This is a guest post by Emily Mellgard, research associate for the Council on Foreign Relations Africa Studies program.

Demand for rhino horn increased exponentially over the past few years. The market is heavily concentrated in Asia, particularly Vietnam. Rhino poaching has leapt to keep pace with demand. South Africa’s rhinos are among the most affected. According to the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (WESSA), in 2010, 2011, and 2012, the number of rhinos killed for their horns went from 333 to 448 to 668. So far in 2013, 216 rhinos have been poached in South Africa’s Kruger national park alone. That is more death the past five months than in the years 2000-2008 combined. The rhino population in Mozambique, which was wiped out by large game hunters a century ago and later reintroduced to the national parks, has again been eradicated; this time with the connivance of some of Mozambique’s own rangers. Read more »

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 »

Vaccination against polio and measles is opposed by many conservative Islamic elements in northern Nigeria. A consequence is that polio remains endemic; there were 122 cases in 2012, over half of the global total. A measles outbreak in northern Nigeria earlier this year killed thirty-six children and infected over 4,000 between February 16 and March 9. Health officials say this is a direct result of parents refusing to vaccinate their children. While popular opposition to vaccination has many roots, they are primarily political and social in nature. Read more »

This is a guest post by Catherine Kelly, a Ph.D. candidate in Government at Harvard University; and Jason Warner, a Ph.D. student in African Studies and Government at Harvard University.

Sub-Saharan Africa is an increasingly important theater of operation for the U.S. military. From al-Shabaab, the Lord’s Resistance Army, and Ansar Dine, the Department of Defense is recognizing that Africa will be a vital strategic battlefield in the next century. 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 »

There is criticism in Africa and in the United States that, given Africa’s growing strategic, political, and economic importance, President Obama paid insufficient attention to it during his first term. In fact, the Obama administration has many program initiatives in Africa; and cabinet officers, led by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, regularly visited the continent. During her four year tenure as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton visited Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Benin, Somalia, South Africa, Kenya, and Malawi, among others. Read more »

Around one billion people live in fragile or failing states. Yet no Washington administration has developed a strategy for helping such states address the causes of their fragility. Instead, most administrations respond ad hoc to the crises of the day, ranging from Tunisia and the debut of the Arab Spring, to Mali and radical Islamism in the Sahel. Too often, Washington’s focus is short term and on “international terrorism,” rather than on the root causes of state failure. Read more »

This is a guest post by Jim Sanders, a career, now retired, West Africa watcher for various federal agencies. The views expressed below are his personal views and do not reflect those of his former employers.

Times are changing and Nigeria’s ministers of finance and petroleum are worried. An energy boom in the U.S., competition from rival African oil producers, and Asian refiners’ increasing ability to handle “sour” crude, are conspiring to reduce demand for Nigeria’s traditionally desirable light sweet crude. Read more »

Search for Common Ground, a distinguished Washington-based NGO devoted to international conflict resolution and peace building that has long focused on the Great Lakes Region, organized a special two-day meeting of the Great Lakes Policy Forum (GLPF) earlier this week–the 165th meeting of the Forum. The Council on Foreign Relations and the Nitze School of International Studies at Johns Hopkins hosted and participated, along with many other Congo-watchers from the executive and legislative branches, NGOs, and academia. Search for Common Ground arranged for the presence of experts from the Congo, and there were representatives of the Congolese diaspora in the United States. Read more »

President Obama announced in a letter to Congress that he deployed “approximately one hundred” U.S. military troops to Niamey, Niger to establish a drone base to survey the Sahel and the Sahara. This base, which could eventually host up to three hundred U.S. troops, contradicts earlier administration assurances that there would be no U.S. boots on the ground. There has been limited U.S. surveillance of the region before, using light aircraft. However, a drone base dramatically ups the visibility–and the ante. Read more »