Category: The Conversation – Africa

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Mark Swilling, Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Development, Stellenbosch University

The strategic significance of the reference to energy reform in South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address cannot be overstated.

Many media reports carried a sense of elation about how this clears the way for resolving the country’s long-term energy crisis. This sentiment is premature: there are many devils in the details that need to be attended to before the country can celebrate.

Ramaphosa announced that the soon-to-be established Transmission System Operator will own South Africa’s transmission assets. This would include all main powerlines and sub-stations. This was contrary to what had been expected, particularly by South Africa’s state-owned power utility Eskom. Its assumption was that it would retain ownership of the transmission assets via its subsidiary, the National Transmission Company of South Africa, that was established in 2024.

Ramaphosa disagreed.

We are restructuring Eskom and establishing a fully independent state-owned transmission entity. This entity will have ownership and control of transmission assets and be responsible for operating the electricity market.

He went on to say:

Given the importance of this restructuring for the broader reform of the electricity sector, I have established a dedicated task team under the National Energy Crisis Committee to address various issues relating to the restructuring process, including clear timeframes for its phased implementation. It will report to me within three months.

The implications of this statement are far-reaching.

Surprise move

The National Transmission Company of South Africa, established in July 2024, is the
current owner and operator of the national grid transmission system. It is entirely owned by Eskom Holdings. It was assumed that, within five years, it would be spun out of Eskom and reconstituted as the Transmission System Operator. In other words, in addition to owning the transmission assets, this entity would be the overall operator of the national grid, the manager of the build programme, and operator of the energy market provided for by the Energy Regulation Amendment Act.

In an opinion piece in December 2025 Dan Marokane, Eskom Group CEO elaborated on an announcement by the Minister of Energy and Electricty when he wrote:

Under the chosen modality, the (Eskom-owned) National Transmission Company of South Africa will remain the owner of transmission assets, entering a right-of-use agreement with the newly established Transmission System Operator … responsible for independently operating transmission assets, whether owned by the National Transmission Company of South Africa or private sector players under the envisioned Independent Transmission Projects programme.

This approach took some parts of government and major business and investment associations by surprise.

The objections by business stem from concerns about how the build-out of new energy capabilities will be financed. The US$25 billion plan on the table provides for a grid transmission build programme over the next 10 years to stabilise South Africa’s energy output.

But where will the money come from?

The money question

South African business and Enoch Godongwana, the Minister of Finance, argue that the only affordable and sustainable way to fund this kind of infrastructure build is to rope in the private sector. That there’s money available is not disputed. As a sustainable development scholar my own research for the National Planning Commission shows that there is a surplus of investment capital in South Africa to fund the just transition.

But there are concerns that investors will be reluctant to invest this capital in an Eskom subsidiary because Eskom’s balance sheet is compromised. And because of its track record and low ratings, Eskom is not regarded by some investors as trustworthy. And even if they do invest in Eskom, because of a perceived higher risk, this would raise the cost of capital and push up electricity prices.

Reportedly, Ramaphosa’s statement came after various consultations during December and January.

Why it matters

The widely supported government-approved Transmission Development Plan established by the National Transmission Company of South Africa makes provision for a R400 billion investment strategy over a 10-year period.

This will make it possible to build 14,400kms of new lines, 271 new
transformers and rehabilitate the existing infrastructure.

Given the state’s fiscal constraints, massive increases in public funding to achieve the plan’s targets are unlikely. It follows that the bulk will have to come from domestic
investors.

That means, if South Africa is truly committed to achieving the plan’s targets then it needs to make sure that the conditions are in place to unlock private capital for public infrastructures.

This is not privatisation. The aim is to mobilize South African capital to meet South Africa’s needs.

The danger of a return to loadshedding

If the conditions for increased private investment in this publicly-owned transmission infrastructure are not put in place, it is very likely that loadshedding will return in 2029.

Eskom’s Medium Term Adequacy Outlook makes clear the risks South Africa faces come 2029/30 when the three oldest power stations – Hendrina, Camden and Grootvlei – need to be decommissioned, and more after them.

The outlook also makes clear that if the much-needed 6GW of gas infrastructure does not come on-line in time to replace coal power, loadshedding is highly likely by 2029. But there is widespread doubt about this gas infrastructure materialising by 2029/30.

And so, if the National Transmission Company of South Africa cannot access the capital needed at the right price to massively expand the grid over the next five years, then the renewables (mainly wind) plus extensive backup that the country needs to prevent loadshedding by 2029/30 will not be able to connect into the national grid.

That will almost certainly result in the return of loadshedding.

Many analysts have raised doubts about whether Eskom has the headroom to raise the required debt against its own balance sheet. If they are correct, creating a “fully independent Transmission System Operator” that controls and owns its own assets is then presented as an easier way to raise debt at a lower price. In turn, this is supposed to have a beneficial impact on tariffs, and prevent loadshedding.

But this is a simplistic understanding of the solution.

The independent Transmission System Operator will take a few years to get established. The report the president wants will describe how the assets can be transferred over time without harming Eskom’s financial position. Sudden shifts should be avoided.

Furthermore, this report will have to deal with the details where the devils reside. In particular, if the Transmission System Operator is fully independent, then what matters is the full independence of the revenue system from Eskom, cost-reflective tariffs and revenue certainty (which includes a solution to the growing mountain of municipal arrears).

The call for a fully independent Transmission System Operator may give lenders the security they need, but the hidden threat is that the risk of revenue shortfalls gets transferred to the sovereign (and ultimately the tax payer).

In the meantime, the transmission build programme must be accelerated. Our research described how the energy transition can be accelerated. We also set out why a renewables-based economy enabled by the transmission build programme is not only the lowest-cost option compared to the alternatives, it is also central to “green growth” which the President described as “[t]he biggest opportunity of all… .”

To establish a fully independent state-owned Transmission System Operator within five years, alignment across three fronts will be required:

• government-wide support for the policy direction described by the President,

• managerial interests within the National Transmission Company of South Africa who see their futures beyond Eskom and act out accordingly over the medium- to long-term,and

• a South African investment community prepared to make big ticket long-term investments in a pipeline of large-scale transmission projects over the next decade.

But this can only work if a revenue model can be designed that is independent of Eskom, guarantees cash flow discipline and ensures cost-reflective tariffs. No document to date addresses this crucial nexus.

With policy and revenue certainty, South African investors will be able to make 20-year investments to implement the Transmission Development Plan. By ensuring that the country avoids loadshedding, these policy-enabled investments will drive accelerated green growth.

Mark Swilling receives funding from National Research Foundation. He is affiliated with the National Transmission Company of South Africa in his capacity as a non-Executive Director. He writes in his academic capacity.

– ref. Ramaphosa and a stable electricity system in South Africa: the devils are in the detail – https://theconversation.com/ramaphosa-and-a-stable-electricity-system-in-south-africa-the-devils-are-in-the-detail-276014

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Rod Crompton, Visiting Adjunct Professor, African Energy Leadership Centre, Wits Business School, University of the Witwatersrand

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, in his 2026 State of the Nation address, announced that the country’s electricity transmission assets would move out of state-owned Eskom. This will happen once the newly established National Transmission Company of South Africa is unbundled into a fully independent company.

This is not the first time Ramaphosa has used his State of the Nation address to keep South Africa’s electricity reforms on track. In 2021, he raised the cap on private power generation from 1MW to 100MW. Minister Gwede Mantashe at the time admitted that the president had “twisted his arm”.

In 2022, Ramaphosa removed the cap altogether, unleashing a torrent of private investment.

Why did Ramaphosa need to intervene again in 2026?

Many would naturally expect a national electricity transmission company to have transmission assets. But for those who have followed South Africa’s long, zigzag road toward market reforms since it became government policy in the
white paper on Energy Policy in 1998, it is less of a surprise.

I was involved in drafting the white paper and the 2019 Eskom roadmap. I worked in the Department of Minerals and Energy, was a regulator at the National Energy Regulator of South Africa for 11 years and subsequently sat on the Eskom board for six years until I resigned in 2024.

If nothing else, Eskom management has a dogged determination in pursuit of their objectives. In this fight, where ideology and serious money are intertwined, it’s difficult to predict the outcome. It’s important because it’s a prelude to bigger fights to come.

Reverse creates alarm

In December 2025, Ramaphosa’s Minister of Electricity and Energy, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, announced that instead of being unbundled into a fully independent company, the National Transmission Company of South Africa would remain a wholly owned Eskom subsidiary, with its assets staying inside Eskom. Only the System Operator would move outside Eskom.

This announcement was alarming for several reasons:

• The South African Wholesale Electricity Market is meant to commence operations in April 2026. Eskom, as the dominant generator, would have a conflict of interest in a competitive market if it owned both generation and transmission assets.

• It appeared, politically, to reverse an important advance made by the Electricity Regulation Amendment Act, which came into effect in January 2025. The act created the expectation that the National Transmission Company of South Africa would become fully independent outside Eskom within five years.

• After severe electricity shortages between 2008 and 2024 (what Eskom terms “loadshedding”), analysts predict a return to power cuts around 2030 unless more renewable power stations are built in time. There is no shortage of willing investors, but the transmission grid is congested, especially in the western parts of the country where the wind and sunshine are best. The
  bulk of electricity demand is in the east, so the grid must be strengthened to transport power from west to east.

Ramaphosa predicted in his 2026 State of the Nation address that “by 2030, more than 40% of our energy supply will come from cheap, clean, renewable energy sources”.

Eskom plans to debottleneck the grid, targeting 14,500km of new transmission lines and 133,000 MVA (MegaVolt-Ampere) of additional transformers by 2034 at an estimated cost of US$27.5 billion.

An independent National Transmission Company of South Africa will need assets to borrow against if it is to contribute to grid expansion.

However, both Eskom and the state are effectively broke. The government cannot afford to continue the massive bailouts Eskom has needed to stay afloat over the last decade. Consequently, it must turn to the private sector.

It is planning public-private partnerships to enable private investors to expand the grid. But if Eskom’s transmission assets remain inside Eskom, those investors – as well as prospective investors in new generation capacity – would be less inclined to invest.

Both groups would fear that Eskom, as controller of the transmission assets, would discriminate against them in the emerging competitive market. Both want a level playing field and a fully independent grid to underpin the electricity market. Allowing Eskom to own the grid threatens investment and the market reform trajectory and also raises the spectre of future loadshedding.

Politically, Ramaphosa’s announcement is a public rebuke of his Minister of Electricity and Energy, who appears to have fallen under Eskom’s sway as it seeks to prolong its near-monopoly in the electricity market. Globally, monopolies do not relinquish market power easily.

In effect, Ramaphosa was settling a dispute between Eskom and the faction in his African National Congress that supports a developmental state dominated by state-owned companies, on one hand, and the National Treasury and those who recognise that depending on Eskom to solve the country’s electricity problems is unlikely to end well, on the other.

Ramaphosa went out of his way to say:

We are establishing a level playing field for competition, so that we are never again exposed to the risk of relying on a single supplier to meet our energy needs.

Why do Eskom and Ramokgopa want to keep the transmission assets inside Eskom?

The battle lines

They point to Eskom’s US$25 billion debt and note that lenders provided funds against the security of Eskom’s assets. If those assets shrink by removing the transmission lines, the lenders will object and demand repayment. Eskom would be unable to comply. Lenders with government guarantees would then turn to the government, which would also be unable to repay, leading to financial collapse.

This alarmist view ignores that utilities with debts in many countries have been restructured during market reforms. If they could negotiate solutions with lenders, why can’t Eskom?

Some believe Eskom is using debt as an excuse to retain market power, pointing to its legal challenge against the National Energy Regulator’s decision to grant electricity trading licences to five private traders.

Others believe Eskom is not receiving good financial advice and wonder why the National Treasury is not more forthright, given its extensive work in this area.

Eskom also cites its worry over:

• the US$6.27 billion owed by municipalities

• the need “to take account of the establishment of Eskom Green … proposed new subsidiary to house Eskom’s renewable energy business” and

• the requirement for lender consents on a loan-by-loan basis.

Energy Council of South Africa chief executive James Mackay describes the unbundling framework as a “hot potato,” noting that “timing, risk and ensuring Eskom Generation doesn’t collapse (are) equally important”.

Ramaphosa recognises that difficulties remain:

Given the importance of this restructuring for the broader reform of the electricity sector, I have established a dedicated task team under the National Energy Crisis Committee to address various issues relating to the restructuring process.

It must report to him in three months.

Ramaphosa’s comments in his address prompted Eskom’s probably shortest-ever press release, in which it pledged full support for the task team.

So, it’s not a done deal.

Notably, Eskom does not endorse the president’s announcement. It more likely sees the task team as another platform to advance its views in the ongoing contestation over the path and pace of South Africa’s electricity reforms.

It will be interesting.

Rod Crompton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Does South Africa have a future without power cuts? Ramaphosa intervenes, but the drama isn’t over – https://theconversation.com/does-south-africa-have-a-future-without-power-cuts-ramaphosa-intervenes-but-the-drama-isnt-over-276015

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, Professor of Practice, International Human Rights Law, Tufts University

In a rapidly fracturing world, regional integration could be a source of resilience for the African continent.

The African Union agreed in 2019 to establish the African Continental Free Trade Area founded on the building blocks laid by eight regional economic communities. These are the Arab Maghreb Union, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa), the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (Cen-Sad), the East African Community (EAC), the Economic Community of Central African States (Eccas), the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

But integration has made slow progress.

The World Bank issued a report 45 years ago which said a larger regional market would increase production and reduce “long-term obstacles to development”. Those obstacles included infrastructure deficits, payment and settlement systems, and political risk.

They persist to this day. Based on my research over more than three decades of work on regionalism in Africa, I suggest there are four main reasons why.

• Integration experiments suffer from colonial dependency.

• Integration has failed to address the informal nature of enterprise in Africa.

• African countries do integration as an add-on to pre-existing colonial arrangements, instead of re-imagining them.

• Regional integration in Africa has been burdened by mission creep, which makes its goals unclear.

I argue that institutions created by Africa’s leaders for this purpose must facilitate the continent as a space in which every African can thrive and diminish the tendency for national politics to trump shared progress.

The burden of colonial dependency

At the conclusion of the Berlin West Africa Conference in February 1885, European powers and the United States of America appointed themselves “to regulate the conditions most favourable to the development of trade and civilization … in Africa.”

In 1973, a pioneering study of Foreign Investments in the East African Common Market concluded that most of Africa’s post-colonial regional integration arrangements were “based on pre-independence links and institutions.”

For instance, the East African Common Market was successor to Britain’s colonial East African Federation and precursor of today’s East African Community. The Community’s recent effort to expand beyond this original geography has come at the price of cohesion, which endangers it.

Ecowas was the first to transcend patterns of colonial dependency. Uniquely, it included countries that won their independence from France, Portugal and the United Kingdom. Fifty years after Ecowas was founded, recent developments suggest the experience continues to be uneasy.

One reason for this is because the post-colonial association or partnership agreements between the European Union and African, Caribbean and Pacific countries is designed to farm and extract goods that are sent to be processed in Europe. From there, African countries import the processed goods at higher prices. This makes it impossible for Africa to grow industries that can employ its own people to process what it produces.

Informal nature of business activity

Around Africa, colonial rule thrived by routing or taking over indigenous enterprise. Those who survived it did so by going underground or operating informally. Since independence, most governments in the continent have failed to redress this historical pattern criminalising African enterprise.

As recently as 2023, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa estimated informal cross-border trade in Africa at “between 30% and 72% of formal trade between neighbouring countries.” This excludes a huge proportion of African enterprise from the benefits of regional integration.

Integration as an add on, instead of a shared future

African countries continue to enter into regional integration not to re-imagine but as add-ons to pre-existing colonial arrangements. Recent estimates put the number of these arrangements at over 156. For a continent of 55 countries, this means confounding overlaps of both membership and mission.

In response, many have advocated rationalisation of Africa’s regional integration arrangements.

The AU’s decision to recognise eight regional economic communities was supposed to respond to this. But it has not eliminated the overlaps. For instance, Tanzania and the DRC respectively belong to the EAC and SADC. Eritrea and Sudan were simultaneously in the IGAD, Comesa, and Cen-Sad. French-speaking west African countries belong to both Ecowas and the Economic and Monetary Union of West Africa, better known as l’UEMOA.

What needs to happen next

Popular resentment against continuing colonial projects in parts of Africa may be high but it requires political imagination to transform that into constructive energy.

Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger exited Ecowas following rupture in relations with the colonial power, France. However, they still belong to l’UEMOA, whose currency system is backed by France.

It will take more than formal rules of market access or tax harmonisation to shrink informal trade. Women, for example, do over 70% of informal cross-border trade in Africa. An effective solution to this problem will require better frontier regimes and eliminate policies that discourage women from lawful enterprise.

Addressing mission creep

Rationalisation of Africa’s integration arrangements may already be quietly underway. Much of the focus is on membership overlaps. Since 2000, for instance, Ecowas has lost 25% of its membership, reducing it from 16 to 12 member states. Rwanda has withdrawn from Eccas and Eritrea from IGAD.

But the problem may be lack of clarity in the mission of Africa’s integration arrangements. In addition to economic issues, Africa’s regional integration regimes have also assumed burdens of collective security and governance oversight. The outcomes have been both unconvincing and destabilising. The exit in 2025 of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger from Ecowas is a recent example.

Without a clear political commitment to a shared future, Africa’s governments have been unable to manage the contradictions between economic integration, collective security and governance in one mission. The time has come for them to decide what they must prioritise so that regional integration in Africa will finally get the opportunity to prove and improve the continent’s prospects.

Chidi Anselm Odinkalu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Africa’s trade blocs were designed to unite the continent: four reasons they haven’t delivered – https://theconversation.com/africas-trade-blocs-were-designed-to-unite-the-continent-four-reasons-they-havent-delivered-274471

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Lesedi Senamele Matlala, Senior Lecturer and Researcher in Public Policy, Monitoring and Evaluations, University of Johannesburg

Government departments across South Africa are increasingly relying on digital tools to evaluate public programmes and monitor performance. This is part of broader public-sector reforms. Their aims are to improve accountability, respond to audit pressure and manage large-scale programmes with limited staff and budgets.

Here’s an example. National departments tracking housing delivery, social grants or infrastructure rollout rely on digital performance systems rather than periodic paper-based reports. Dashboards – a way of showing visual data in one place – provide near real-time updates on service delivery.

Another is the use platforms that collect mobile data. These allow frontline officials and contractors to upload information directly from the field.

Both examples lend themselves to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to process large datasets and generate insights that would previously have taken months to analyse.

This shift is often portrayed as a step forward for accountability and efficiency in the public sector.

I am a public policy scholar with a special interest in monitoring and evaluation of government programmes. My recent research shows a worrying trend, that the turn to technology is unfolding much quicker than the ethical and governance frameworks meant to regulate it.

Across the cases I’ve examined, digital tools were already embedded in routine monitoring and evaluation processes. But there weren’t clear standards guiding their use.

This presents risks around surveillance, exclusion, data misuse and poor professional judgement. These risks are not abstract. They shape how citizens experience the state, how their data is handled and whose voices ultimately count in policy decisions.

When technology outruns policy

Public-sector evaluation involves assessing government programmes and policies. It determines whether:

• public resources are used effectively

• programmes achieve their intended outcomes

• citizens can hold the state accountable for performance.

Traditionally, these evaluations relied on face-to-face engagement between communities, evaluators, government and others. They included qualitative methods that allowed for nuance, explanation and trust-building.

Digital tools have changed this.

In my research, I interviewed evaluators across government, NGOs, academia, professional associations and private consultancies. I found a consistent concern across the board. Digital systems are often introduced without ethical guidance tailored to evaluation practice.

Ethical guidance would provide clear, practical rules for how digital tools are used in evaluations. For example, when using dashboards or automated data analytics, guidance should require evaluators to explain how data are generated, who has access to them and how findings may affect communities being evaluated. It should also prevent the use of digital systems to monitor individuals without consent or to rank programmes in ways that ignore context.

South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act provides a general legal framework for data protection. But it doesn’t address the specific ethical dilemmas that arise when evaluation becomes automated, cloud-based and algorithmically mediated.

The result is that evaluators are often left navigating complex ethical terrain without clear standards. This forces institutions to rely on precedent, informal habits, past practices and software defaults.

Surveillance creep and data misuse

Digital platforms make it possible to collect large volumes of data. Once data is uploaded to cloud-based systems or third-party platforms, control over its storage, reuse and sharing frequently shifts from the evaluators to others.

Several evaluators described situations where data they’d collected on behalf of government departments was later reused by the departments or other state agencies. This was done without participants’ explicit awareness. Consent processes in digital environments are often reduced to a single click.

Examples of other uses included other forms of analysis, reporting or institutional monitoring.

One of the ethical risks that came out of the research was the use of this data for surveillance. This is the use of data to monitor individuals, communities or frontline workers.

Digital exclusion and invisible voices

Digital evaluation tools are often presented as expanding reach and participation. But in practice, they can exclude already marginalised groups. Communities with limited internet access, low digital literacy, language barriers or unreliable infrastructure are less likely to participate fully in digital evaluations.

Automated tools have limitations. For example, they may struggle to process multilingual data, local accents or culturally specific forms of expression. This leads to partial or distorted representations of lived experience. Evaluators in my study saw this happening in practice.

This exclusion has serious consequences especially in a country with inequality like South Africa. Evaluations that rely heavily on digital tools might find urban, connected populations and make rural or informal communities statistically invisible.

This is not merely a technical limitation. It shapes which needs are recognised and whose experiences inform policy decisions. If evaluation data underrepresents the most vulnerable, public programmes may appear more effective than they are. This masks structural failures rather than addressing them.

In my study, some evaluations reported positive performance trends despite evaluators noting gaps in data collection.

Algorithms are not neutral

Evaluators also raised concerns about the growing authority granted to algorithmic outputs. Dashboards, automated reports and AI-driven analytics are often treated as the true picture. This happens even when they conflict with field-based knowledge or contextual understanding.

For example, dashboards may show a target as on track. But in an example of a site visit, evaluators my find flaws or dissatisfaction.

Several participants reported pressure from funders or institutions to rely on the analysis of the numbers.

Yet algorithms reflect the assumptions, datasets and priorities embedded in their design. When applied uncritically, they can reproduce bias, oversimplify social dynamics and disregard qualitative insight.

If digital systems dictate how data must be collected, analysed and reported, evaluators risk becoming technicians and not independent professionals exercising judgement.

Why Africa needs context-sensitive ethics

Across Africa, national strategies and policies on digital technologies often borrow heavily from international frameworks. These are developed in very different contexts. Global principles on AI ethics and data governance provide useful reference points. But they don’t adequately address the realities of inequality, historical mistrust and uneven digital access across much of Africa’s public sector.

My research argues that ethical governance for digital evaluation must be context-sensitive. Standards must address:

• how consent is obtained

• who owns evaluation data

• how algorithmic tools are selected and audited

• how evaluator independence is protected.

Ethical frameworks must be embedded at the design stage of digital systems.

Lesedi Senamele Matlala is affiliated with the South Africa Monitoring and Evaluation Association (SAMEA). I am the chairperson

– ref. Digital monitoring is growing in South Africa’s public service – regulation needs to catch up – https://theconversation.com/digital-monitoring-is-growing-in-south-africas-public-service-regulation-needs-to-catch-up-273288

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Caroline Southey, Founding Editor, Africa, The Conversation

It’s become a common refrain in South Africa: there’s no drought, dams and reservoirs are full, but the taps are dry.

The ongoing crisis has been decades in the making. South Africa is a water-scarce country, yet it has failed to take even basic measures to preserve water supplies. These include:

• poor financial management which has led to collapsing infrastructure. The result is dysfunctional water treatment plants and leaking pipes. For every four litres provided to Gauteng by Rand Water, which oversees the country’s industrial heartland, one litre is wasted through leakage.

• South Africans use a lot of water: in Gauteng, for example, the average consumption is 279 litres per person per day. This is 60% greater than the global average.

The chronic crisis is underscored by the fact that the challenges – and what needs to be done about them – have been known for some time, as these articles from our archives show.

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Johannesburg’s water crisis is getting worse – expert explains why the taps keep running dry in South Africa’s biggest city

Cape Town’s sewage treatment isn’t coping: scientists are worried about what the city is telling the public

The right to water is out of reach for many South Africans: case study offers solutions

South Africans flush toilets with drinkable water: study in Cape Town looked at using seawater instead

South Africa’s sewage crisis: official reports don’t include millions of litres of leaking wastewater

Is my water safe to drink? Expert advice for residents of South African cities

How to make sure water is safe to drink: four practical tips

– ref. Water in the dams, but South Africa’s taps are dry: essential reads on a history of bad management – https://theconversation.com/water-in-the-dams-but-south-africas-taps-are-dry-essential-reads-on-a-history-of-bad-management-275832

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Teklehaymanot G. Weldemichel, Lecturer in Environment and Development, University of Manchester

The Tigray region in Ethiopia’s north has endured one of the world’s deadliest armed conflicts of the 21st century. Between 2020 and 2022, as many as 800,000 people were killed (out of a regional population of about 7 million). This rivals estimates from recent major conflicts, including those in Ukraine, Yemen, Sudan and Syria.

The war was fought between Tigray’s security forces and the allied forces of Ethiopia and Eritrea, along with ethnic militias from different regions of Ethiopia.

This period was marked by organised massacres. There was also systematic sexual violence and mass displacement. Ethnic cleansing and prolonged siege conditions devastated civilians.

Despite its unparalleled scale, the Tigray crisis remained largely invisible to the world. Factors such as race and the peripherality of the region made the Tigray conflict a blind spot in global geopolitics. But these explanations are not sufficient.

I have studied Ethiopia’s politics, and closely followed developments in Tigray since the outbreak of the war. In a recent article, I examined the steps taken by the Ethiopian government and its allies to conceal atrocities from global scrutiny.

I analysed government statements, media coverage and reports from local and international human rights organisations shortly before and during the war. I found that the war and its associated human rights and humanitarian crises were not hidden by accident. They were actively rendered invisible.

The Ethiopian government and its allies employed four major tactics to create a “zone of invisibility” – a deliberate effort to obscure what was happening:

• communication shutdowns

• restrictions on journalists and humanitarian agencies

• physical blockades that limited access to information and evidence

• and narratives that reframed the Tigrayan population as legitimate targets of violence.

These measures allowed atrocities to unfold with limited external scrutiny.

The tactics could easily be replicated by Ethiopia – or by other authoritarian regimes elsewhere – which makes understanding the Tigray case crucial.

The Tigray war demonstrates how modern authoritarian states can combine military force, information control and narrative framing to obscure mass atrocities.

When mass violence is rendered invisible, it is rarely resolved. Instead, it is reproduced. And when accountability is deferred, the conditions that enabled atrocities remain intact.

Manufactured invisibility

The production of a “zone of invisibility” in Tigray was the result of deliberate political and military strategies. The Ethiopian government and its allies systematically limited what could be seen, documented and understood about the war.

1. Communication shutdowns: Immediately after the war began, the Ethiopian government imposed a near-total communications blackout. This lasted over two years. It happened alongside widespread disruptions of telecom, media and power infrastructure. These measures isolated Tigray and prevented information about violence from circulating.

2. Restrictions on journalists and humanitarian organisations: Access to the region was tightly controlled. Journalists and humanitarian organisations were denied entry or restricted in their movements. This removed independent witnesses who could document events and convey civilian suffering to global audiences.

3. Physical blockades: Road closures, territorial occupation and blocked aid routes physically isolated the region. Tigray became a space where violence was difficult to observe or escape, allowing atrocities to unfold largely beyond international scrutiny.

4. Narrative framing: The federal state promoted narratives that made the violence in Tigray appear legitimate and necessary. Official discourse and allied media portrayed Tigrayans as “rebels”, “weeds” and a “cancer in the body politic”. This language dehumanised the population and normalised collective punishment. Such framing dampened calls for intervention and accountability. Additionally, the Tigray war was presented as a “law enforcement operation”. It was often addressed as a domestic conflict. This is despite the full-scale involvement of the Eritrean army. Foreign states also supplied weapons, including the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Turkey and China.

Taken together, these patterns suggest that the violence was structured, targeted and sustained.

Large-scale fighting in Tigray formally ended with the Pretoria Cessation of Hostilities Agreement in November 2022. However, the aftermath has not brought justice or security.

Instead, violence has persisted in Tigray – and spread across Ethiopia.

Accountability mechanisms have been weakened or dismantled. Survivors of the 2020–2022 war continue to live under conditions of profound insecurity, humanitarian deprivation and ongoing human rights violations.

Evading justice and accountability

Following the ceasefire deal in 2022, the Ethiopian regime effectively undermined and ultimately dismantled international investigative mechanisms into crimes committed during the Tigray war.

In 2023, both the UN-mandated International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia and an African Union commission of inquiry were terminated. This left no independent international body to pursue accountability.

The dismantling of these mechanisms partly resulted from a sustained campaign by the regime and its allies. However, international actors also allowed themselves to be persuaded by promises made by Ethiopian authorities to establish domestic transitional justice processes.

These commitments amounted to what the UN Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia has described as “quasi-compliance”: symbolic gestures rather than genuine efforts to ensure accountability.

This is evident in the absence of meaningful attempts to prosecute perpetrators, protect survivors or halt ongoing violence in the post-ceasefire period.

Instead, the Ethiopian state has used the ceasefire agreement to rehabilitate its international image. It has re-established diplomatic and trade relations with regional blocs such as the European Union. These ties had been strained by human rights violations in Tigray.

What happens when atrocities go unnoticed, unpunished, or even tacitly accepted? Impunity does not end violence; it perpetuates it.

After a relative pause over the past three years, active war has flared up again in Tigray in 2026.

This has raised the prospect of a renewed full-scale siege. This is evidenced by recent drone attacks and the suspension of flights to the region.

Further, since late 2025, the federal government has seemed to be moving toward a potential war with Eritrea. This would severely impact Tigray once again. Any confrontation is likely to be fought over Tigrayan territory.

Ethiopia is invoking Eritrea’s occupation of Tigrayan territories – as grounds for confrontation.

In an address to the federal parliament in February 2026, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed further acknowledged that the Eritrean army killed civilians on a large scale in Tigray, and dismantled and looted civilian infrastructure.

With rhetoric hardening on both sides, war appears increasingly likely.

Diffusion of violence beyond Tigray

The enduring consequences of invisibility and impunity are evident across Ethiopia.

Since the signing of the ceasefire in 2022, the Ethiopian regime and its former allies have fractured and turned their weapons against one another.

In the Amhara region, south of Tigray, is the Fano. This is an ethnic militia accused of ethnic cleansing in western Tigray and other grave crimes alongside the federal army. It’s now been engaged in armed conflict with that same army for nearly three years.

Meanwhile, violence in the Oromia region, which began long before the Tigray war, has continued unabated.

Tactics that were tested and refined during the Tigray war are now being redeployed against civilians in both Amhara and Oromia.

Rather than marking a transition to peace, the post-ceasefire period in Tigray has led to the diffusion and normalisation of violence across Ethiopia’s political and geographic landscape.

Teklehaymanot G. Weldemichel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How to get away with mass murder: 4 tactics Ethiopia used to hide Tigray atrocities from the world – https://theconversation.com/how-to-get-away-with-mass-murder-4-tactics-ethiopia-used-to-hide-tigray-atrocities-from-the-world-275298

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Stephanie Jenkins, Post-doctoral researcher, University of Pretoria

The facts of history are important, but try telling that to a classroom full of bored youngsters. One way to liven up the subject is to show that real people lived through historical events. Drama academic Stephanie Jenkins argues that learning becomes fun when learners care about what they are asked to remember. And one way to encourage caring is to perform the stories of the past, using museums as theatre spaces. Here she explains the idea, using an example from her work in South Africa – where the past is painful but shapes current social issues and future citizens.

What is museum theatre and how does it bring history to life?

Museum theatre is a form of performance that uses acting and other theatrical techniques within a museum, gallery or historical space (such as a historical building) to bring the exhibitions “to life”.

Performers act out historical people and narratives that have been researched. It’s a way for people to encounter the past through experience rather than just facts.

Bringing the past into the museum space through performance offers an opportunity to gain attention and foster potential for further engagement with the historical topic.

How have you used museum theatre to teach South African history?

One example was a play I developed called Beer Halls, Pass Laws and Just Cause, which was performed at the KwaMuhle Museum in Durban, South Africa, during March 2020. It was connected to the Grade 11 history syllabus with the aim of connecting what was learnt in class to the historical site of the museum.

The building this museum is housed in used to be the Native Administration Department. Under the apartheid system of racial segregation, black people had to carry a passbook (also referred to as a dompas) which gave them permission to be present in certain areas of a city for work. They had to apply for it and get it approved at this building, which would often mean waiting in long lines in the Durban heat.

The performance dramatised some of those people’s experiences, in the place where they’d had them. The actor guides spoke the recorded words of actual historical people, many of whom had stood in the spaces where the audience was standing. Their words had been recorded in various texts, newspaper articles and interviews conducted by officials at the museum in the early 1990s. (The pass system was abolished in 1986.)

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Alcohol and colonialism: the curious story of the Bulawayo beer gardens

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Part of the experience for learners was to interact with objects, using all their senses, to spark creative thought processes and dialogue.

For example, they had to hold a replica passbook during the performance. Some reported that it felt “demeaning”, “stressful”, “oppressive”, or “scary”. The passbook “prop” helped them to experience how surveillance and fear can be used to control people.

In museum theatre like this, learners interact with the characters and learn about the past by observing, and often participating in, the performed action. By encouraging the learners to be part of the action, and surrounded by the exhibitions to which the performance is speaking, the learners are encouraged to be more active in their learning.

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Fun with fossils: South African kids learn a whole lot more about human evolution from museum workshops

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The use of actors provides the opportunity for the learners to personally connect to the history and to care about the characters. Historical people are given a “face”, a three-dimensional body and a voice, making history look human and less removed from the present. Empathy, putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, is an important skill to learn. And it connects what is taught with the learner’s own life, making it relevant and easier to remember.

What did you learn from this performance?

The performance was used to challenge both notions around what learning about history is like (in terms of classroom and book learning) and what a run-of-the-mill museum visit is “supposed” to evoke. The performance attempted to encourage learners to be part of the historical experience rather than just “absorb facts”.

From the feedback collected from the learners, it is clear that using performance to re-enact narratives from the past works well in gaining their attention and personal connection to the histories, and to the actual site as well. Many did not know much about this place (in their city) before the performance.

One learner noted that reading about history should feel personal but noted that “this (the performance) felt more personal … I didn’t expect it to”.

Why does it matter?

Performance in museums can be one way that an interest in history, and in turn wider societal issues, is cultivated from a young age.

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Read more:
History teaching in South Africa could be vastly improved – if language skills were added to the mix

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While the present is vital to our wellbeing, ignoring the past creates citizens who do not have a proper grasp of various historical contexts, which is necessary to better understand where and who we are now. We cannot attempt to change current social issues if we do not understand how the past has influenced these problems.

Stephanie Jenkins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. History with a human face and voice: how museum theatre gets kids to care about the past – https://theconversation.com/history-with-a-human-face-and-voice-how-museum-theatre-gets-kids-to-care-about-the-past-274664

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Zoheb Khan, Researcher, Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento (CEBRAP); University of Johannesburg

Universal health coverage – ensuring everyone can get quality, affordable healthcare when they need it – is one of the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals.

But progress towards meeting this target has been elusive, especially in developing countries. In recent years, existing weaknesses in public health systems have been magnified by the COVID pandemic, strained public budgets, rising public debt and climate change-related risks.

An increasingly common governmental strategy for universal health coverage is to contract private companies or non-profit organisations to provide healthcare services on its behalf. Known as “contracting out”, it is often seen as a way to bypass perceived public sector inefficiencies and rigidities, and to use existing private sector infrastructure and resources to expand public service provision.

Some proponents of contracting out also believe that introducing competition and innovation would improve the quality of healthcare services. Those are principles often associated with markets.

But how does it work in practice? And does contracting affect opportunities for community participation, a cornerstone of primary healthcare and of democratic governance?

Our team of researchers in South Africa, Brazil and India conducted a global review of the evidence, analysing over 80 peer reviewed studies from around the world. We wanted to understand, firstly, whether contracting improved access, quality and equity in primary care. Health systems grounded in strong primary care typically perform better.

Secondly, we wanted to find out whether involving local communities in the governance (design and monitoring) of these contracts made a difference.

Our review painted a complex picture. On the positive side, the evidence was clear that contracting out often improved access to primary care. This was particularly true in peripheral or remote areas where the state’s reach and resources were limited.

However, the impact on service quality was far less clear.

On the community question, our research found that when communities had a real say in designing and monitoring contracts, the results were better. It helped to improve access and make services more responsive to local needs.

This global evidence has implications for South Africa as it grapples with extreme inequalities in health and the proposed introduction of the National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme. This envisages a healthcare system in which healthcare would be bought from a mix of public and private providers. Our research points to what the government would need to put in place for this to work.

Defining and measuring quality – and what we found

The complexity of the results in relation to quality is partly due to differences in how various studies and programmes measure it.

Ideally, quality should be measured by the effectiveness and relevance of services. In other words, whether they solve the healthcare problems they intend to and tackle actual needs. But often, service quality is assessed on the basis of whether contractors meet a set of narrowly defined targets, like numbers of patients seen and services delivered, rather than what the services achieve.

Quality can also be defined from the perspective of cost effectiveness, rather than public health objectives. This can produce incentives for contractors to cut costs and avoiding treating sicker patients.

In some cases in our review, as in parts of Brazil and India, contracting was associated with impressive improvements in health outcomes, such as reduced infant mortality. In others, quality stagnated or even declined from this perspective.

We also found that profiteering can take root when for-profit companies assume control of service provision and success is defined primarily in terms of shareholder value. In Brazil, contractors have to be non-profits for this reason.

An important influence on service quality is the state’s capacities in contract management. Is it able to design good contracts, quality indicators, payment systems and incentives? How well does it manage relationships and enforce terms?

The benefits of community participation

The most compelling evidence came from Brazil. It has set up legally mandated health councils composed of community members and health workers. They have powers to veto health plans and budgets.

Councils have often helped non-profit health providers to understand local needs, remove access barriers, and anticipate service delivery challenges.

Similar successes were noted in Iran. The country has set up “people’s boards of trustees” at health centres. These contribute to planning and outreach.

In Bolivia and India, initiatives involving community participation in the governance of services delivered by non-profit organisations were linked to improved maternal and child health outcomes.

However, effective participation requires resourcing, and the political will to ensure participation enables real influence.

States need to provide transparent, high-quality data on contractors’ performance, and invest in upskilling community partners to interpret complex contractual terms.

Community actors may also lack the confidence to engage with government and corporate officials, who are usually more powerful. Too often, participation is frustrated by technical glitches in fragmented reporting systems, a lack of cooperation from officials, and a focus on auditing finances rather than health outcomes as well.

What this means for South Africa’s NHI

The NHI Bill envisions the state as the single purchaser of healthcare services, buying care from a mix of public and private providers. This is, in essence, a massive nationwide contracting exercise.

Our research suggests that for it to succeed, two things are essential: state capacity needs to be built; and public participation must be embedded in the system.

For the NHI scheme to work the following is therefore needed:

1. Building state capacity: The success of the NHI hinges on the state’s ability to contract effectively. This requires skilled officials who can design watertight contracts, manage complex supplier relationships, and monitor performance based on health outcomes, not just expenditure. Throughout our review, the dangers of weak or inexperienced purchasers of healthcare services are clear: spiralling costs, poor quality, and weak accountability.

2. Embedding public participation: The NHI should adopt a rights-based, democratic approach to contracting rather than solely a technical one. Meaningfully involving the people that use contracted services improves those services. South Africa has a rich history of community governance structures and civil society advocacy in health. The NHI should give communities a formal role in setting priorities and holding service providers and organisations to account.

This is the best safeguard against the corruption and inefficiency that has plagued other state ventures and which has been frequently voiced as a concern in relation to the NHI in South Africa.

Jith JR, Surekha Garimella, Vinodkumar Rao and Parvathy Breeze were co-authors of the original research underlying this article.

This research was funded by the NIHR project NIHR150146 – Community Voices in Health Governance – Translating Public Participation Into Practice in a World of Pluralistic Health Systems (COMPLUS) using UK aid from the UK Government to support global health research. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the UK government.

This research was funded by the NIHR project NIHR150146 – Community Voices in Health Governance – Translating Public Participation Into Practice in a World of Pluralistic Health Systems (COMPLUS) using UK aid from the UK Government to support global health research. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the UK government

Leslie London receives funding from the UK National Institute for Health Research, the Science Foundation for Africa and has previously been funded by the South Africa Netherlands Programme for Alternative Development, International Development Research Centre, South African National Research Foundation and South African Medical Research Council for research related to the focus of this article.

– ref. Public healthcare and contracting out: can it work? Global review presents some answers – https://theconversation.com/public-healthcare-and-contracting-out-can-it-work-global-review-presents-some-answers-274464

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Obasesam Okoi, Associate professor, University of St. Thomas

US military airstrikes on Islamic State-linked militants in north-western Nigeria on Christmas Day 2025 attracted global attention. The focus was on the international legal implications and whether the Nigerian government had consented to the strikes.

I’m a scholar of peace and security and have carried out research on Boko Haram’s protracted campaign of violence. The research shows that the group’s activities have produced extensive loss of life and material destruction, as well as large-scale internal displacement. This calls for integrated security, humanitarian and governance responses.

In my view, focusing on the airstrikes risks obscuring the real question: why does terrorism continue in Nigeria?

My argument is that it’s not the absence of military force. My research shows that the problem of continuing violence is rooted in the failure of governance at every level of society. Airstrikes don’t address the political, economic and social conditions that allow armed groups to survive, adapt and recruit.

Armed violence has expanded where state authority is exercised in predatory, selective or unaccountable ways. Terrorism in Nigeria has thrived because the state has too often failed to govern justly, consistently and credibly.

In north-east Nigeria, for example, counterterrorism efforts have been undermined where displaced civilians remain unable to return safely, and land disputes go unresolved. What’s needed is investment in civilian protection, and local reconciliation processes that rebuild trust between communities and the state.

Similar lessons can be seen in parts of the Lake Chad Basin, where humanitarian support and local governance reforms have proven more effective at stabilising communities than military operations alone.

Military force can play a role in containing armed groups. But it must be embedded in a broader project of political reconstruction, institutional accountability and social trust building. This means restoring the state’s presence not only through soldiers, but through reliable public services in communities most affected by violence and displacement.

Narratives, legitimacy and insecurity

Following the strike, President Donald Trump announced the operation in a social media post in moral and religious terms. He described the attack as retaliation against militants who had been killing Christians. He portrayed the strike as both morally necessary and strategically decisive.

That framing, reported widely by Reuters, and amplified through US media and social platforms, resonated strongly in Washington political discourse. Major US outlets, including CNN, noted that the reality of violence in Nigeria was more complex than a simple religious binary.

For their part, Nigerian officials emphasised sovereignty, coordination and the non-sectarian nature of insecurity in the country. In a statement reported by Reuters, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasised that terrorism in Nigeria affected citizens regardless of religion or ethnicity. It warned against narratives that could inflame sectarian divisions. According to the Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

terrorist violence in any form, whether directed at Christians, Muslims or other communities, remains an affront to Nigeria’s values and to international peace and security.

Where governance is fragile, externally imposed moral framing can deepen mistrust, sharpen social divisions and offer armed groups new narratives to exploit.

Framing insecurity as a religious war is analytically inaccurate. It is also strategically dangerous. Armed groups frequently rely on ideas like that to recruit, radicalise and justify violence.

External validation of these ideas, even unintentionally, can become a propaganda asset for militants operating in contexts of weak state legitimacy like Nigeria.

Military success is not security success

US military statements described the strike as having destroyed militant infrastructure and disrupted operations. Reports by Premium Times and Reuters indicated that camps and facilities had been hit. Yet public information about leadership casualties, command and control disruption, or financial networks remains limited.

Without clarity about what happened, claims of success offer little to Nigerians who continue to live with insecurity.

Tactical disruption can interrupt planning and movement, but it does not dismantle networks embedded in local economies of coercion, taxation and protection.

Getting to the heart of the problem

Militant violence in Nigeria is embedded in a wider landscape of state retreat, informal authority and survival economies. Large areas of rural territory in the north-east remain effectively ungoverned.

Security and justice are provided by armed actors and criminal networks, not the state. In such environments, terrorism is less an external invasion than a symptom of systemic institutional collapse.

Military interventions can disrupt these systems temporarily. But without restoring governance, they leave intact the structures that reproduce violence.

Government can restore governance by doing the following.

Political reconstruction: Rebuilding local institutions in ways that involve displaced populations, traditional leaders, women and youth, rather than relying solely on centralised state authority. Unemployment, land disputes and political exclusion have created conditions in which violence thrives. What’s needed is to reinvest in livelihoods, education and fair land governance.

Institutional accountability: This means restoring trust in the Nigerian state, particularly in conflict-affected communities where security forces are perceived as abusive or corrupt. Accountability mechanisms for investigating abuses and compensating victims are necessary. This requires transparent systems for managing humanitarian activities and reconstruction funds. Citizens can be more confident in state authority when they see corruption confronted and justice applied.

Social trust building: Community-based peacebuilding and inclusive reconstruction processes are essential for repairing social fractures. When people experience safety and dignity in their everyday lives, confidence in security institutions can return.

Counterterrorism success in Nigeria should not be measured solely by the number of insurgents neutralised, but by whether state authority emerges more legitimate than before. Durable peace will depend less on tactical military gains than on the restoration of public trust. That will happen through accountable governance, civilian protection and inclusive economic recovery.

Obasesam Okoi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why the US can destroy terrorist camps in Nigeria, but not terrorism – security scholar – https://theconversation.com/why-the-us-can-destroy-terrorist-camps-in-nigeria-but-not-terrorism-security-scholar-274799

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Samir Ramzy, Researcher, Helwan University

US president Donald Trump’s advisor on Arab and African Affairs, Massad Boulos, announced in February 2026 that Washington and three Middle East states – Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (collectively known as the Quad) – were close to finalising a detailed initiative aimed at ending Sudan’s war. The plan resembled the roadmap shared by the Quad in September 2025.

According to Boulos, the proposal had received preliminary approval from the two warring parties in the civil war: Sudan’s Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Civil war erupted in the country in mid-April 2023 over disputes surrounding military reform and the future configuration of Sudan’s political system. Since then, more than 14 million Sudanese have been displaced inside and outside the country. Tens of thousands have been killed and more than half of the population – around 21 million people – are facing acute hunger.

Meanwhile, the battlefield has produced a de facto territorial split. The army and its allies remain entrenched in eastern, northern and central Sudan, including the capital, Khartoum. The RSF controls much of western Sudan, including all Darfur states.

Active fighting is now largely concentrated in Kordofan, which lies between the two zones of control. The region represents 20% of Sudan’s territory, extends over roughly 390,000 square kilometres and has a population of around 8 million.

Based on my research on Sudan’s political and conflict dynamics, I argue that the prospects for the Quad-led initiative remain limited in the short term, even if it could, over time, help pave the way for a ceasefire.

Continued military escalation, deep mistrust between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary forces, and the army’s refusal to legitimise the RSF undermine prospects for de-escalation.

Additionally, regional and international actors have yet to generate sufficient pressure for peace. Competing regional interests and continued external support for the warring parties reduce incentives for compromise. As a result, the most realistic outcome for now is a temporary humanitarian pause rather than a lasting political settlement.

The obstacles

The latest Quad framework has five main parts:

• an immediate ceasefire

• unhindered humanitarian access

• civilian protection

• the launch of a political process leading to civilian governance

• a reconstruction pathway supported by a pledged US$1.5 billion.

Media leaks suggest the proposal includes coordinated withdrawals by Sudanese warring parties from major cities.

Under the proposal, the RSF would pull back from key positions in South Kordofan and around El-Obeid, the closest RSF-controlled area to Khartoum. Army units in the capital would, meanwhile, be replaced by local police as part of efforts to prepare urban centres for civilian governance.

A UN-led mechanism would monitor the ceasefire and secure humanitarian corridors.

Despite the seriousness of this proposal, developments on the ground indicate that neither side is ready to de-escalate. The biggest obstacles continue to be:

1. The army’s refusal to legitimise the RSF

Within hours of the initiative’s announcement, army commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan publicly reiterated that he would not accept any political or military role for the RSF.

This stance aligns with reports that senior army figures objected to key provisions of the Quad proposal, particularly those allowing the RSF to retain local governance structures in areas under its control to facilitate aid delivery.

For the army, recognising such arrangements would amount to legitimising the RSF as a political actor.

2. The army’s broader insistence that it alone should oversee any reform of Sudan’s military institutions

This is the very issue that triggered the war in 2023.

3. Escalation on the battlefield

Neither side appears to be preparing for withdrawals. On the contrary, recent weeks have seen escalating clashes and the opening of new fronts.

For instance, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement–North, an RSF ally, has launched new attacks against army forces in Blue Nile state.

At the same time, the army has succeeded in lifting sieges on key towns in South Kordofan that had been encircled by the RSF for nearly two years. This increasingly complex military map makes agreement on withdrawal zones exceptionally difficult.

4. Deep mistrust between the warring parties

This mistrust derailed previous efforts. In May 2023, the US-Saudi mediated Jeddah agreement collapsed after both sides reneged on commitments to withdraw from civilian areas.

5. External actors are not yet incentivising peace

Regional and international dynamics remain a major obstacle. This includes some of the Quad’s members, who publicly endorse a ceasefire even as battlefield realities suggest otherwise. These actors have repeatedly denied accusations of providing military support to one side or the other.

As long as both Sudanese warring parties retain access to regional backing, there is little incentive to halt the fighting. Continued war allows them to compete over territory and extract resources while sidelining any meaningful civilian political alternative.

Chances of breakthrough

A breakthrough is possible. But it won’t happen quickly. A meaningful shift would require stronger international pressure.

Washington appears to be moving gradually in this direction as part of a broader effort to consolidate western influence in Sudan while curbing rival regional and global actors. This is happening most notably amid concerns over Russia’s reported interest in establishing a naval facility in Port Sudan.

A pillar of this approach is drying up the drivers of war, especially arms flows. In December 2025, the US Congress passed legislation expanding American intelligence engagement in Sudan to monitor and expose external actors fuelling the conflict. The language of the bill suggests that all suppliers are potential targets.

In this context, media leaks about external involvement in Sudan can be seen as a form of political pressure on arms suppliers. This places current providers in a difficult position: either align with Washington’s framework or risk confrontation with it.

Regional actors may gradually follow suit if Washington demonstrates sustained resolve. Egypt, in particular, could pivot towards a ceasefire as the conflict edges closer to Blue Nile state near Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam, a core national security concern for Cairo.

These dynamics could eventually restrict external military support to both Sudanese parties, narrowing their options and increasing the geopolitical cost of continued war. In this context, maintaining current suppliers of Russian, Chinese and Iranian weapons could provoke countermeasures by Washington and its allies, a costly gamble for both sides.

Over time, this may push the army and the RSF towards negotiations, at least to secure a humanitarian ceasefire.

Samir Ramzy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Sudan’s latest peace plan: what’s in it and does it stand a chance? – https://theconversation.com/sudans-latest-peace-plan-whats-in-it-and-does-it-stand-a-chance-275456