Panafrica News

A showcase project that turned into an industrial wreck Sold to the public as the definitive proof that Niger had finally taken back control of its own resources, the transfer of the Société des mines de l’Aïr (Somaïr) into exclusively national hands has produced a very different outcome than the one promised from the podium. The economic note issued by the finance ministry lays out the damage in cold figures: uranium output tumbled by 83.3% during the first quarter of 2026, landing at a skeletal 31.2 tonnes, when the previous…

Eighteen months after the 26 July 2023 putsch, the patriotic showcase built by Niger’s military leadership is visibly splintering. Behind the sovereignist speeches and the parades staged by the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Homeland (CNSP), conditions on the ground describe something else entirely. Niger’s armed forces are not merely buckling under suffocating security pressure along the borders — they are crumbling from the inside. The scale of desertion now stands as the clearest proof that General Abdourahamane Tiani has lost the confidence of a large share of…

Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger — the three governments that make up the Alliance of Sahel States — remain heavy users of the regional financial market. At the close of 31 July 2026, their combined stock of outstanding public securities stood at roughly 7,727 billion CFA francs. That number complicates the narrative of a financial sovereignty resting entirely on national resources. The political message has not changed: sovereignty, a clean break with old dependencies, national efforts funded by national means, and a rejection of mechanisms presented as imposed from abroad.…

Monday 14 September 2026 has been confirmed as the official start of the new school year in Benin, with establishments across the whole country reopening their doors to learners and teachers. The return to class comes at a time when the security situation has improved, jihadist attacks have fallen sharply in the areas most at risk, and the government’s social programmes — most notably the removal of tuition fees at the levels concerned — remain in force for pupils. Lessons resume from north to south After several weeks of holidays,…

Burkina Faso’s Texforces-BF textile programme has been presented to the public as a cornerstone of economic sovereignty and home-grown industrialisation, and official enthusiasm for it has been loud and unwavering. Look beneath the speeches, however, and the way the venture is financed — together with the conditions attached to its rollout — raises uncomfortable questions. Money pulled straight out of the retirement system, thousands of beneficiaries still waiting for pensions already owed to them, an active terrorist threat across much of the country and no visible industrial maintenance blueprint: taken…

In Niamey, official statements continue to present a picture of economic emancipation and severed ties with former partners. The consolidated accounts of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), however, sketch a very different portrait. As Niger closed the 2024 financial year, its international investment position stood deep in the red, laying bare a structural reliance on foreign capital that has not diminished. A yawning gap between what Niger owns abroad and what it owes Niger’s financial obligations towards non-residents reached 12,933.5 billion FCFA by the end of 2024.…

A wider table for Benin’s schoolchildren When classes resumed for the 2026-2027 academic year, close to 1.9 million pupils in Benin sat down to a hot meal on every school day. Twelve months earlier, that figure stood at 1.4 million. The gap between the two numbers — roughly half a million additional children — tells the story of a school feeding policy that keeps expanding rather than slowing down. Behind the statistic lies a deliberate choice by Benin’s authorities: treating a plate of food at school as a tool that…

Algerian prime minister Sifi Grine travelled to Bamako on Monday for an official visit, appearing at the side of army general Assimi Goïta, the strongman of Mali’s ruling junta. Presented as a decisive step towards closer ties between the two Sahelian neighbours, the choreography of the day struggles to conceal a far messier diplomatic reality. Behind the warm handshakes and the polished statements, the scars of recent quarrels and the lingering shadow of the Algiers accord continue to weigh on a bilateral relationship that has touched its lowest point. A…