The Conversation – MIL Africa Engine

July 14, 2026

Tanzania’s foreign policy has changed. How it’s being shaped by domestic power struggles

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Georg Lammich, Senior Researcher, Institute of Political Science, University of Duisburg-Essen

Tanzania’s foreign policy has changed in the past five years. There is a clear break from the mood, tone and actions of President John Magufuli, who ran the country from 2015 until his death in 2021. His rule was marked by challenges to foreign investors, an emphasis on sovereignty, reduction in international engagement and withdrawal from important legal commitments.

His successor, President Samia Suluhu Hassan, has adopted a different tone. Her administration has courted investors, repaired diplomatic relationships and presented Tanzania as open for business and cooperation.

It is tempting to explain this simply as a change in leadership style. Magufuli was combative; Hassan is more diplomatic.

But I argue that the change in leadership is only part of the story.

I am a scholar of international relations and African politics, and in a recent research paper I investigated the connection between Tanzania’s domestic politics and its foreign policy.

I found that the change in diplomatic approach reflected a change in the domestic distribution of power. That suggests foreign policy should not be treated as something separate from domestic politics.

This matters now because Tanzania has prevailing internal political pressures. The country is also seeking new investments, regional influence and global partnerships. Its future foreign policy will likely continue to reflect this balancing act.

Why foreign policy is also domestic politics

My analysis draws on fieldwork, interviews and document reviews. This uncovered how what was happening inside the ruling party and among elites shaped foreign policy choices. These choices have influenced policies on resource management, international legal commitments and regional engagement.

The idea of political settlements is helpful here. A political settlement refers to the informal bargain among powerful groups over who gets access to authority, resources and influence, and what compromises keep the political order stable.

These bargains are rarely written down. They are not the same as constitutions, elections or formal institutions. But they often shape how power really works.

In many countries, including Tanzania, political stability depends on embracing important groups. They may include ruling party factions, business elites, state officials, security actors, regional networks and social groups.

National leaders must constantly manage these relationships. Policies are chosen partly to reward allies, weaken rivals, build legitimacy or keep a coalition together.

This is why political settlements matter for foreign policy. A government’s relationship with foreign investors, international courts, regional organisations or major powers can strengthen some domestic groups and weaken others. International engagement can bring resources, legitimacy and opportunities. But it can also bring scrutiny or empower domestic opponents.

Foreign policy is therefore part of the struggle over power at home.

How domestic power struggles shaped policy abroad

Tanzania is a useful case because its foreign policy has changed several times since independence in ways that reflect domestic political priorities. Founding president Julius Nyerere’s foreign policy was shaped by African socialism, Pan-Africanism and support for liberation movements. Later governments moved towards “economic diplomacy” in the early 2000s. Investment, trade and development partnerships became more important. Business-oriented networks within the ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi, had more influence.

The Magufuli period marked another shift. Magufuli came to power in 2015 as a compromise candidate after factional struggles within Chama Cha Mapinduzi. He moved quickly to centralise authority. He weakened party factions, sidelined some powerful business networks and concentrated decision-making around the presidency.

His political settlement was narrow and highly personalised. Rather than relying mainly on elite consensus, his appeal came from an anti-corruption and nationalist agenda.

This domestic strategy had clear foreign policy effects. One important example was the mining sector. Magufuli’s government passed laws asserting greater state control over natural resources.

Magufuli presented himself as defending ordinary Tanzanians against foreign exploitation. His policies also weakened business networks associated with earlier governments.

A second example was Tanzania’s withdrawal from the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The court, based in Arusha in northern Tanzania, had become an important channel for cases challenging state actions. The withdrawal closed off an avenue for opposition political figures and civil society organisations to challenge the state.

Hassan’s rise to power changed the domestic equation. The constitution provided for the vice president to take over after Magufuli’s death. But her position was not politically secure. She lacked a strong faction and faced resistance on multiple fronts.

To consolidate power, she sought to:

rebuild consensus within her party
bring sidelined actors back into the political fold
restore confidence among bureaucratic, business and diplomatic communities.

This required a different foreign policy.

Hassan’s administration moved to repair relations with investors and international partners. It returned to a language of economic diplomacy, regional cooperation and international engagement. The government reopened communication with foreign companies, promoted Tanzania as a destination for investment and linked external engagement to national development goals.

Yet the shift has not meant a full reversal of Magufuli’s policies. In mining, for example, the government softened the nationalist approach but retained some rules introduced under Magufuli.

Hassan must satisfy groups that favour renewed international engagement, as well as nationalists.

Why this matters beyond Tanzania

The significance of these findings extends beyond Tanzania. Many African foreign policies are still explained mainly through external pressure. They are also put down to presidential personality or abstract “national interest”. These factors matter, but there are others.

The Tanzanian case shows that foreign policy can stem from managing domestic coalitions. This helps explain why governments sometimes make choices that seem economically costly, diplomatically puzzling or inconsistent. A confrontational stance towards foreign investors may damage friendships. But it can help a leader build domestic legitimacy or weaken rival networks.

On the other hand, re-engagement with international partners may look like a technocratic policy shift. But it can also help rebuild elite consensus and attract resources needed to stabilise a broader coalition.

– Tanzania’s foreign policy has changed. How it’s being shaped by domestic power struggles
– https://theconversation.com/tanzanias-foreign-policy-has-changed-how-its-being-shaped-by-domestic-power-struggles-285835

July 14, 2026

Will El Niño drought hit food prices in South Africa? Earlier rains and grain stocks offer hope

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Wandile Sihlobo, Senior Fellow, Department of Agricultural Economics, Stellenbosch University

The likely impact of the expected El Niño on South Africa’s agriculture and food prices in 2027 is a major point of discussion among analysts and economists in the country.

By mid-2026, weather forecasts were signalling that the world was heading towards a severe El Niño. The El Niño weather phenomenon tends to have varying impacts on the many regions of the world. For southern Africa, it typically presents drought, which is negative for agricultural production.

The arrival of the likely drought is due to coincide with South Africa’s 2026-27 summer crop season.

In my work as an agricultural economist and visiting various farming regions across South Africa, I believe that in examining the likely impact of this El Niño on crop production and, subsequently, on consumer food price inflation, two major factors need to be considered.

First, unlike in the most recent droughts, South Africa will enter the 2026-27 summer crop season with higher soil moisture, because there were excessive rains in the 2025-26 season which lasted far longer than usual. South Africa received rains through to May 2026, which is unusual; the summer rains typically end around March. The rains improved the water levels in the dams for irrigation, and also the soil moisture and water tables. This places the country in a better position ahead of the 2026-27 crop season.

Second, South Africa has ample grain supplies, and carries over a high stock of grain, which may soften some of the drought impact on food prices and therefore inflation.

Food is an important component of South Africa’s inflation basket, with a weighting of about 16.8%. A rise in food price inflation therefore tends to influence the overall inflation trend. Still, it’s likely that 2027 may not be the same as previous droughts that led to a notable increase in food price inflation, and then the headline (overall) inflation figure.

The impact of previous droughts

South Africa’s staple grain is maize. In past drought events, South Africa saw notable losses in maize production, and a broader impact on other agricultural activities. For example, one of the most memorable droughts in South Africa occurred in the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons. The maize harvest in that period fell to around 8.9 million tonnes on average. (For comparison, at the current 2025-26 season, South Africa is expecting a maize harvest of 17.3 million tonnes.)

South Africa’s annual maize consumption is about 12.0 million tonnes, and a smaller harvest meant the country had to import. This led to a surge in food price inflation, which averaged 10.8% in 2016. (It averaged 3.2% in the first five months in 2026.)

The impact was not only on maize, but across the field crops: maize, wheat, soybeans, sunflower seed and sugarcane, among others. Roughly 20% of South Africa’s field crops are under irrigation, with the rest rainfed. All production of fruits and vegetables is under irrigation, and will benefit from the higher water levels in dams this year.

This time, things are different.

What’s different this time

First, South Africa has benefited from a prolonged La Niña, a weather pattern which makes the region wetter. This has supported the agricultural sector over the past few years. The rains place farming in a better position ahead of the 2026-27 season.

In the 2024-25 season, the summer rains continued through April 2025; they normally end in March. In the 2025-26 season, they went on to May 2026.

Ordinarily, such long rainfall periods would raise concerns about crop quality. But in the areas that harvested the 2025-26 crops, the country hasn’t seen many quality issues. In fact, the Crop Estimates Committee’s latest projections were revised higher and still point to a record summer crop harvest for 2025-26.

The longer rainfall season improved soil moisture and the water table. The planting period starts in October 2026. There may be sufficient soil moisture to support seed germination and crop development even as El Niño conditions likely result in below-normal rainfall.

That said, the timing of the rain is what will matter most for crop development.

In the irrigation areas, such as the fruit and vegetable growing regions, the La Niña rains over the past few years have improved dam water levels and the overall water table.

Field crops will depend mostly on available soil moisture and the timing of showers going into the 2026-27 season.

For the livestock industry, grazing across the country is in a fair condition, having benefited from the longer rainy periods. The improved water table will continue to support pastures.

The second key factor is that South Africa has its largest-ever summer grain and oilseed crop in the 2025-26 season. The Crop Estimates Committee places the 2025-26 summer crop at a record 21.49 million tonnes, 5% up year-on-year. Notably, zooming in on the major grains, the 2025-26 maize production estimate is 17.25 million tonnes, up 4% from last season, and the largest harvest on record. This ample grain harvest adds to large carryover stocks from the previous season.

The path ahead is better

The drought that’s being forecast is not ideal and may impose costs on farmers. But any upcoming drought shouldn’t be viewed in the same way as previous dry spells. There are clear factors here that may shape this upcoming season better than the last droughts.

– Will El Niño drought hit food prices in South Africa? Earlier rains and grain stocks offer hope
– https://theconversation.com/will-el-nino-drought-hit-food-prices-in-south-africa-earlier-rains-and-grain-stocks-offer-hope-286373

July 13, 2026

Skills shortages are holding back businesses in South Africa – survey finds the weak spots

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Martin Magidi, Researcher, University of Cape Town

Running a business in South Africa has become increasingly difficult. The challenges range from the economic after-effects of the COVID-19 pandemic to limited access to finance, increased global competition, shifting trade relations, technological change and governance issues.

As researchers with an interest in urban economies, we set out to understand the biggest challenges facing businesses wanting to grow in South Africa’s Western Cape province. The study involved surveying 426 businesses to draw on the views of employers directly.

Our findings show that their biggest constraints were shortages in digital, soft, and environmental sustainability skills. The gaps were the result of weaknesses in education and vocational training.

These findings align with problems in the broader South African labour market, like poor schooling, limited practical skills and a mismatch between what people learn and what employers actually need.

Skills shortages affect not only job seekers but also business productivity, growth and competitiveness.

Yet most firms in our study reported spending only 1%-4% of their wage bill on staff training.

We argue that educational and training institutions play a key role in developing skills, but businesses also have a responsibility to train and develop their employees.

Business challenged by lack of skills

This study gathered the views of 426 business owners and senior managers based on how various factors affected their operations. Those factors included institutions, infrastructure, labour markets, skills, product markets and the natural environment.

Skills shortages emerged as the leading challenge facing businesses in the Western Cape.

More than 70% of respondents said they struggled to find workers with the right skills.

Many believed schools and vocational colleges were not adequately preparing young people for the workplace. For example, 43% said that secondary school and vocational graduates possessed only basic workplace skills. Overall, businesses rated the skills gained through primary, secondary and vocational education as poor. About 58% said secondary education met some of the needs of a competitive economy, while 53% felt vocational education was only somewhat relevant to business needs, or not at all.

Just over half (52%) said university graduates had the skills their businesses required. Nearly half of employers remained unconvinced, however.

Most businesses also reported that their employees lacked strong mathematical and data skills. About 55% said workers demonstrated little or no proficiency in these areas, despite their importance to innovation, evidence-based planning and economic competitiveness.

Vocational training is weak

The study also shows that weaknesses in the technical and vocational education and training (TVET) system contribute to the skills gap. TVET institutions are intended to equip learners with practical, job-ready skills. But nearly 50% of employers said graduates still required practical training before they became productive.

In addition, 59% of employers believed that vocational education only partly met the economy’s needs, while 62% rated the quality and relevance of vocational training as poor for their business needs. Employers believed that stronger partnerships between training institutions and industry, together with more apprenticeships, workplace experience and updated curricula, could improve graduate readiness.

Digital skills are falling behind

Digital skills have become essential in business, but most employers believed workers were not keeping pace with these changes. At least 55% of the surveyed businesses believed their workforce had only basic digital skills and computer literacy. Just over half (52%) said it was difficult to find employees prepared for digital transformation. And 70% rated their workforce’s technology skills as poor or very poor. Employers believed these shortages limited innovation and productivity and weakened competitiveness.

Soft skills matter too

Beyond technical skills, employers also reported a gap in “soft skills”, also known as interpersonal or people skills.

Creativity, problem-solving abilities, good work ethic and self-confidence were lacking. Over 60% of the employers rated their workforce’s skills in these areas as only “minimally” or “mildly” adequate.

This result highlights that the current education system does not do enough to develop skills that are important for critical thinking, decision-making, innovation, practical application of knowledge, and solving problems in the real world.

Environmental skills are scarce

As South Africa strives to build a greener economy, businesses need workers with environmental and sustainability skills. Many employers said these skills were scarce.

About 50% rated workers’ environmental awareness and knowledge of green practices as “minimally” adequate. Only 48% reported that they could find workers with these skills to a “mild” extent.

This suggests that more training in green skills may be needed. As environmental regulations tighten and demand for sustainable business practices grows, these shortages could limit businesses’ ability to compete in emerging green markets.

Businesses need to invest more in training

Half the employers rated access to education and training services within their organisations as very limited or expensive. This indicates that both businesses and employees face barriers to getting quality training.

It highlights the need for greater investment in workplace skills development and improvements to the education system.

Closing the skills gaps would make businesses more productive and competitive, and more people would be able to find and keep jobs. Achieving this will require stronger partnerships among government, education and training providers, and businesses, as well as greater investment in workplace training.

– Skills shortages are holding back businesses in South Africa – survey finds the weak spots
– https://theconversation.com/skills-shortages-are-holding-back-businesses-in-south-africa-survey-finds-the-weak-spots-286978

July 13, 2026

Training young people for jobs: insights from 9 African countries on what’s missing

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Ramos Emmanuel Mabugu, Professor, Sol Plaatje University

Africa’s young population is often described as a demographic dividend: a potential economic advantage if young people can gain the skills and jobs needed to contribute productively. But for many young people, that promise is slipping away. They leave school or training and enter labour markets where formal jobs are scarce and public programmes too often miss the people who need them most.

Too many programmes are underfunded, weakly targeted and disconnected from employers.

Drawing on more than three decades of applied economics and policy research, with particular expertise in labour markets, public finance, policy evaluation and youth employment programmes in Africa, I recently co-edited a book called Youth Employment Programmes in Africa. The book uses evidence from Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda to show that these programmes cannot succeed as stand-alone projects. They also need to be:

linked to real labour demand
backed by adequate public resources
implemented through capable institutions
protected from political capture.

Labour market and youth employment spending averages about 0.35% of GDP across the nine countries, compared with about 0.95% in OECD/developed countries. Private employment incentives average about 0.04% of GDP, compared with about 0.64%. (Computations are based on data for the OECD/developed countries and for the nine African countries.)

The main lesson is clear: youth employment programmes will not create decent jobs unless they are designed around real labour demand, capable institutions and the young people who face the highest barriers to work.

Why youth employment programmes matter

Many African countries are trying to turn large youth populations into productive workers just as public budgets are tight and labour markets are failing to create enough secure jobs. Africa’s median age is about 19 years, far below Asia’s roughly 33 years, North America’s 39 years and Europe’s 43 years. This underscores the scale of the youth employment challenge.

Employment programmes are often treated as a technical fix: train young people, support start-ups and hope that jobs follow. The evidence points to a wider problem. These programmes need:

capable public institutions
employers willing to hire young workers
good design
social inclusion
political support
public accountability.

Poorly targeted programmes can deepen exclusion instead of reducing it.

Key findings

The study rests on an unusually wide evidence base: nine African country studies conducted between 2022 and 2024. It combines policy, legal, programme and academic reviews with interviews involving young women and men, including vulnerable groups, key informants and policymakers. With more than 500 interviews and 1,500 focus group participants, the study shows how youth employment programmes actually perform.

Three findings stand out.

First, youth employment programmes are now common in policy documents, but many are too small, poorly funded and weakly implemented to match the scale of the challenge.

Second, most programmes focus on improving young people’s skills or supporting entrepreneurship, while doing much less to encourage employers to create jobs.

Third, targeting is weak. Poorer, rural, less educated and digitally excluded young people are least able to access support. These problems are made worse by fragmented coordination, weak data systems, limited monitoring and perceptions that political connections influence programme access.

Variations

The nine countries face different labour-market problems. Based on World Bank/International Labour Organization estimates, South Africa has the highest youth unemployment rate of the nine – about 59.4%, and around 60.9% in recent estimates. This points to a severe shortage of formal entry-level work. The African Union defines youth as people aged 15-35, but this does not always match the age ranges used by national governments to determine eligibility for youth employment programmes. For example, South Africa officially defines youth as people aged 15-34.

In most of the other countries, the bigger problem is informality: young people are working, but often in low-productivity, insecure and poorly protected activities. (In Table 1, youth informal employment ranges from 77.3% in Niger to 98.6% in Senegal, with most countries above 90%.)

Table 1. Selected youth labour-market indicators in the nine country studies. Adapted from Youth Employment Programmes in Africa (Routledge)

High rates of young people not in employment, education or training (NEET) in Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa show another layer of exclusion. Rates are 36.3% in Nigeria, 34.2% in Senegal and 32.9% in South Africa (Table 1, adapted from Youth Employment Programmes in Africa.)

These indicators measure different parts of the youth labour-market problem. The informal employment rate refers only to young people who are already working: in Senegal, 98.6% of employed youth are in informal jobs, meaning that work is overwhelmingly insecure, low-paid or weakly protected. The NEET rate measures a different group: 34.2% of young people are not working, studying or in training at all. Taken together, the figures show a dual challenge: many young people are excluded from work and education altogether, while most of those who do work are concentrated in informal employment. Youth employment policy therefore has to address both access to jobs and the quality of the jobs available.

This means youth employment programmes cannot simply be copied from one country to another. They have to fit local labour-market realities.

A similar mismatch appears when labour-market pressures are compared with programme spending and targeting. Countries facing the deepest youth employment pressures do not always have the strongest programme coverage or the most effective support for job creation. This helps explain why policy commitment has not always translated into measurable labour-market change.

Table 2. Programme spending and targeting patterns. Adapted from Youth Employment Programmes in Africa (Routledge)

Private employment incentives are especially limited. These could include targeted wage subsidies, first-job tax credits, apprenticeship grants and support for firms that retain young workers after training.

Coverage is modest, and the poorest young people are reached least. The groups most in need of support are least likely to benefit.

What governments should do

The evidence points to a practical but politically difficult reform agenda. Governments need to invest more seriously in youth employment programmes. But funding alone will not be enough. Programmes also need stronger implementation, better coordination across ministries and agencies, transparent data, credible monitoring and evaluation, and eligibility rules that deliberately reach vulnerable young people.

Policy should move beyond an almost exclusive focus on training and entrepreneurship and create stronger incentives for employers to hire and support young workers. Young people should also have a direct voice in how programmes are designed and monitored. That would help turn youth employment programmes from fragmented projects with limited reach into tools of opportunity, trust and accountability.

Good intentions will not be enough. Youth employment programmes need to be built around real jobs, capable institutions and the young people they are meant to serve.

– Training young people for jobs: insights from 9 African countries on what’s missing
– https://theconversation.com/training-young-people-for-jobs-insights-from-9-african-countries-on-whats-missing-287075

July 13, 2026

Africa’s youth are finding jobs – but not the ones they imagined

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Sam Jones, Senior Research Fellow, World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), United Nations University

Each year, millions of young Africans enter the labour market in search of stable and fulfilling employment. In Mozambique alone, more than half a million young people join the workforce annually.

Many will find work in agriculture, but opportunities for formal employment remain limited. Even in urban areas, many jobs are informal, offering little security and falling short of the aspirations of an increasingly educated young population.

Since 2017, the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) has conducted surveys to trace the path of students from the classroom into the labour market.

We are researchers at Inclusive Growth in Mozambique, a research and capacity development initiative launched in 2015. Our recent statistical report provides a rare look at what actually happens when young people leave university and technical-vocational (TVET) colleges and enter the workforce. The study followed graduates from 2019 to 2024.

The evidence shows that most do find work, eventually, but often not the kind policymakers assume.

Close to half of graduates find a job in the first year after graduating. For the rest, it takes significantly longer. Only by the third or fourth year do the vast majority find work. And results vary widely, depending on the educational level (university or TVET), the type of course, and gender. The differences are seen not only in employability but also in early-career wages and the quality of work. There is a high rate of employee dissatisfaction with their jobs.

The graduates’ experience reveals the limits of the current labour market strategy of widening access to education. It’s doing so within an economy that isn’t growing fast enough, especially in creating formal employment. The results also underline the importance of strong evidence about the labour market and education.

The hidden story behind employment statistics

The young people in the study eventually found some form of work. Economic activity rates reached around 90% for university graduates after five years, and just under 80% for TVET graduates after four. Unemployment rates among them are lower than for other young people of the same age. University graduates showed a 7% unemployment rate in 2024 compared to nearer 19% among equal-aged young people (as per the 2022 national household survey).

At first glance, this looks like success. The reality is messier. The transition into employment is slow and uneven. Among university graduates, employment rises from about 69% soon after graduation to nearly 90% five years later – a gradual climb, not a quick absorption. For TVET graduates it’s slower still: starting near 42% and reaching only 79% after four years, with some slippage after that.

These averages also hide wide variation. Some graduates find work quickly; others cycle through job search, casual work and inactivity for years. The result is a “staggered” transition into stable employment. Some don’t make it.

Not all work is the same

Behind these slow transitions lies another problem: “employment”, as a statistic, blurs the line between simply being in work and having a decent, stable job.

Years after graduation, stable employment is still far from universal. About 72% of employed university graduates hold fixed positions with an employer (Figure 1). Among TVET graduates it’s only 39% (Figure 2), with far more reliance on self-employment and casual work (not always by choice).

Wage jobs are not always good jobs. Among TVET graduates, 42% lack a written contract and 41% aren’t registered for social security. Unsurprisingly, satisfaction is low: about two-thirds of university graduates and more than four-fifths of TVET graduates say they’re dissatisfied with their current work.

Figure 1: Occupation profile of university graduates, 2024. Source: Guiliche et al. (2026)

Figure 2: Occupation profile of TVET graduates, 2024. Source: Guiliche et al. (2026)

Training isn’t the whole answer

Much of Mozambique’s policy response to youth unemployment, as elsewhere, has focused on expanding education and training, especially TVET. It’s assumed that better skills mean better jobs.

The evidence partly bears this out: graduates in specialised fields such as health (up to 95% employment) and engineering (over 90%) do consistently better. But a skills-only approach has limits. Around 31% of university graduates and 43% of TVET graduates work in jobs unrelated to their field of study (Figures 3 and 4). Among TVET graduates, 32% say their job doesn’t even use the skills they trained for.

This points to a demand problem, not just a skills gap. In Mozambique, as across much of sub-Saharan Africa, economic growth has often come from capital-intensive sectors, like extractives, that create relatively few jobs. Growth and employment are becoming disconnected, and so are skills and opportunity.

This challenge becomes even more stark when we realise how few young people graduate from universities and technical and vocational training schools in Mozambique. Close to 18,000 youngsters graduated from universities in 2017, with an average age of 26 years. Close to 16,000 graduated from TVET schools in 2019, with an average age of 22 years. This contrasts with 600,000 Mozambicans aged 18 years old, according to official estimates.

Each group of graduates represents around 2.5% of its age cohort. The fact that they face such difficulties in entering the labour market should come as a serious warning about the limits of post-school education as a way to get young people employed.

Figure 3: Skills mismatch by study area, university graduates. Source: Guiliche et al. (2026)

Figure 4: Skills mismatch by study area, TVET graduates. Source: Guiliche et al. (2026)

Rethinking the policy agenda

What does this mean for policymakers?

First, expanding training alone will not solve youth employment challenges. Skills development must go hand in hand with job creation, particularly in higher-productivity sectors.

Second, greater attention is needed on the transition from education to work. Many young graduates spend years on this. Internships, apprenticeships and effective career services can connect education systems more closely with employers.

Third, employment policy must focus not only on the number of jobs created, but also on their quality. However, policies that attempt to force formalisation too quickly or impose rigid labour regulations may have unintended effects, pushing more workers and firms into informality.

Finally, education policy should be evaluated against its intended purpose. TVET and university systems are designed to make an impact in the formal sector.

The fact that many graduates end up in informal work reflects the limited capacity of the formal economy to absorb skilled workers. Graduate informality mostly represents an under-use of human capital.

Effective higher education and TVET systems, by supplying the skills needed for innovation and productivity growth, help create the foundations of the formal economy.

Why better data matters

The value of our Mozambique tracer studies is in the method. By following the same people over time, it reveals how labour-market transitions actually unfold – something one-off surveys cannot capture. Yet this kind of longitudinal data remains scarce across low income Africa.

As the continent grapples with a fast-growing youth population, that evidence gap matters. Without it, policy risks being built on assumptions about how labour markets work, rather than evidence of how they actually do.

– Africa’s youth are finding jobs – but not the ones they imagined
– https://theconversation.com/africas-youth-are-finding-jobs-but-not-the-ones-they-imagined-287078

July 12, 2026

Abuja’s housing crisis: why affordable homes stay out of reach for low paid workers

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Joy Oyiza Obadoba, PhD Candidate, Sustainable Urbanisation, University of Lagos

Abuja, Nigeria’s federal capital city, has witnessed remarkable urban growth since its development in the 1980s. The city’s population has increased from 776,298 in 2006 to an estimated 2,057,985 in 2026.

A serious housing crisis has developed: high rents and developments focused on luxury force lower income earners into peripheral settlements.

Over the decades the city’s authorities have taken steps to address the challenge. They have followed national housing policies and encouraged private sector investments, yet there are still gaps in addressing housing challenges in Abuja. Abuja has a housing deficit of over 1.7 million units.

My doctoral thesis focused on access to housing for low-income earners in one of the six councils that make up Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory.

In a recent paper I looked at how state-led policies in Abuja shape access to housing for low earners. I argue that state-led housing intended to correct market failure reinforces inequality. It puts high-income earners first and neglects the majority in society.

My research drew on qualitative and quantitative data, including policy document reviews, stakeholder interviews and household surveys.

I identified four key factors that contribute to the city’s housing crisis:

poor monitoring of current policies
state-led programmes that privilege middle and upper-income groups
a lack of affordable financing
planning that fails to account for cultural preferences when designing houses.

The housing crisis in Abuja

The demand for housing in Abuja has increased due to rapid urbanisation and population growth. As Nigeria’s political and administrative hub, Abuja attracts thousands of migrants who perceive the city as safer than other parts of the country.

Its centrality also attracts unemployed migrants searching for jobs, economic opportunities and political connections.

But the supply of affordable housing has not kept pace with demand.

National housing policies such as the National Housing Fund and various affordable housing initiatives have aimed to alleviate the problem, but without success.

There are a number of reasons for this.

Monitoring and enforcement

My research found that there’s a lack of monitoring and enforcement of housing development policy. Affordable housing projects awarded by the Mass Housing Department to developers are not regularly monitored by the agency.

This has resulted in projects that benefit only the upper-income groups, particularly politicians, people in business, and senior government officials. Low income earners are systematically excluded.

High-end developments and gentrification

Government officials focus on high-end housing developments through designs, zoning and architectural plans.

Over 48.3% of Abuja residents are poor, according to the 2022 multidimensional poverty index. While some housing policies are designed as affordable and inclusive housing, they fail to accommodate low-income earners.

For example, Renewed Hope City, located in Karsana, Abuja, provides 3,112 housing units but allocates only 992 one- to two-bedroom units to low-income groups.

Added to this is the gentrification of areas initially occupied by low-income communities. Informal settlements, the only affordable option for many, are demolished. Over 30,000 settlements were flattened between 2024 and 2026 to make way for upscale developments.

Access to affordable financing

The mortgage (home loan) system in Nigeria is biased against low-income earners. Despite the Federal Mortgage Bank adopting interest rates between 6% and 10%, commercial banks offer between 18% and 24%. Some people’s wages are not adequate to apply for a home loan. They do not have the money for a deposit or they can’t afford the monthly deduction.

Buying a luxury apartment requires an initial deposit of 10%, which far exceeds the wage of the average Nigerian worker, and there are strict criteria to qualify for home loans.

Low-income individuals often lack formal employment records or collateral. Where they are formally employed, many do not have sufficient savings in their housing insurance policy, making them ineligible for housing loans.

One of the respondents in my study said:

Many of us consider ourselves low-income earners in Abuja. Look at me, an average director who earns the sum of 400,000 naira, yet I must pay an annual rent of over 3 million per year. I will also pay for feeding, medical bills, and tuition fees for the children. Tell me, is my salary commensurate with the living expenses in the city?

The missing cultural dimension

Abuja’s housing development also neglects cultural dimensions. Housing is more than just shelter; it meets families’ social, cultural and psychological needs.

In Abuja, the average resident maintains connections with extended family. But urban planners overlook this. They design homes for nuclear families, disregarding larger households’ needs. Resident have to adapt by overcrowding studio apartments or sharing spaces to reduce costs.

Architects choose western-style designs over indigenous aesthetics and environmental considerations.

My view is that to improve affordability and sustainability, developers must use local materials, climate-sensitive designs and cultural elements that suit residents’ lifestyles.

Addressing the gaps

My findings suggest a number of policy interventions are required.

Firstly, the government must help make housing more affordable by providing subsidies and revising mortgage systems.

Secondly, offering low-interest housing loans and rent-to-own schemes would help renters make the move to home ownership.

Thirdly, government should regulate private developers by granting tax incentives, providing land access, and closely monitoring projects to ensure they benefit the target demographic.

Fourth, instead of demolishing informal settlements, authorities should upgrade them. They should improve infrastructure, grant legal recognition, and provide access to essential services.

Fifth, urban planners and architects must incorporate cultural dimensions in housing designs by creating spaces for extended families, fostering communal areas, and using traditional materials.

Finally, civil society organisations should hold policymakers accountable and amplify the voices of low-income earners.

By meeting the needs of low-income earners and respecting the cultural context of housing, Abuja can progress towards a housing system that works for all its residents.

– Abuja’s housing crisis: why affordable homes stay out of reach for low paid workers
– https://theconversation.com/abujas-housing-crisis-why-affordable-homes-stay-out-of-reach-for-low-paid-workers-260435

July 12, 2026

DRC has taken Rwanda to the world court over genocide again. A law scholar explains what’s different this time

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Kerstin Bree Carlson, Associate Professor International Law, Roskilde University

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) filed a lawsuit against Rwanda at the International Court of Justice at the end of June 2026. The 60-page complaint alleges acts of genocide and other atrocity crimes by Rwandan forces and their intermediaries dating from 1996 to the present day.

The DRC has twice before brought similar cases against Rwanda at this court. Both failed on questions of jurisdiction. So, what explains yet another case against Rwanda? Kerstin Bree Carlson, a scholar of international justice and author of a book on international law in Africa, examines this history and what’s behind the DRC’s confidence in its latest push.

What did the DRC’s previous cases involve?

The DRC has twice tried to bring Rwanda before the International Court of Justice in relation to violence carried out or backed by Rwanda on its soil. It was unsuccessful both times.

In 1999, the DRC brought claims against Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda before the court over the armed invasion of its territory. It sought reparations for armed aggression and intentional acts of destruction and looting.

It later dropped its claims against Rwanda and Burundi because neither country had consented to the court’s jurisdiction.

The case against Uganda went ahead, and in 2005 the court ruled in the DRC’s favour. It found that Uganda was responsible for acts of violence in the country. In 2022, the court ordered Uganda to pay US$325 million in reparations, marking a significant victory for the DRC. Kampala paid the first instalment of US$65 million that year.

In 2002, the DRC resubmitted claims against Rwanda.

The DRC invoked eight international treaties, including the Genocide Convention. This is a UN treaty that entered into force in 1951 and establishes genocide as an international crime.

The International Court of Justice dismissed the DRC’s case on jurisdictional grounds, which drew criticism. The court said it lacked the authority to hear the dispute because Rwanda had entered a “reservation” when it joined the Genocide Convention, rejecting the court’s jurisdiction under the treaty. In the 2006 ruling, a majority of International Court of Justice judges recognised the validity of this reservation.

What has happened in the past 20 years that might change the outcome?

First, in 2008 Rwanda withdrew its reservation to International Court of Justice jurisdiction under the Genocide Convention and the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (which came into force in 1969). That means that the jurisdictional hurdle relating to Rwanda’s consent is resolved.

The DRC has invoked both these treaties in its current submission to the court.

Second, in 2008 Rwanda became a party to the Convention Against Torture (which came into force in 1987). Claims made under this UN treaty do not need to meet the same rigorous “intent” standard that genocide claims do. Further, the court’s jurisprudence is well established under the torture convention. For example, claims under this treaty played a critical role in efforts to bring Chad’s former president Hissène Habré to justice.

The DRC has invoked this history in its submission.

Third, international law has evolved. Recent cases like The Gambia’s suit againt Myanmar (2019) and South Africa’s case against Israel (2023) have expanded the Genocide Convention’s reach.

Together, these factors suggest that the DRC’s third attempt may have a stronger chance of clearing the jurisdictional hurdle. However, whether this would eventually lead to a judgment against Rwanda is much harder to predict.

Why has the DRC turned to international law?

International law, the law of nations, creates all nations as equals. The International Court of Justice is the oldest, most established global arbiter of disputes between them.

There are two principles of international law that play out in this case.

First, states are generally bound only by obligations they have explicitly accepted. This includes agreeing to the jurisdiction of the court. Second, international courts have no police force or other means of enforcing their judgments. It is up to states themselves to comply with court rulings. This compliance includes a duty on other states not to recognise as lawful situations created through serious breaches of international law.

Although the court cannot compel states to act, its opinions matter. They represent the most authoritative statements of international legal norms. In other words, International Court of Justice judgments represent the clearest statements we have regarding how international legal principles apply in practice.

Recognising international law’s persuasive power is key to understanding why the DRC has repeatedly turned to the International Court of Justice and other international courts to seek rulings against Rwanda and its proxies. These include the International Criminal Court and the African Court on Human and People’s Rights. International lawfare represents a principled battle for recognition and legitimacy.

Why does the case matter?

The DRC’s creative legal attempts to bring Rwanda to justice in relation to its engagement in and support of armed conflict in the DRC over the past several decades are efforts to invalidate violent incursions on its soil. It also seeks to reassert its sovereignty by having Rwandan-backed violence recognised as illegal by international law’s apex court.

As I have argued before and in my book examining international law in Africa, the power of international law resides in states’ agreements to use it in place of violent conflagration, and to be bound by it.

Rwanda challenges these standards in both regards. Credible allegations of Rwandan-backed massacres in the DRC date from 1996 through to the present day. Despite being the recipient of significant international legal investment, Rwanda resists participating as a good international citizen. So far, neither Rwanda nor its allies are addressing or redressing its behaviour.

By contrast, the DRC is expanding international law’s promise and potential by applying it as intended. International law derives its power chiefly from the expectations it creates.

The DRC is not blameless in the three decades of violence its submission describes. But by framing that violence through the lens of international law, the country helps legitimise alternatives to violence.

– DRC has taken Rwanda to the world court over genocide again. A law scholar explains what’s different this time
– https://theconversation.com/drc-has-taken-rwanda-to-the-world-court-over-genocide-again-a-law-scholar-explains-whats-different-this-time-286963

July 8, 2026

Flawed credit ratings in Africa: are top 3 western agencies driven by data or bias?

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Misheck Mutize, Post Doctoral Researcher, Graduate School of Business (GSB), University of Cape Town

The three major credit rating agencies – Moody’s, S&P Global and Fitch – have often differed among themselves when rating African institutions and countries. Their opinions don’t have to be aligned, but a huge gap in the ratings suggests inaccuracies in the analyses.

Wrong ratings have consequences. They drive up the cost of capital. Lower ratings indicate higher risk, and lead investors to demand higher interest rates to compensate for that risk. When a sovereign (country) is downgraded, its borrowing costs increase. It has to pay more interest on the same amount of debt, and has less chance of getting funding for development.

In the last three years there have been notable examples of rating agencies differing significantly in their decisions.

The first example is African Export-Import Bank. Between June 2025 and June 2026, the three major agencies reached materially different conclusions about the creditworthiness of the bank. The African Union has highlighted the flawed ratings.

The second example is Fitch Ratings’ downgrade of the Nigerian industrial group Dangote Industries Limited on 6 August 2024. It cited risk linked to the construction of a refinery. A year later, the Dangote Oil Refinery proved to be a transformative project that rebalanced Nigeria’s trade position. It reduced the country’s imports and increased its domestic production. Fitch was wrong and its rating downgrades put the completion of the project at risk.

The African Finance Corporation shows a similar divide. S&P New York and its Chinese subsidiary gave widely differing assessments.

And finally, Moody’s downgraded Kenya in July 2024 while S&P maintained its B-rating.

These examples highlight the same problem: the differences between rating agencies ostensibly looking at the same set of risk factors.

In my view these discrepancies present African countries with two opportunities:

challenge the ratings
diversify their ratings and funding relationships away from the western markets.

Lastly, the differences highlight the need for rating agencies to be more objective and base their ratings on factual data and fundamentals.

The differences

Fitch downgraded the African Export-Import Bank twice, from BBB to BBB- in June 2025 and subsequently to BB+ in January 2026 before withdrawing its rating. This means Fitch stopped assigning ratings to the bank after its contract was cancelled.

Both Moody’s and S&P maintained investment-grade ratings, assigning Baa2 and BBB+, respectively. This is a three notch difference between Fitch and S&P on the same institution.

This rarely happens in other continents because the three international rating agencies assess largely similar risk factors in an entity’s ability to repay its loans.

The question is whether Fitch’s three-notch downgrades of Afreximbank were driven by facts about the bank or by analysts’ own subjective misjudgements.

Asian agencies tend to recognise the policy importance of Afreximbank, which plays a strategic role in financing Africa’s trade and development. As a result they recognise its preferred creditor status, that its member countries continue to repay the bank’s loans even during periods of crises.

Fitch, however, argued that Afreximbank’s role in Africa was diminishing and it was not a preferred creditor because the International Monetary Fund said so.

S&P Global Ratings aligned with China’s Chengxin International Credit and Japan Credit Rating Agency.

When Fitch Ratings downgraded Dangote Industries it said the risk was refinancing linked to a new oil refinery. Fitch speculated that delays in meeting funding requirements would make financial restructuring or default more likely, and that could trigger further downgrades.

Faced with such a conservative and speculative outlook, Dangote Industries Limited decided to end its contract with Fitch Ratings. It said the rating no longer made commercial sense and the group would instead focus on securing ratings from African-based rating agencies.

A year later, the Dangote Oil Refinery has turned Nigeria into a regional exporter and bolstered its energy security.

Moody’s downgraded Kenya on 8 July 2024 after the government withdrew planned tax hikes in response to protesters. S&P decided to wait for Kenya’s August 2024 budget.

The Moody’s downgrade resulted in a two-notch rating split on Kenya between Moody’s and S&P. Within six months Moody’s had reversed the downgrade with an outlook upgrade. Skipping from negative, past “stable”, to positive. It is highly unusual for a rating agency to revise its outlook within six months and to skip one notch.

It can be argued that the revision was an implicit admission by Moody’s that its earlier ratings were incorrect.

Kenya incurred approximately US$150 million in additional interest costs on existing Eurobond debt as investors rushed to sell off their bonds.

Alternatives

The high cost of capital, driven by weak ratings from the international rating agencies, is pushing Africa to shift towards Asia for foreign funding sources.

Five African countries have already issued a combined US$5 billion in bonds from Japan, China, Hong Kong, Korea and the United Arab Emirates over the past two years. This shift has made Asian rating agencies more relevant as no country or institution would raise capital in Asia without a rating from local rating agencies. These are giving some African institutions stronger assessments than their western peers. Asian agencies are equally independent and credible.

When Fitch Ratings downgraded Afreximbank to speculative grade, Asian rating agencies saw it differently. Chengxin International Credit Ratings Co. kept a stable AAA rating on Afreximbank. Japan Credit Rating Agency rates the bank A- stable for its Samurai bond programme. They differ widely from Fitch on the same institution, with the same balance sheet and the same mandate.

What needs to change

The widening rating splits among the three international rating agencies present an opportunity for African sovereigns and their institutions.

First, rather than accepting rating assessments that prove to be analytically flawed, African sovereigns and their institutions must challenge these ratings. In my view this will help the rating agencies be more thorough. It will also bring flawed ratings to the attention of international investors.

Second, African entities need to diversify their ratings and funding relationships away from the western markets. Domestic rating agencies have demonstrated a more nuanced understanding of local realities.

Lastly, the rating agencies need to be more objective. Analysts’ sentiments and frustrations should not find their way into the rating process.

– Flawed credit ratings in Africa: are top 3 western agencies driven by data or bias?
– https://theconversation.com/flawed-credit-ratings-in-africa-are-top-3-western-agencies-driven-by-data-or-bias-286364

July 7, 2026

Black women academics in my study said their main allies were White men – what this reveals

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Sally K Ledwaba, Academic Excellence Coordinator, Tshwane University of Technology

Universities have a role in challenging the status quo on issues such as gender, race, nationality and sexuality. But all too often, they replicate societal inequalities.

For example, a recent study notes that globally, only one-third of senior academics are women. In the US, universities have twice as many male professors as female.

Culture is one driver of these intersecting inequalities in higher education.

In South Africa, a report noted that in 2017, Black women made up 16% of university academics and 40% of the population, making them the most underrepresented group. There’s an imbalance by seniority as well as gender and “race”: most Black senior academics are male, and most female senior academics are White or Indian.

Trends like these raise an important question: how do the few African women who become professors navigate institutions where they are a small minority?

This was the research question at the centre of my PhD in social work, supervised by professors Adrian van Breda and Thobeka Nkomo. My research explored African female academics’ career motivations, challenges in that career and personal resilience strategies, as well as what their institutions had done to support their journey towards leadership.

The findings echoed my own experience, but also challenged some common assumptions.

I found that academic advancement is often shaped not only by individual effort, but also by those who are willing to create opportunities for others. Many participants credited White male professors for enabling their academic advancement by encouraging doctoral studies, nominating them for leadership roles, supporting their promotions, and increasing their visibility in influential networks. Few participants identified Black female mentors as enabling their rise, and references to Black male academics were largely absent.

The relative absence of Black mentorship in these accounts raises difficult but important questions about how support networks form within universities and who sponsors the next generation of scholars.

The challenge for universities is to go beyond depending on personal goodwill and to systematically embed sponsorship into their cultures and practices.

Experiences of African female professors

For my PhD research, I conducted in-depth narrative interviews with 21 African female professors in three universities in South Africa’s Gauteng province. The aim was to understand how they had advanced to senior positions.

I was struck by the similarities in their stories.

There was a complex interplay between motivation, resilience and community in the academic journey of these individuals.

Intelligence, intellectual curiosity and the quest for knowledge were the main motivations for entering the academy. As one participant put it:

I was performing well.

Another said:

I was always attracted to understanding.

Staying motivated depended on both personal strengths and supportive environments.

All participants demonstrated strong resilience. They were determined not to be excluded, navigated complex institutional environments, pursued qualifications despite obstacles, and created opportunities for themselves. Their career success was the result of years of personal sacrifice, persistence and a pursuit of excellence, often extending back into childhood.

Participants recalled barriers they faced when entering the academy:

So, everything that you do, you must do twice, because you’re being doubted and there are questions about whether you know what you’re doing.

I wasn’t promoted … and I felt it was because I was female, because my male counterparts were promoted, who I felt had the same profile as me, or even lower, and they got promoted.

Unexpected sources of social capital

However, personal resilience was not enough. Social capital was also vital: progress often occurred when people decided to open doors for others.

This participant said a senior White male in her department advised her:

… think about the project that is going to set you apart from your supervisor … if you want to succeed in this career.

Another participant spoke of a White male professor who was willing to help her get established as a researcher.

Participants’ stories showed that advancement often occurred when influential colleagues broke long-standing patterns of exclusion in academia.

Although public discourse often portrays White males as obstacles to Black advancement, this research reveals a more complex reality. The unexpected allyship of White men suggests that institutional change often progresses through relationships that bridge divides of race, gender and historical privilege.

As this participant said:

I also had a great [White, male] supervisor, who was committed to transformation, in the sense that he went overseas and used his networks to amass these resources. And he wanted to grow from the grassroots.

The role of White male academics in these stories was not uniformly positive. Some participants recalled instances in which White male colleagues impeded progress, limiting access to opportunities and upholding institutional hierarchies.

One described the difficulty she faced:

There were challenges … and [the department] had old people at the time and White males. I was replacing a male colleague … I didn’t have an environment. The office that I had was not a conducive office at all.

These findings highlight an aspect of how power operates in universities. Although merit, expertise and consistent effort are vital for academic growth, it matters for senior academics to identify potential in junior colleagues, support them and connect them to networks.

There are many possible explanations for why White male professors featured so prominently in participants’ accounts. Historically, White male professors have occupied a greater proportion of senior academic and leadership positions. They have had better access to networks, resources and influence that affect academic careers. By contrast, many Black academics have had to navigate institutions that were not designed for their success.

The study findings, therefore, tell us as much about the distribution of institutional power as about individual acts of mentorship.

Embedding the culture

As a new PhD (Ledwaba) and as a senior academic (van Breda), we both argue that transformation in higher education cannot rely solely on demographic change, such as increasing the number of African female academics. While representation is essential, it does not shape women’s academic careers or transform the academy. Rather, transformation requires a personal and institutional commitment to a culture of enabling talented scholars from historically marginalised groups to thrive.

– Black women academics in my study said their main allies were White men – what this reveals
– https://theconversation.com/black-women-academics-in-my-study-said-their-main-allies-were-white-men-what-this-reveals-285167

July 7, 2026

South Sudan at 15: how the political elite have found a way to profit from peace as well as war

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Matthew Benson-Strohmayer, Research Fellow & Sudans Research Director, London School of Economics and Political Science

South Sudan’s independence from Sudan in 2011 was meant to close the chapter on one of Africa’s longest civil wars: the north-south war that preceded it. Formally, it did. But independence did not end the deeper struggles over power, revenue and coercion inside the newly independent state.

South Sudan returned to war in 2013, watched a 2015 settlement collapse, and now lives under a 2018 Revitalised Agreement whose promised transition has been postponed repeatedly.

This is usually told as a story of failed peacemaking, with too many spoilers and too little political will. But what if these deals are not failing so much as working? What if they stabilise order precisely by preserving the systems that make violence profitable?

Political settlements theory helps explain why peace agreements often focus on dividing power, offices and resources among elites. The hope is that if rival leaders receive a share of power, offices and resources, they will have less reason to fight. But negotiated transitions can also carry wartime systems into peace. The question, then, is not only who gets a share of the state, but what kinds of war economies, revenue systems and coercive practices are being preserved.

As an economic historian of war and peace, I have spent more than a decade tracing how rulers in South Sudan and Sudan raise money, goods, labour and other resources, and how payment is enforced through soldiers, officials, checkpoints and offices. My recent research paper examined how South Sudan’s peace agreements reshaped the country’s systems of revenue, spending and coercion: who could extract resources, who could allocate them, and who could enforce payment.

My analysis drew on 2020-2024 fieldwork and archival, secondary and peace agreement data. I sought to answer three questions: who collected revenue from monetary and non-monetary sources, such as cash, cattle, grain and labour; who paid; and who benefited.

What emerges is that peace settlements have redistributed access to money, offices and external finance among elites, while leaving intact the coercive revenue system and war economies that preceded them. In some cases, peace has formalised those systems by turning wartime access to extraction into recognised office, revenue authority or security control. Violence changes form rather than ending; it recedes from the battlefield and lodges in the revenue systems, security forces and war economies that continue to extract from civilians – now in the name of order.

This is a pattern I call predatory peace.

The same machinery makes the state itself a prize: controlling it is so lucrative that capture remains worth fighting for, and when the power-sharing breaks down, as it did in 2013, the fighting returns. Peace and war become two settings of one extractive machine rather than true opposites.

Similar dynamics have emerged in other resource-rich, conflict-affected states, such as in oil-rich Angola and the mineral endowed Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). South Sudan is resource-rich too, above all because of oil. But the wider issue is not only natural resources. It is the political control of revenue streams such as oil, customs, aid, loans, contracts, checkpoints, timber, charcoal and other forms of extraction.

It’s all part of a wider pattern in peacemaking that has repeatedly paired political deals with economic reforms that entrenched elite control over revenue and other resources.

None of this is inevitable. A different approach would start by treating the whole revenue complex as the heart of peacemaking itself, not as a technical issue to be postponed until after a peace agreement is signed. It would ask who controls money and other resources, including humanitarian and development assistance; who is allowed to extract resources, payments and labour from civilians; and whether people can see anything in return for what they pay.

Peace as ‘organised robbery’ in South Sudan

South Sudan’s national revenue system includes taxes, customs, fees, oil revenues, international loans, aid and off-budget income. It also includes non-monetary extraction, such as cattle, grain, labour and goods taken from civilians. These flows are enforced through soldiers, security forces, government offices and checkpoints. Together, they form what I call a revenue complex: the machinery through which rulers extract the resources that allow them to govern, reward allies and sustain coercive power.

In much of South Sudan, “peace” has reshuffled who profits from the revenue system, not what it does to those who pay. A businessman in Malakal, a city in Upper Nile State, described the tax system as “organised robbery” in which soldiers were overcharging and pocketing the proceeds. He was told that the system had to be endured to “maintain peace”.

Predation was not a breakdown of order; it was a condition of order.

None of this began with the peace process. My peace agreement analysis starts in the early 1970s, but in separate archival research and an earlier round of just over 200 interviews, I traced the territory’s revenue complex back to at least 1899. Across colonial, rebel and independent rule, I found a similar logic: revenue sources were used to secure rulers’ control more than to fund public goods.

Across more than 120 years, changes in government did not dismantle the underlying machinery of extraction and control. Each major political settlement since the 1970s has been laid over that inheritance, reshuffling who profits from it.

Confusion is integral to the system. Traders described being shuttled from office to office to meet fresh demands; collectors themselves spoke of decrees “passed from nowhere” that shifted revenue to other units. A businesswoman in Wau described fierce competition for tax collection posts because of what could be skimmed from them. This is not administrative failure, but a system that works for those who run it. When revenue authority is spread across overlapping offices, no one can be held to account and everyone can be rewarded for their loyalty.

This performance of state finance runs all the way up. In 2012, the president conceded that some US$4 billion in oil money had simply been “stolen”. In 2026, a UN panel of experts found that South Sudan continued to sell oil months in advance of delivery, and that disputes over undelivered oil cargoes and oil-backed debts had reached UK commercial courts.

State budgets perform reform while the money moves elsewhere.

What people get in return

South Sudanese nevertheless do not reject the idea of contributing to public authority. They contrasted community-level payments and contributions, which they could see returning as boreholes, roads or clinics, with state taxation, which they experienced as extraction without return.

Many insisted that paying tax is good, so long as it is reciprocal, transparent and tied to public goods.

The problem is that peace agreements often leave that link severed, even as they formalise new bargains among elites.

What non-predatory peace would require

A different kind of peacemaking would mean taking the following steps.

rebuilding of a transparent, civilian-controlled revenue complex
linking what people pay to what they receive
making external support conditional on genuine revenue reform.

Lastly, South Sudanese civic actors should be supported to monitor the cross-border flows – oil, arms, timber, charcoal, looted goods and finance – that fund fighting.

This work does not fall solely to donors and mediators. People are already documenting where the money goes.

A serious settlement would treat them as central to any peace worth the name.

– South Sudan at 15: how the political elite have found a way to profit from peace as well as war
– https://theconversation.com/south-sudan-at-15-how-the-political-elite-have-found-a-way-to-profit-from-peace-as-well-as-war-285846