In this week’s #Forum2000online Chat, Dr. Fonteh Akum, the Executive Director of the Pretoria-based Institute of Security Studies, joined us to discuss the prospects and challenges of democratization in Africa, the role the continent can play on the international stage, as well as the recent developments in Ethiopia and Sudan.
In this interview, you will learn that:
👉 Democratization in Africa still faces many challenges, but if certain conditions are met democracy will have a chance to sustain and thrive.
👉 African political parties should put the state’s interest over their own, and civil society should hold politicians accountable.
👉 African leaders should find a way to make the continent a subject and not an object of the global competition over resources and political influence.
👉 Well-functioning democracy for everyone is more important than a well-functioning economy that produces wealth only for the elites and their cronies.
👉 Only finding a consensus could put an end to the deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia.
Dr Fonteh Akum is the Executive Director of the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS). He is the former Head of the Lake Chad Basin program in the Dakar office of the ISS. He joined the ISS in 2017 as a senior researcher in the Peace and Security Research Programme in Pretoria, after which he moved to ISS Dakar as a senior researcher. Before joining the ISS, he worked for the United States Department of Defense, the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, and the Africa Program of the United Nations University for Peace.
The interview was recorded on October 27, 2021, and moderated by Ladislav Garassy, a political geographer based in Prague.
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Prospects and challenges of democratization in Africa
