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CSIS | Center for Strategic and International Studies

Fearless music activists. Savvy tech entrepreneurs. Social disrupters. Into Africa shatters narratives that dominate U.S. perceptions of Africa. With the world’s youngest population, the decisions made across Africa today—good or bad—will shape the world’s future. Featuring in-depth interviews, the CSIS Africa Program sits down with policymakers, journalists, academics, and other trailblazers in African affairs to shine a spotlight on the people and stories shaping cultural, political, and economic trends across the continent today and for decades to come.

Into Africa

As global power shifts and competition intensifies, Africa is moving from the margins toward the center of the global strategic stage. The question is whether the continent will become a decisive global actor—and whether its partners are prepared for that repositioning. Too often, policymakers consumed by immediate crises overlook the deeper structural forces reshaping Africa’s trajectory. Trade integration, demographic shifts, and greater African agency will shape the continent's role in the changing global order.

Drawing on decades of forecasting data and scenario modeling, Jakkie Cilliers, Chairman of the Board of the Institute for Security Studies and Director of the Africa Futures program, joins Oge to unpack the structural forces shaping the continent's future. Together, they explore the slow-moving but transformative trends shaping Africa's future.

Africa at the Center: Power, Partnership, and the Future Global Order

Across Africa, the security landscape is shifting. Extremist groups are becoming more mobile, more digitally savvy, and more deeply rooted in local grievances, even in cases where they lose physical territory. From northern Mozambique to the Sahel, the old playbooks for counterterrorism and conflict response are struggling to keep pace with threats that operate more like adaptive ecosystems than traditional insurgencies. 

In the season two premiere of Into Africa, Dr. Olajumoke Ayandele, Clinical Assistant Professor at New York University, and Peter Bofin, Senior Analyst, Southeast Africa at ACLED, join Oge to unpack this evolving threat landscape. Together, they examine how technology is reshaping how armed groups recruit, finance, and operate.

Old Playbooks, New Threats: Africa’s Evolving Security Landscape

In this season finale, we revisit our guests’ reflections on what continues to inspire hope for them. Into Africa will be back on June 18th for its second season. Thank you for listening.

Into Africa: Season One Reflections

The international development and humanitarian landscape in Africa is at an inflection point, driven by a convergence of severe funding cuts, escalated climate and conflict-related crisis, and a necessary, but challenging shift from donor-led relief to locally led, long-term development. The current aid architecture was built for a different era, and this moment of disruption presents an opportunity to reimagine a system that is more effective, sustainable, and built on local partnerships and resilience.

Tjada D'Oyen McKenna, CEO of Mercy Corps, and Noam Unger, Vice-President of the Global Development department at CSIS, join Oge to assess the current state of the international development and humanitarian assistance landscape and explore what challenges and opportunities this moment presents for Africa’s future.

Note: Into Africa will be taking a short break and will return in the next few months!

Beyond Aid: Redefining Africa’s Development

In this youth roundtable, Catherine Nzuki, Associate Fellow with the CSIS Africa Program, is joined by two Sudanese scholars to discuss Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms, a grassroots network of young volunteers delivering food, medicine, and essential services across all eighteen states in Sudan. Noaman Mousa is a political science PhD student at UCLA, where his research focuses on civil wars and state-building in Sub-Saharan Africa. Yasir Zaidan is an adjunct lecturer at Seattle University and a PhD student at the University of Washington, where his research examines the expanding influence of Middle Eastern states in the Horn of Africa. Together, they trace the ERRs' origins in the neighborhood resistance committees that drove Sudan's 2019 revolution and explore what a day in the life of an ERR volunteer looks like across different regions and frontlines. Yasir and Noaman also reflect on the deepening of ethnic and tribal cleavages in Sudan since the outbreak of war in April 2023, the role of Gulf states in prolonging the conflict, and the difficult question of what a path to peace might look like.

Reading Recommendations from Noaman Mousa:

 
The Coup-Civil War Trap, Phil Roessler

 
Ethnic Armies, Kristen Harkness

 
Warlord Politics and African States, Will Reno

 
Sudan: The Historical Predicament and the Horizons of the Future, Muhammad Abu al-Qasim Hajj Hamad (in Arabic, currently under translation by Prof. Alden Young).

Reading Recommendations from Yasir Zaidan:

 
Sudan: The Historical Predicament and the Horizons of the Future, Muhammad Abu al-Qasim Hajj Hamad (in Arabic, currently under translation by Prof. Alden Young).

Emergency Response Rooms and Collective Action in Sudan

As the U.S.-Israel-Iran war intensifies, global attention is focused on the Middle East, but a profound geopolitical restructuring is unfolding along the Red Sea. For years, the Horn of Africa has been a critical arena for understanding global geopolitical competition and shifts, and the Iran war is exposing the risks and gaps that analysts had foreshadowed. As international attention and diplomatic bandwidth for the Horn’s overlapping crises decline, the region is undergoing rapid political repositioning and transformation as the attention of Gulf states turns inward.

In this special episode of Into Africa, Samira Gaid, founding director of Balqiis Insights, rejoins the Into Africa podcast to dive deeper into the geopolitics of the Horn and unpack how the Iran war is reverberating across the region.

In the Shadows of the Iran War: The Horn of Africa

Is the new wave of U.S-Africa bilateral health deals a game-changer for African health sovereignty or a step backward for solidarity? With more than a dozen African countries signing nearly $20 billion in bilateral deals by early 2026, the Trump administration’s America First Global Health Strategy is reshaping the future of foreign assistance and global health.

In this episode, Doris Macharia, president of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF), and Steve Morrison, senior vice president of the CSIS Global Health Policy Center, join Oge to take stock of this pivotal moment. They examine what the America First health strategy gets right, what it has overlooked, and how its rapid rollout is playing out on the continent. As the strategy moves to the implementation phase, it is being met with a mix of skepticism, anxiety, and cautious hope.

Pulse Check: The New U.S-Africa Health Deals

Late last year, the U.S redesignated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern, a move that reignited fierce global debate and intensified an already complex moment in U.S.–Nigeria relations. U.S. military air strikes on Christmas that targeted an ISIS-affiliated terrorist group in northwest Nigeria, which the U.S. accused of persecuting Christians, further illustrates these complicated and evolving dynamics. What does this CPC redesignation mean for the millions of people living in Nigeria? Is this a necessary wake-up call for accountability or a surface-level solution to a deeply rooted complex crisis of political power and security?

In this episode, Oge is joined by Cardinal John Onaiyekan, Archbishop Emeritus of Abuja and Dr. Usman Bugaje, senior adviser to the Sultan of Sokoto, to unpack the nexus of religion, power, and the desperate search for peace in one of the world’s most religiously vibrant countries.

Nigeria: Religion, Power, and Peacebuilding

As the world’s largest humanitarian catastrophe enters its third year, international aid is facing drastic reductions. Local and international humanitarian organizations are adapting their strategies to continue delivering lifesaving care to the over 30 million people who urgently need assistance. The recent launch of the Sudan Humanitarian Fund, which included contributions from regional and international partners, including the US and UAE pledging $700 million in support, signals renewed attention to the humanitarian funding gap in Sudan, but also highlights the complexity of addressing this conflict. 

In this episode, Oge is joined by Hanin Ahmed, a Sudanese activist, and Daniel O’Malley, head of the International Committee for the Red Cross delegation in Sudan. Hanin and Daniel share their perspectives on the scale of the crisis, the current humanitarian support landscape, and possible avenues to address the fragmentation of the social fabric in Sudan.

Sudan: Navigating the World’s Largest Humanitarian Crisis

The Horn of Africa is experiencing a profound, and dangerous geopolitical restructuring. From the war in Sudan, to renewed tension between Ethiopia and Eritrea, to rising security challenges in South Sudan, and Somalia’s governance struggles alongside ripple effects from Somaliland’s bid for international recognition, the region’s internal instability and volatility is reshaping international alliances and fueling a fierce competition for influence by global actors – from the Gulf to the West – who are vying for power, maritime routes, and strategic dominance. Samira Gaid, founding director of Balqiis Insights, and Amb (ret). Donald Booth, former U.S. special envoy to Sudan and South Sudan, join Oge for a discussion that illuminates a few key dynamics shaping the geopolitics in the Horn of Africa. They unpack the different players in the arena, their motivations, and what these dynamics mean for the region, and the global community.

Old Playbooks, New Threats: Africa’s Evolving Security Landscape

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