For over three decades, every Chinese foreign minister’s first overseas trip of the year has been to Africa. This year continued the tradition with China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, visiting Egypt, Tunisia, Togo and Côte d'Ivoire. Notably, every one of these countries is coastal. And yet, at a time of continued speculation over China’s next military installation in Africa, none of these countries has featured prominently as potential locations in previous analyses. We might, therefore, reasonably ask what China’s current considerations are around basing in Africa. Faced with an increasingly multipolar and assertive Africa at a time of domestic economic challenge, however, China’s long-term strategy remains unclear.

Type: Analysis

Global Policy

While Côte d'Ivoire has managed to professionalize its security forces and maintain relative calm in the country’s interior regions, concerns over violent extremism continue to plague its northern borders with countries like Mali and Burkina Faso. Vagondo Diomandé, Côte d'Ivoire’s minister of interior and security, discusses the country’s security landscape, his first impressions of the U.S. Strategy for Conflict Prevention and Stability Promotion in Coastal West Africa, and why a regional security approach is the only way to fully address the cross-border threat of terrorism.

Type: Blog

Fragility & Resilience;  Violent Extremism

An explosion of violent extremism in the Sahel has begun spilling over into Coastal West African states. International efforts to stave off the spread have fallen short, which recently prompted the United States to include five countries in the region — Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea and Togo — in the U.S. Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability. USIP’s Andrew Cheatham spoke with Ambassador Terence McCulley about the strategy’s focus on good governance as a means to counter violent extremism, the need for sustained coordination in the strategy’s implementation and the hope that this might spark further international support for peace and stability in Coastal West Africa.

Type: Blog

Democracy & Governance;  Violent Extremism

The countries of Coastal West Africa are currently facing significant challenges to peace and security as extremist violence spills over from the neighboring Sahel region. Attacks in 2022 in the northern parts of Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, and Togo illustrate the immediacy and gravity of the threat, and governments across the subregion are grappling with protecting fragile communities in the north, addressing porous borders that facilitate attacks from neighboring states, and building the capacity of security forces to address the threat.

Type: Report

Conflict Analysis & Prevention;  Democracy & Governance;  Fragility & Resilience;  Global Policy;  Reconciliation