Geography Archives: West Africa

Over the past few years, numerous West African states have taken steps toward greater economic and security sovereignty, often in opposition to Western (specifically French) designs on the region.

WEST Africa, which had been largely under French colonial rule, never saw decolonization of the sort that India did.

Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger are charting a new course—one of increased economic and security sovereignty.

One day after his inauguration, Bassirou Diomaye Faye—Senegal’s new self-proclaimed “left Pan-Africanist” president—announced that the new government will conduct an audit of the country’s oil, gas and mining sectors.

On March 29, the Constitutional Court of Senegal confirmed Bassirou Diomaye Faye as the next president-elect of the West African country, assuaging fears of a constitutional crisis after the political outsider won the election the previous week.

Land area under ECOWAS, which is condemned by West Africa’s popular movements as an agent of French imperialism, has been reduced to less than half after their withdrawal.

Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger are charting a new course—one of increased economic and security sovereignty.

The recent wave of coups in West Africa must be understood in the context of widespread discontent with the ruling elites and their collaboration with imperialism.

This isn’t what Western countries wanted to sow in West Africa, writes Owen Schalk.

Ivory Coast President says the aim of the military operation is to “restore” ousted president Mohamed Bazoum.

Niger is one of the countries located in the Sahel region, perhaps the most historically exploited area in the world. It is the southern fringe of the Sahara, which divides the Maghreb from sub-Saharan Africa.

Nigeria’s Senate refuses to support ECOWAS plan for West-backed military intervention. A day after ECOWAS chiefs of staffs finalized plans for a military intervention, Nigeria’s Senate refused to support President Bola Tinubu’s proposal to deploy soldiers. Tinubu is the current chair of ECOWAS. Meanwhile, Niger has seen multiple demonstrations in support of the coup that overthrew Mohamed Bazoum

The coup in the West African state of Niger on July 26 and the Russia-Africa Summit the next day in St. Petersburg are playing out in the backdrop of multipolarity in the world order. Seemingly independent events, they capture nonetheless the zeitgeist of our transformative era.

Adopted in October 2022 at the Museum of Black Civilizations, Dakar, Senegal.

Numerous countries, including Canada, profit from the illegal exploitation of Sahrawi resources.

West Africa is in the grip of a wave of coups, popular protests and fierce geopolitical struggles. Amy Niang argues that declining western hegemony in the region goes hand to hand with intensified competition for access and control of Africa’s natural resources. Furthermore, Niang states, the Russian occupation of Ukraine compels us to look at the importance of the country’s growing presence in Africa.

Between 2006 and 2010 the deployment of U.S. special forces troops in Africa increased by 300 percent. From 2010 to 2017 the numbers of deployed troops exploded by nearly 2000 percent, occupying more than 60 outposts tasked with carrying out over 100 missions at any given moment across the continent.

The Ebola epidemic . . . whereas most of the world tightens frontier control and essentially flees from the problem, Cuba opens a new chapter of solidarity and faces the danger.  By sending 255 doctors and nurses to West Africa to deal with the latest Ebola outbreak, the heroic island — with few resources except […]

Some 50 to 60 union meat cutters and their supporters turned out on the afternoon of April 6 for a noisy protest against what they said was a lockout by Trade Fair, a chain of nine small supermarkets based in Queens, New York. Standing in a picket line on a busy sidewalk outside a Trade […]

Recent developments in the West African Republic of Mali are raising serious concerns about the possibility of yet another U.S. intervention.  On March 22, one month before a scheduled presidential election, a military coup toppled the government of President Amadou Toumani Touré.  Quickly taking sides, the regional 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) […]