At the Mali Donors Conference in Brussels on May 15 the United States announced $32 million in new humanitarian assistance to support Malian refugees in neighboring countries and to the internally displaced. The same day, the U.S. Department of State spokesman said that the Obama administration will request from Congress $180 million in FY 2014 for bilateral assistance. That funding would kick-in after the Mali elections, scheduled to take place in July. Read more »

This is a guest post by Kyle Benjamin Schneps; a dual master’s degree candidate at Columbia University specializing in international security policy and global health initiatives. He is currently completing a graduate internship with the Africa Studies program at Council on Foreign Relations. Read more »

On April 25, the Security Council approved a UN “peacekeeping” force of 12,600 for Mali. They asked the UN Secretary General to appoint a Special Representative for Mali, and called on member states to provide troops, police, and the necessary equipment. It also authorized the secretary general to approve cooperation between the UN mission in Mali and the UN missions in Liberia and Ivory Coast for the temporary sharing of logistical and administrative support. Read more »

This is a guest post by Hamish Stewart, a co-founding Director of the Centre for African Development and Security.

The world is optimistic about Africa’s future, but to unlock its economic potential concerted efforts must be made to engage with its most fragile states. Read more »

The Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre (NOREF) has done Africa watchers and policy makers an important service by publishing David J. Francis’s analysis of the Mali crisis with his suggestions as to the way forward. Titled “The Regional Impact of the Armed Conflict and French Intervention in Mali,” Francis teases out for the educated non-specialist the highly complicated Malian narrative, identifying key players, groups and events. The study is especially strong on the French domestic political dimensions of President Hollande’s military intervention, and what the likely consequences may be. Read more »

You read this right. The British media, citing French sources, is having a field day with the report that the camel given to French president Francois Hollande during his February 2013 visit to Mali, has been eaten by its care-takers. According to the French media, the minister of defense broke the news to Hollande. Embarrassed, a Malian official said, “as soon as we heard of this, we quickly replaced it with a bigger and better-looking camel,” according to Reuters. Read more »

Jacob Zenn, an analyst at the Jamestown Foundation, has written an important article, “Cooperation or Competition: Boko Haram and Ansaru After the Mali Intervention.” His central conclusion is that while Boko Haram originally emerged in northeastern Nigeria and was solely focused on domestic issues, it has come under the influence of the international jihad. Read more »

This is a guest post by Kyle Benjamin Schneps; a dual master’s degree candidate at Columbia University specializing in international security policy and global health initiatives. He is currently completing a graduate internship with the Africa Studies program at Council on Foreign Relations. Read more »

Lori-Anne Theroux-Benoni, writing for the Institute for Security Studies from their office in Dakar, has written succinct analysis of the different approaches to peacekeeping employed in Africa. She contrasts the seeming inactivity of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Congo (MONUSCO) when M23 rebels overran Goma in November 2012, with the dynamism of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISO) moving against al-Shabaab. Read more »

French former president Nicolas Sarkozy criticized the French intervention in Mali in a March 6 magazine interview. He is quoted as saying, “the rule is never to go into a country that has no government,” and, “What are we doing there if we’re not just supporting putschists and trying to control a territory four times larger than France with four thousand men?” Read more »