The 2014 G-20 Summit: Maximising growth, revenue and stability
Group of 20 (G-20) Summits are a magnet for expectations. Ever since the grouping was formed in the turbulent early days of the 2008 global financial crisis major stakeholders have pinned many hopes on the ability of the group to steer the globe back to growth.
The Courts: Lights That Guide Our Foreign Affairs?
South Africa’s constitutional democracy reserves a specific role for the judiciary in upholding human rights. This responsibility inevitably has an impact on the formulation and conduct of South Africa’s foreign policy.
Chinese Agricultural Investment in Mozambique: The Case of The Wanbao Rice Farm
The Hubei Gaza Friendship Farm was established in 2007 in Xai-Xai, Mozambique, and has been managed by Wanbao Africa Agriculture Development Limited (WAADL), a private Chinese company, since 2011.
Kenya’s Regional Relations: Between Principle and Practice
Kenya has long been cast as a reluctant regional actor. Those who view it as having a strong economy, but lacking political leverage in its region have questioned its regional influence.
Ethiopia’s Regional Diplomacies: A Dominant Interpretation of the Horn of Africa
The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia shares borders with the eastern African countries Djibouti, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan.
RENAMO’s gambit: Forcing the issue after the Mozambique 2014 Elections
Sociologist Robert K Merton’s ‘Law of Unintended Consequences’ is the observable phenomenon of purposeful actions having unexpected results, most often negative ones. Mozambique’s 2014 elections have been characterised by continuing tensions between the Government of Mozambique and the Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (RENAMO) opposition political party, which the latter has sought to escalate in the post-election period, and ahead of the final results.
Nigeria’s Continental Diplomatic Thrusts: The Limits of Africa’s Nominally Biggest Economy
A dominant portion of contemporary literature on Nigeria’s regional and continental diplomacies suggests that the foreign policies of Africa’s nominally biggest economy are hardly progressive and dynamic, due principally to the perverse hiatus between its domestic ecology and foreign policy.
Consolidating the Regional Diplomacy of Côte d’Ivoire
On every continent, regionalisation or even communitarisation of foreign relations has become one of the preferred policy approaches by states and other actors in search of synergies that add value to public policies conceptualised and implemented at a geographical group or sub-group level.
The DRC and its Neighbourhood: The Political Economy of Peace
On 24 February 2013, 11 African countries signed the Addis Ababa Framework Agreement designed to bring peace to the Great Lakes Region, in particular the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which has been in the grip of armed conflict for two decades.
South Africa and China: building bridges to beneficiation
The announcement of a joint agreement between the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and Hebei Iron and Steel Group to open a steel mill in Phalaborwa could signal a new stage in the longstanding relationship between South Africa and China.