Essays

There is a growing trend towards episodic, low-intensity conflicts across Nigeria, particularly in its north-central and southern zones. These conflicts often involve nomadic Fulani herdsmen and sedentary agricultural communities, and...

The SSRC’s Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum and African Peacebuilding Network recently collaborated with the American Friends Service Committee and Quaker United Nations Office to host the China-Africa Knowledge Project’s...

The Greater Horn of Africa is one of the most complex and challenging regions in the world in terms of conflict and instability. Currently, there are internal conflicts in South...

Most studies on African immigrants in South Africa focus on xenophobia, illegal immigration, and corruption within the South African Department of Home Affairs, while leaving unexamined some aspects of immigrants’...

Peace is costly, but it’s worth the expense. – Kenyan Proverb Kenya is currently in a volatile period heading towards its general elections. Election periods in Kenya and around the...

When the problem of violence against women during and after conflict is discussed, it is often in reference to non-partner-perpetrated sexual violence. Intimate partner violence is, however, another form of...

Morocco’s triumphant return to the African Union after a thirty-three-year break marked the culmination of a lengthy and intense diplomatic offensive designed to expand its circle of African allies to...

Introduction This appraisal is an interlocution of the twin cultures of silence and denial inherent in Zimbabwe’s post-colonial peacebuilding praxis. It evokes the exigency of placing victimhood, rather than political...

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun offers a heart-wrenching account of the Biafran War (1967-1970), beautifully wrapped in a story of love, loyalty, betrayal, resilience, and hope. She...

Introduction Although narratives of environmental degradation in the Niger Delta region are increasingly shifting attention to the human security challenges affecting the area,[1] one significant component of human security—food security—has...

In April 2014, militant Islamist group Boko Haram abducted 276 schoolgirls from Chibok—a town in Borno State, northeastern Nigeria—making global news [1].  Widespread concern generated by the incident soon culminated...

A few days after the December 2016 elections in Ghana, a cartoon appeared in Uganda’s Sunday Monitor depicting a civics lesson in a classroom where the teacher asked the question:...