At the same time, these and other measures taken against supporting good governance and human rights create a contradictory environment for the administration’s stated goals: they do not make the U.S. safer, or stronger, or more prosperous.

Bad Deals

Most visibly, the Trump administration made a brazen play for critical mineral assets in Ukraine by attempting to browbeat the Ukrainian government for exploratory rights in exchange for ongoing security support. Other countries quickly took notice. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) President Felix Tshisekedi quickly offered mineral deals in exchange for assistance fighting the Rwandan-backed M23 armed group in eastern DRC, and dozens of lobbyists descended on Washington in “support” of the Congolese government to try and secure a deal. On June 27, the DRC and Rwanda signed a peace agreement in Washington – the first step for both to also secure tentative mineral deals with the U.S. The administration’s Senior Advisor for Africa, Massad Boulos, acknowledged that in order for the mineral deals to work, the signatories needed “a more stable environment.”

Empower Department of State or other government bureaus to fund/implement human rights and good governance programs to increase confidence that private investments are viable;
Support projects that protect civilians from harm in conflict and disincentives conflict as a means to control natural resources;
Include and empower local civil society actors and journalists whose vital work helps create an enabling environment for responsible investment.

The Trump administration is not unique in its desire to prioritize U.S. interests or to seek to give the U.S. private sector a leg up in access to natural resources. However, unlike previous U.S. administrations, resource extraction appears to be the sole goal of the Trump administration when engaging with African countries. Nonetheless, both the administration and U.S. companies, regardless of sector, are constrained by externalities. Markets rely on stability that comes not only from inking deals between countries or their entrepreneurs, but also from ensuring that agreements are honored, processes are in place, and that people in those countries have their rights respected and benefit from those deals.

Good governance is good for business

For U.S. companies to succeed in African markets, they need to trust the rule of law. That principle — that business can only flourish amid reliable governance structures — is why the Millenium Challenge Corporation placed so much emphasis on governance. It’s also why the Development Finance Corporation and USAID partnered so closely to ensure an enabling legal environment existed for successful investments across the globe. When a U.S. company is assessing a country’s investment profile, it will investigate a number of legitimate questions, including if fair arbitration can be expected in the national courts, whether there is risk of being overtaken by the state or being impacted by conflict, and whether there will be a struggle with recruitment because the population lacks basic health care.

Without the rule of law, good governance and stability that comes from it, many U.S. companies will simply deem mineral-rich sub-Saharan African countries far too risky for investment.

Yet, when Elon Musk’s DOGE put USAID through the woodchipper, it simultaneously halted Washington’s ability to bolster civil society and support good governance programs overseas. It also eliminated the agency’s investment support via the Development Finance Corporation (DFC), making the investment climate harder for U.S. companies.

In the vacuum left by a retreating U.S., other governments will fill the void. Chinese parastatal companies will have a greater advantage, as their government’s support allows much higher risk tolerance, and fewer human rights safeguards, than many U.S. companies are willing to stomach.

Great prosperity through human dignity

If the Trump administration wants to make the U.S. safer, stronger and more prosperous, it must emphasize its comparative advantage, not eliminate it. While previous U.S. administrations didn’t do enough, they understood that U.S. companies required some semblance of good governance and respect for human rights to invest.

The DRC recently offered its critical minerals to the U.S. in exchange for the Trump administration supporting Tshekedi’s government. Eastern Congo is home to vast resources of gold, diamonds and the three Ts (tin, tungsten and tantalum). Further south is the world’s largest cobalt reserve — crucial for batteries and electric vehicles. Eastern Congo has a long history of instability, despite regional and international players seeking to cash in on these rich mineral reserves. However, very few U.S. companies have operated in eastern DRC, in part because of Chinese dominance but more broadly because of the high risk associated with operating in the region. Pervasive armed group activity in the area presents a real risk that a company’s mine could be taken over, as happened with the Rubaya mine captured by the M23. Amid a nearly five-year state of siege in eastern DRC, all civilian courts have been replaced with military courts, leaving doubt to companies about the independence of other courts in Congo should they need arbitration.

The DRC also ranks incredibly high on Transparency International’s corruption index, making it more expensive for U.S. companies to operate, especially without the protection of a robust enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

While USAID would not have been a panacea, in countries like DRC and around the world USAID and the State Department were focused on working to improve security, ensure transparency and support people to seek accountability from their governments. Behind the scenes, the private sector is raising candid concern that the closure of USAID and downsizing of State Department agencies will make investing in African countries even more expensive for U.S. companies.

If the Trump administration wishes to make the U.S. safer, stronger, and more prosperous through U.S. investment in critical mineral sectors abroad, it has to grapple with the loss of that expertise housed at USAID and begin ideating how it will help strengthen independent judiciaries and give companies more confidence in fair arbitration, support peacebuilding projects to help reduce levels of conflict, make a safer security environment for private sector investment, and simultaneously support investigative journalism as an external anti-corruption and accountability mechanism. It might also support health programs in mining communities that fill gaps where government services for critical healthcare were unavailable, and have an agency that works closely with the DRC de-risk investments for U.S. companies.

Companies also can’t sit it out while the administration dismantles the work and programs they need to invest responsibly and sustainably in the region. They need to speak not only to the ability of U.S. businesses to contribute materially to one of the fastest growing economic environments, but also to the value of programs that support rule of law, human rights and labor for their intrinsic good.

A Roadmap for Sudan in Trump’s First 100 Days

Kate Hixon is the Advocacy Director for Africa at Amnesty International USA and Kehinde Togun is the Managing Director for Public Engagement at Humanity United and a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for International Policy

Following his second inauguration, President Donald Trump has another chance to enact his foreign policy vision and we urge him to include addressing one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world. With more than 11.4 million Sudanese displaced and over 18,000 killed, the conflict in Sudan presents grave challenges to the new administration. Sudan’s continued collapse is not only an immediate human rights threat to civilians but also risks further destabilizing an already fragile region—a major risk to the United States and its own security interests. The Sudan conflict will also continue to be intertwined with the administration’s Middle East policy; many of those supplying weapons fueling ongoing atrocities were key allies in ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas. Despite these complications, President Trump has a legacy-defining opportunity by immediately prioritizing Sudan before even more civilians are killed.

Background

Conflict in Sudan broke out on April 15, 2023, months after two divisions of the Sudanese state militia ended their power sharing agreement, following the removal of their civilian partners from the transitional government in October 2022. The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan wanted the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (“Hemedti”) integrated into the traditional army faster than the RSF was prepared to submit control. For the first time in Sudan’s history violent conflict seeped into the capital and quickly spread to the peripheries as well. Soon most of Sudan’s hospitals were out of commission and nearly two million people had fled the country, with millions more displaced internally.

President Biden initially issued two statements around the closure of the U.S. Embassy and evacuation of Americans. However, it was nearly a year and a half before he addressed the Sudanese people directly. Despite pressure from Congress, it took nearly a year for the Biden administration to appoint a Special Envoy for Sudan, Tom Perriello, and it did not go unnoticed that the envoy reported to Assistant Secretary for Africa, Molly Phee, instead of the Secretary of State. Intentionally or unintentionally, the administration’s message was that Sudan wasn’t a senior-level priority. Yet every few weeks, new reports of atrocities emerged, with the UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Advisor to the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide warning that the “the situation today bears all the marks of risk of genocide, with strong allegations that this crime has already been committed.” In its final days, the Biden administration finally made a genocide determination. The administration also sanctioned leaders of both RSF and the SAF.

Despite co-leading several failed attempts at ceasefires with Saudi Arabia and ultimately standing up a larger Alliance for Lifesaving Peace (ALPS) working group; President Biden leaves office having made no material difference for the lives of the Sudanese people. Meanwhile, up to 24 million people are at risk of acute hunger with famine declared in some areas, and weapons continue to pour into Sudan into the hands of belligerents on both sides who continue to commit war crimes and harm civilians. The number of Sudanese refugees is growing in Chad, Egypt, South Sudan and Ethiopia where many face further human rights violations from their host state. South Sudan’s own moribund economy has been directly impacted by the halt of the flow of oil – causing further instability to an already precarious situation. Today, there is a greater risk of the conflict spreading and further destabilizing the Horn of Africa and harming even more civilians.

What Trump Can Do

Despite all the challenges the international community faces, there are several steps the new Trump administration can take within the first 100 days to stop civilian suffering in Sudan. Prioritizing these actions now would meaningfully impact the conflict before it reaches the grim two-year milestone.

First and most urgently, President Trump must appoint his own Presidential Envoy for Sudan. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has previously made a bipartisan demand for this and the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act codifies a Special Envoy for Sudan. Former Special Envoy Perriello—an energetic advocate—was never formally nominated nor was he seen as a senior Envoy with the ear of key Biden administration officials. As a result, he was hampered by a lack of influence with the external actors with whom he needed to negotiate. Outside of the U.S., counterparts did not view his appointment as a signal that Sudan was a top priority for President Biden. President Trump therefore must appoint a senior official who will be understood to truly be the administration’s emissary. Furthermore, formally nominating someone—and doing so early—would signal long term interest in addressing the crisis in Sudan, as the appointment will not be restricted by Senate rules on non-confirmed envoys.

Secondly, the Trump administration must immediately and forcefully convey that there will be consequences to governments that choose to continue to send weapons in clear violation of the arms embargo on Darfur. They must also message that beyond violating the Darfur arms embargo, international humanitarian law (IHL) precludes sending weapons to other parts of Sudan, as all states are prohibited from transferring or permitting private actors to transfer weapons to a party of an armed conflict – whether a state or non-state armed group – where there is a clear risk that this would contribute to the commission of international humanitarian law violations. President Trump should have these conversations directly with leaders of countries who are either directly or through shell companies arming the belligerents. The Trump administration will have both open-source information such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reports on these weapons flows as well as classified intelligence so that the leaders cannot deny responsibility. It’s imperative that this information be shared to avoid the lack of accountability that existed in the Biden administration. Furthermore, President Trump’s reported close personal relationship with authorities in the UAE could be seen as an advantage if they’re more amenable to responding to a request from him than the previous administration.

In parallel, the administration must immediately begin laying the groundwork for an expansion of the U.N. Darfur arms embargo to cover the entirety of Sudan. The Security Council and its political composition make this a daunting task, and there are several key steps the Biden administration failed to take that would have laid the groundwork for success. However, there is a useful playbook to follow from the previous Trump administration when UN Ambassador Nikki Haley successfully led an effort to adopt an arms embargo on South Sudan. Haley herself made a call to the President of Sierra Leone and coordinated with like-minded UNSC partners to lobby Security Council governments and secure support. The senior level lobbying to multiple partners sent a strong signal that this was a U.S. priority. This level of diplomatic engagement was lacking under the Biden administration and President Trump would do well to instruct Cabinet officials to begin to signal that securing an expanded arms embargo is a top priority and work closely with Security Council partners to achieve it.

It will also be important for the Trump administration to reset relationships with the African Union and African states on the Sudan portfolio. When the conflict broke out the U.S. instinctively turned to its Gulf partner, Saudi Arabia, to coordinate on addressing the conflict and initial talks were held in Jeddah. The Biden administration rationale was the close links several of the Gulf states had with Burhan and Hemedti; yet it was a mistake to do so as it resulted in sidelining the African Union. While the African Union has its flaws that have hindered its own response to the Sudan crisis, it is a vital partner for addressing the conflict—the AU also has mechanisms that if brought to bear could hold the belligerents accountable. For example if the African Union decided it was in the best interest of civilians in Sudan to expand the arms embargo, it is significantly less likely that China or Russia would veto the expansion. Furthermore, with more African countries directly impacted by this conflict, the AU has an incentive to see the conflict cease to harm civilians or risk further destabilizing the region.

Finally, President Trump must prioritize responding to the humanitarian crisis. International aid agencies have been hindered in their response by bureaucratic obstacles from the Humanitarian Aid Commission, as well as security risks that make aid delivery difficult. Meanwhile Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms—created and led by Sudanese themselves to respond to their own crisis—continue to be the first line of response for the majority of civilians in need of assistance. While previous USAID Administrator Samantha Power took some steps to help further support these Emergency Response Rooms, bureaucratic hurdles continue to prevent these groups from being funded sufficiently. President Trump should order USAID to present a plan that will allow the U.S. to have a more flexible approach to funding these local groups. The administration must also lobby Congress to ensure that there is sufficient humanitarian funding for Sudan, as the response remains woefully underfunded. Taking these concrete steps will greatly reduce the extent of famine in Sudan – unfortunately, it is already likely too late to prevent it all together.

Conclusion:

While the new administration has multiple priorities, it is essential that addressing the conflict in Sudan be at the top of the list. Civilians in Sudan have endured suffering for nearly two years due to international indifference. Without more robust action, and a proactive approach from top to bottom, not only will civilians in Sudan continue to suffer but the risk for regional instability increases. President Trump must take advantage of his relationships with many of the proxies involved in the conflict to stop the weapons flow into Sudan and protect civilians.

US Genocide Determination in Sudan, RSF Sanctions Necessary But More Must Be Done

The Biden Administration on Tuesday concluded that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied militias have committed genocide in Sudan and that the U.S. would therefore sanction RSF’s leader Mohammad Hamdan Daglo Mousa (“Hemedti), as well as seven RSF-owned companies in the United Arab Emirates and one individual for helping procure weapons for the RSF. In response, Center for International Policy (CIP) Senior Non-Resident Fellow Kehinde Togun issued the following response:

“The Biden Administration’s determination that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have committed genocide in Sudan is a necessary and important development. While designating the actions of the RSF and its allied militias as genocidal for the first time, the State Department’s announcement also rightly reiterated that the opposing Sudanese Armed Forces have committed war crimes.

“While this action by the administration is commendable, it’s unfortunate it came in the waning days of the Biden administration. It will be imperative for the incoming Trump administration to use the full weight of the U.S. government to enforce the accompanying sanctions, including those against RSF-linked companies in the United Arab Emirates.

“Additionally, the United States must take other meaningful steps to staunch the flow of weapons into the hands of the belligerents, including by putting greater pressure on the UAE to cease its support for the RSF.

“Much more is needed to bring about an end to the genocide. Without continued action by the United States to end atrocities by the warring parties in Sudan, the future of Sudanese people will be hampered for generations to come.”

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Counter-terror turned the Sahel into a coup-belt. U.S. policy in the region should move on.

Hannah Rae Armstrong is a policy adviser and writer with over a decade of field-based experience working on peace and security in the Sahel.

On March 16, military authorities in Niger, a key U.S. Africa ally, released a televised broadcast ending the country’s military agreement with the U.S. The dispute lays bare the conundrum the U.S. currently faces in the central Sahel, where a decade of counter-terror-led engagement backfired, worsening insecurity while empowering intransigent military leaders who went on to seize power and ally with Moscow. From 2020 to 2023, ‘transitional’ military-led governments in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso took power and expelled France, the Sahel’s leading foreign partner over the past decade, leaving a vacuum that Russia quickly stepped in to fill. Since the latest July 2023 coup in Niger, a country where the U.S. has 650 troops stationed and three strategic air bases, Washington has been pulled in different directions. The policy debate ranges from arguments for stepping up and assuming more of a leadership role to drawing back and disengaging. The U.S. should not (and cannot) compete with Russia’s security offer; instead, it should forge a new path guided by day-after policies that transition away from counter-terrorism toward more effective, political modes of resolution.

Disengagement would perhaps be optimal. Washington, wishing to help resolve the crisis, inadvertently worsened the Sahel violence, which is now at an all-time high: 12,000 were killed in 2023 – up from 9,000 in 2022 and 6,000 in 2021; most of them civilians – and at least three million are internally displaced. The region barely shows up on the radar of the American public and in terms of strategic importance it ranks well below various other fires to put out. The implicit tensions between counter-terrorism and democracy promotion have become all too explicit. Our ally France, whose expertise and leadership have guided U.S. policy in the Sahel over the past decade, has been roundly ejected. And the usual tools for dealing with rogue leaders are proving ineffective – attempts to isolate Sahelian military regimes are failing as Russia, China, middle powers, and a deepening alliance among the three neighbors open promising alternatives. The easiest move would be for the Biden Administration to draw back. And yet, U.S. engagement is more likely to persist, in part due to the sunk fallacy costs of the air base assets and an indirect nuclear non-proliferation interest.

Mending the U.S.-Niger rupture will require genuine engagement with a new generation of sovereigntist demands. For years, policymakers had viewed the Sahel through the lens of ‘the trifecta of alien demographic vitality, Islamic fanaticism and pauper migration that is the new spectre haunting the West.’. This can no longer be the case. Given legal restrictions and a Russian security bid that offers more to military regimes, the era of U.S. counter terror-led engagement in the Sahel is over. This is something to embrace, not to mourn.

Trans-Saharan Policy Options

Between 2012 and 2022, American counter-terror engagement in Sahel surged, chiefly within the framework of the Trans-Saharan Counter-Terror Partnership, launched in 2005 to ‘eliminate terrorist safe havens in northwest Africa’ (at that time, there were none). In 2012 groups with links to Al Qaeda and what went on to become the Islamic State seized a relatively contained territory in northern Mali. Following this, the conflict theatre spread into central Mali and the tri-border area, then deeper into western Niger and northern and central Burkina Faso.

In Mali, counter-terrorism meant supporting French-led operations with intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR). In Burkina Faso, publicly disclosed bilateral security assistance skyrocketed: from roughly $200,000 before 2009 to $1.8 million in 2010 to more than $16 million by 2018; an investigation suggests the total amount of U.S. security aid cooperation with Burkina may have reached $100 million between 2018 and 2019.

Niger was different: the U.S. did much more. U.S. special forces were accompanying Nigerien forces on operations, a fact only revealed in 2017 when four U.S. servicemen were killed in an ambush in Tongo Tongo. The troops were technically deployed for assistance, not fighting, although their deaths reveal the blurred lines between supporting and fighting). Meanwhile, the Pentagon and the CIA were constructing significant strategic assets in Niger. In 2019, after extensive delays, construction was completed on the second-largest U.S. air force base in Africa, Airbase 201 in Agadez, northern Niger. Although technically classified as a non-permanent “cooperative security location”, the base is the largest project in Air Force construction history and was estimated to cost roughly $280 million by 2024.

As the violence levels climbed, it was commonplace to read that radical groups kept growing stronger “despite” counter-terror campaigns, which Western pundits argued were necessary: friendly African states were struggling to defend their institutions, territory, and people from savage attacks waged by violent extremists. In reality, counter-terror tactics were throwing oil onto the fire. The French glibly trotted out nightmare counter-insurgency tactics that had failed and lain dormant for decades, allying with reprisal-driven ethnic militias and forbidding political negotiations with militant groups. Paris kept insisting, as the war gobbled more and more territory, that its methods were simply under-resourced and needed a bit more time to succeed. Militants with mostly secular grievances relating to land and political exclusion were bluntly framed as “terrorist threats”, fueling an ideological forever war whose resolution could only come through more militarization. Western support for unprofessional and often predatory partner state security forces emboldened those forces’ basest instincts while expanding their reach and firepower. It also set the stage for the rash of coups that would wipe out elected governments in all three countries.

The present situation offers an opening for long overdue reorientation of a counter-terror-led engagement that has proven catastrophic, and should be recognized as an opportunity to play a more supportive role in the region.

Soldiers seized power in Mali in August 2020 and May 2021, in Burkina Faso in January 2022 and September 2022, and in Niger in July 2023. These coups put the final nail in the coffin of an extravagant counter-terror-led strategy that, while ‘multidimensional’ and devoted to ‘stabilisation’ on paper, had in reality conditioned a dizzying loss of life and territory for already fragile and impoverished states. Soldiers and citizens united and rose up in protest against the ineffectual political classes that had greenlit such disastrous outcomes, grasping for new approaches that might actually deliver on promises of security and stability. Moscow seized the opportunity and plunged in.

Mali was the first Sahelian country to cast off the Western ‘stabilisation’ apparatus that had delivered so little, and try its hand at partnering with Russian paramilitary forces instead. Between September and November 2023, the FAMA-Wagner offensive on northern Mali delivered Bamako control over rebel-held territory for the first time in more than a decade, a spectacular, fast payoff on investment. It was practically a marketing campaign for Wagner to neighboring states.

Technical Obstacles

As the French-led coalition it supported melted away, U.S. policy struggled to keep up with rapidfire events. Section 7008 restrictions, which prohibit the continuation of assistance to governments toppled by coups, severely curtailed the types and amounts of aid the U.S. could disburse. In Mali, Washington continued providing limited security assistance to law enforcement partners and significant humanitarian aid, while sanctioning certain senior officials under the Russia sanctions program.

In Burkina Faso, the next state to fall, the U.S. waited weeks before calling the January 2022 military seizure in Burkina Faso a coup d’état, triggering Section 7008 restrictions that cut most U.S. aid to the country. When more than a year passed with no progress made towards a return to constitutional order, American diplomats tried to offer restoring nonlethal military assistance as leverage for preventing a partnership with Russian private security. “Burkina Faso is at a tipping point,” a senior DoD official told reporters. “Our position is that if we don’t provide assistance, then someone else will, whether it is Wagner or China or another group.” In an October 2023 visit to Ouagadougou, a senior delegation reportedly offered more assistance within the constraints of 7008 while telling 34-year-old junta leader Captain Ibrahim Traoré that doing business with the Wagner Group would cross a red line. The line was quickly crossed. In January 2024, Russian Africa Corps military personnel arrived in Ouagadougou with a mandate to defend the country’s leader and protect the Burkinabe people from terrorist attacks, according to an Africa Corps Telegram statement.

A similar scenario is unfolding in Niger. American officials waited until October 2023 – three months after the coup – to invoke section 7008. They then took a more hardline stance, severing types of cooperation and military assistance not bound by section 7008, such as DoD advisory support or attending exercises or providing support to non-military security force programs. This would leave room, it was thought, to offer some security cooperation in compliance with 7008 restrictions, if the junta softened its own rigid stance, particularly on two conditions that the West African regional bloc ECOWAS had cited as conditions for lifting sanctions: releasing the captive deposed President Bazoum and publishing a timeline for a return to constitutional order.

But the junta, formally the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Country (CNSP), flouted these conditions. In December, CNSP leader General Tchiani welcomed Russian deputy defense minister Colonel General Yunus-Bek Yevkurov (who was overseeing the rebranding of Wagner as Africa Corps), and signed a new security agreement with Moscow. On January 28, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso announced they were leaving the regional bloc ECOWAS. One month later, ECOWAS lifted most sanctions against Niger, leaving the U.S. in the awkward position of supporting an ECOWAS policy that no longer existed.

On March 16, CNSP spokesman Colonel Major Amadou Abdramane concluded a visit by a high-level U.S. delegation by announcing on television that Niger was terminating the status of forces agreement it signed in 2012 with the U.S. The decision does not mean an immediate end to the U.S. security cooperation with key Africa ally Niger, which includes the deployment of roughly 650 soldiers and the holding of two “cooperative security location” air bases and a CIA drone base. It is more likely a negotiating tactic reflecting the chill in relations between Washington and Niamey, amid a broader regional pivot away from Western security partners toward Russia. The rupture with Niger can still be mended. However, Abdramane’s televised speech referred to charges of a secret agreement to sell Nigerien uranium to Iran, accidentally outing what may be the most cogent U.S. security interest in the region (and one that tends to be kept quiet): nuclear non-proliferation and having a say in who Niger, the seventh largest uranium exporter, sells it to.

Desert Power Vacuum?

Washington neither can nor should try to compete with Russia to fill the security vacuum left by the French departure. But disengaging is not really an option either. Beyond the sunk-costs fallacy of the Agadez base, in October 2023, the Senate overwhelmingly voted down a bill to withdraw U.S. troops from Niger. What might this mean for the future of U.S. engagement in the Sahel?

The present situation offers an opening for long overdue reorientation of a counter-terror-led engagement that has proven catastrophic, and should be recognized as an opportunity to play a more supportive role in the region. Military engagement is on a descending path, which is a good thing; what matters more now is political strategy. In light of these developments, non-military contributions might help the U.S. serve its interests in the region while being a good partner.

On the security front, the U.S. and Niger will likely work out some kind of arrangement that allows the U.S. to retain access to its bases. By the CNSP’s own statement, paying taxes and sharing intelligence ought to iron out the bulk of the dispute, not unreasonable demands from a country that is hosting a foreign military presence from which it derives little benefit. Uncomfortable as it is, the likely outcome of this arrangement will be some form of coexistence between Russian and American security forces in-country. While not ideal, this is also not without precedent. Washington should resist setting up new bases in the coastal West African states that would expand into new territory counter-terror cooperation that has been roundly discredited by its own failures.

Meanwhile, the best strategy for countering Russian influence may be to draw back and leave Russia with enough rope to hang itself. The Sahel is a tricky terrain in which it is extremely expensive to operate. The Russian security offer may deliver short-term victories; however, in broader terms, it merely exaggerates the most explosive features of external aid over the past decade, empowering large-scale human rights abuses and civilian massacres while creating a smokescreen that ensures these do not get reported or investigated. These tactics, a continuation of the deeply flawed French-led strategy towards military eradication of problems that have political, economic, and communal roots, are not going to produce effective solutions; instead, they will stifle dissent, further weaken states and institutions, and create conditions of worse insecurity in the near-term future. An over-stretched, overcommitted Russia dealing with terrible infrastructure, enormous distances, extremely aggressive weather and new threats that keep popping up in new arenas will likely fall out of favor at least as quickly as the French did. In the meantime, Washington and Moscow could establish channels of communication and common security objectives around counter-terrorism and non-proliferation, either directly or through the mediation of Algeria, a regional hegemon with experience in transitioning out of counter-terror and a strong direct interest in avoiding conflict escalation.

In political terms, how might the U.S. effectively engage with a new generation of sovereigntist rulers expressing a profound will to achieve more equitable and beneficial forms of engagement with stronger external partners? Sahelian military rulers and peoples are together voicing demands for more meaningful political and economic engagement: a departure from recent decades, when “democracy promotion” and extractive interests propped up Sahelian autocracies whose profound structural flaws led them to lose much or most of their territory to radical extremists. A “values-based” approach that emphasizes timetables and other superficial signposts of democracy is an insufficient response to this demand. As one analyst recently argued, ‘work on the substance and not just the speed of transitions from military to civilian rule’. This could include engaging with transitional authorities to determine areas of mutual interest for strengthening institutions, via for example political party reforms, judicial reforms, and anti-corruption initiatives. Although it is no doubt more challenging to work with unconstitutional regimes against corruption, it’s important to be creative and persistent and recall that anticorruption is in their sovereigntist demand.

An over-stretched, overcommitted Russia dealing with terrible infrastructure, enormous distances, extremely aggressive weather and new threats that keep popping up in new arenas will likely fall out of favor at least as quickly as the French did.

In addition, the U.S. can play a useful role with respect to resolving and de-escalating conflict and addressing humanitarian needs. For example, it should remain vigilant on human rights monitoring. Recent policy in Burkina Faso suggests diplomats are committed to doing just that. The last ambassador met regularly with the military authorities, and the U.S. is balancing some limited counter-terror cooperation with non-military forces, and including Burkinabe forces in Operation Flintlock training exercises, with also speaking up against human rights abuses.

Other policies that might help resolve or de-escalate conflict relate to Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR), political dialogue, and disinformation. In Niger, a U.S.-backed program to amnesty Islamic State returnees collapsed after the coup, with hundreds of ex-militants simply vanishing (many likely rejoined extremist groups). The program was imperfect, and plagued by doubts and uncertainty; however, insofar as it represents a rare non-military means of removing men from the battlefield, it deserves more investment and more careful implementation.

In an increasingly blacked-out media environment that favors impunity for armed forces and sanctions anyone who dares to question or report on their abuses, the U.S. should prioritize training and work with journalists and civil society, while ensuring these activities do not compromise their safety. For the next generation of leaders, and compared to France and Russia, the U.S. still has a lot of appeal. Continuing to work with youths, civil society and journalists will pay off in the long term by building links with future leaders who care about truth and justice, and seek to build mechanisms for preserving and establishing these.

Finally, in terms of domestic policy, embracing the potential of a post-counter-terror partnership era means placing extravagant military overreach in Africa under civilian mechanisms of control and oversight. At a time when funding is scarce due to more pressing conflicts elsewhere, the State Department should have to be more transparent about and justify expenditures in the region. Peacekeeping operations allocations under regional programs like the TSCTP (which include counter-terrorism, military and non-military forces) – unlike the Foreign Military Financing program – do not include breakdowns by country or unit even for congressional reporting, as is standard elsewhere; these should be made routinely available.

A wry response to raising concerns about “U.S. policy in the Sahel” is the question, “is there one?” And yet, despite the carelessness and damage done by French-led counter-terror engagement over the past decade, the U.S. has gotten some things right, like speaking out against violence against civilians, and refusing to back militias, paramilitary groups or Mali’s military campaign against northern rebels. With the French out, whatever happens next is on us. The overarching bipartisan American policy goal in the region right now, which can carry right through the upcoming American elections season, should be ushering in a new era of post-“war on terror” engagement.

Region: Africa (Sub-Saharan)