In several African regions, economic integration has successfully reduced tariff protection by freezing the opportunity to raise applied tariffs against fellow integration partners above those promised. In this paper, we examine whether the regional tariff commitments on the continent have come...

The European Union (EU) has been struggling to find a shared course on African migration since the entry into force of the Schengen Agreement (1995). It has done so through two interrelated processes of negotiation. Firstly, parties have negotiated narrative frames about migration and, in...

How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected armed conflict and political violence within countries? Focusing on Africa, a continent with a particularly high number of ongoing conflicts, this policy brief analyses the immediate and long-term implications of the pandemic on conflict and reflects on its...

There is a widely held consensus that it will not be possible to feed the world without the help of the smallholders of Africa, Latin America and Asia, who number up to 570 million farms or 2 billion people. Given the sheer size of this figure alone, the sustainable development of smallholder...

Since 2014, Russian involvement in Africa has grown significantly. African leaders have been receptive to these overtures as a result of increasing concerns about growing Chinese dominance, retrenchment of the United States (US) and their interest in diversifying trading and security partners....

Cities account for approximately 70 per cent of global energy consumption and about 75 percent of greenhouse gas emissions due to the density of economic activities and infrastructure and their often path -dependent development patterns. While this makes cities vulnerable to the impacts of...

The European Investment Bank (EIB) not only is the bank of the European Union (EU), it also is the world's largest multilateral lender. Hitherto rarely at the centre of public attention, the ongoing negotiations on the next EU budget round, the Multiannual Financial Framework (2021-2027) (MFF),...

Shared values are deemed necessary as a solid foundation for social cohesion by commentators and observers in many countries. However, when examining what kind of values this is based on, answers often come down to platitudes and national clichés. This discussion paper offers some clarification...