Into Africa

With the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) renewed through 2028, the United States has an opportunity to rethink its economic relationship with Africa. While U.S.-Africa trade has not kept pace with the growth of China-Africa trade, African countries are increasingly shaping their own economic future through initiatives such as the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). What would i...

As leaders gather in New York for the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Africa sits at the center of many of the world's most consequential debates, from peace and security to climate, development, and global governance. In this episode of Into Africa, Oge speaks with Bitania Tadesse of the International Peace Institute about what to watch as UNGA unfolds, the prospects f...

As Nigeria prepares for its 2027 elections, the country faces a critical test. Trust in electoral institutions is weakening, young voters are increasingly disillusioned, and demands for accountability are growing louder. These challenges extend beyond Nigeria, as countries across Africa grapple with questions of democratic credibility, governance, and public trust amid declining funding for democr...

Africa’s economic future will be shaped in part by the movement of people, skills, and labor across the continent. Yet migration remains one of the most debated and politically sensitive issues in Africa and around the world, raising questions about jobs, borders, demographics, and social cohesion. Recent attacks against migrants in South Africa have brought these debates back into sharp focus, ev...

The 2026 men's World Cup was a landmark for African football. Nine of ten African sides cleared the group stage, a continental record, yet only Morocco and Egypt reached the round of 16. In this Youth Roundtable, Catherine Nzuki is joined by Janine Anthony, an award-winning broadcaster who founded LadiesMarch, Africa's first all-women women's soccer network, and was the BBC World Service's first A...

This week on Into Africa, we are sharing an episode from the CSIS podcast, CommonHealth, hosted by CSIS Senior Vice President and Director of Global Health Policy Center Stephen Morrison. Stephen is joined by Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, Executive Director, WHO Health Emergencies Programme. Dr. Ihekweazu spent several weeks in the hot zone in eastern Congo, mobilizing the international response...

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. T...

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 t...

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. 

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 opportun...

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...

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 diploma...

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, p...

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 evolv...

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 int...

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 all...

In the first episode of this season, Oge is joined by Fonteh Akum, Executive Director of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), and Raymond Gilpin, Chief Economist and Head of Strategy at UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Africa, to reflect on the defining moments of 2025 and explore what 2026 may hold for the continent. While 2025 brought few surprises, it reinforced trends that had long been taking...

Into Africa is back with all-new conversations hosted by Oge Onubogu, senior fellow and director of the Africa Program at CSIS. Tune in starting January 15th for in-depth interviews with journalists, academics, and other trailblazers as we discuss the cultural, political, and economic trends shaping the continent.

Since this episode aired last year, we’re still dreaming of a just and representative global order. Catherine Nzuki was joined by Ambassador Martin Kimani, PhD, the Executive Director of New York University’s Center on International Cooperation. He was previously the Permanent Representative of Kenya to the United Nations (UN). In this episode, we take a deep dive into Africa’s bid for two permane...

Catherine's taking a break this week. In the meantime, we want to reshare one of our essential episodes on demographics. As you all know, by 2050, one in four people will be African. How do demographers reach this conclusion? And how does Africa's population growth intersect with population declines in the Global North?   To answer these questions, Catherine was joined by Dr. Jennifer D. Sciubba,...

Youth in Kenya have three demands: justice, accountability, and better governance. Over the past two years, “Gen Z” and government critics nationwide have taken to the streets in their thousands to demonstrate their frustrations and anger with the government. In this episode, Chemutai Ruto, a recent graduate of Political Science and Africana Studies, joins Khasai Makhulo, CSIS Africa Program Resea...

Arjun Jain, the UN Refugee Agency’s Representative in Nigeria, joins Catherine Nzuki to discuss the drivers of internal displacement in Nigeria and the daily realities facing displaced communities. They explore how religion and geography shape public perception of the crisis, the capacity of federal and state governments to respond, and the impact of shrinking humanitarian budgets. The conversatio...

Chad now hosts 1.8 million displaced people, including 1.2 million Sudanese fleeing one of the world’s deadliest conflicts. With 42 percent of its population living below the poverty line, Chad is struggling to provide basic services like food, water, and healthcare for both locals and refugees. In this episode, Abdouraouf Gnon-Konde, Director of UNHCR’s Regional Bureau for West and Central Africa...

African content is booming on global streaming platforms. But as the industry shifts to appeal to Afropolitan elites and international audiences, who gets left behind? In this episode, Catherine Nzuki is joined by Dr. Wunpini Fatimata Mohammed, assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Cornell University and the author of Afropolitanizing the local: how cultural imperialism is rewr...

Africa is undergoing a health funding crisis due to overreliance on external aid and a lack of internal investment from African governments. The healthcare sector is 95 percent dependent on external aid for crucial commodities: vaccines, medication, and diagnostic equipment. Africa saw a 41 percent rise in public health emergencies in 2024, highlighting the vulnerability of the health infrastructu...