Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.
The highlights this week: M23 continues to make gains in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Rapid Support Forces set up a parallel government in Sudan, and China extends its Digital Silk Road into Africa.
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Reforms Test South Africa’s Coalition
South Africa’s annual budget presentation was postponed last week for the first time since the end of white minority rule in 1994, as disagreements arose within the coalition government.
South Africa’s main opposition party-turned-coalition partner, the Democratic Alliance (DA), and other parties in the government of national unity rejected a small hike in the country’s value-added tax (VAT), which would take the rate from 15 percent to 17 percent. It’s the first proposed increase since 2018 and is intended to help ease government debt—but it’s not a move that was anticipated by economists or the African National Congress’s coalition partners. As these taxes tend to affect the poor more than the wealthy, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ANC party has faced criticism from all directions.
In a press release published on Feb. 19, John Steenhuisen—the DA leader—voiced his party’s “resolute opposition” to the rise “at a time when millions of South Africans are already suffering under a cost of living crisis.”
Julius Malema, the leader of the left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters party, proposed that the government increase corporation tax and introduce a property wealth tax instead, which the pro-businesses DA opposes. Malema implied that the DA’s opposition to a VAT increase was not genuine and influenced by other political considerations.
Raising funds for the country’s green energy transition and ending rolling blackouts is another major priority for the coalition. South Africa’s treasury will now have to find ways to increase taxes elsewhere to meet its budget.
Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said the postponement went beyond a VAT dispute and would force cabinet members to grapple with wider fiscal challenges. “The debate is around whether to borrow, cut expenditure, or raise tax in order to fund our challenges and priorities,” he said.
The budget delay comes amid a diplomatic crisis that has had an economic impact. The decision came a little more than a week after U.S. President Donald Trump cut aid and assistance to South Africa, largely due to a controversial land reform law. The majority-white DA has clashed with its coalition partner, the ANC, over the law, which empowers the government to seize land without compensation in limited circumstances. The Democratic Alliance filed a legal challenge earlier this month seeking to block the reform, which it argued was unconstitutional.
The effort to tackle land inequality—a result of decades of racialized land dispossessions under apartheid, which relegated Black South Africans to what labor law expert Marthinus van Staden describes as “economically unviable land”—threatens to further hamstring the country’s fragile 10-party coalition.
Some other smaller parties—such as the populist Economic Freedom Fighters, which is not part of the coalition government—feel that the reforms don’t go far enough. The party’s manifesto in last year’s election advocated for state ownership of all private land, which would then be redistributed according to the country’s needs.
The country’s third-biggest party, uMkhonto weSizwe (MK), maintains a similar but less radical position and wants to “fast-track” redistribution.
MK—which is the party of former South African President Jacob Zuma—filed a treason case against Afrikaner lobby group AfriForum, accusing it of spreading misinformation that influenced Trump’s aid cuts as well as Trump’s proposed awarding of refugee status to Afrikaners. AfriForum has rejected the offer for Afrikaners to flee to the United States as refugees and blamed the ANC for attracting Trump’s attention. “We have to state categorically: We don’t want to move elsewhere,” said Kallie Kriel, the organization’s CEO.
Trump’s “executive order is a direct result of President Cyril Ramaphosa and his government’s irresponsible actions and policies such as the Expropriation Act that threatens property rights, the Bela Act that is aimed at destroying Afrikaans schools and the SA government’s anti-western foreign policy,” Kriel wrote, referring to another policy that has been divisive—namely, a language reform education bill known as the Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA), that will affect schools and universities.
The act, passed in September 2024, gave more power to the government regarding school language admission policies and aimed to remove discriminatory practices that favored Afrikaans. Opponents believe that this threatens Afrikaans, which was the language of the old apartheid regime and is the first language of about 13.5 percent of South Africa’s population, including some of those of mixed heritage. But its association with apartheid has been contentious.
An earlier 2016 decision by South Africa’s Constitutional Court ruled that teaching in Afrikaans over English hindered admission of Black students because “seen as a bloc, the new entrants for whom Afrikaans is an obstruction are not brown or white, but overwhelmingly black.” AfriForum and the DA are opposed to full implementation of the BELA Act, and last month, Afrikaner lobby groups said that they intend to take legal action against implementation.
Amid these debates, the budget postponement is an unwelcome complication. “We are busy dealing with the Trump issue, and we are working on sending envoys to the world to say [South Africa] is intact, but when you have something like this that you can control, and you just basically throw your arms in the air, it doesn’t bode very well for South Africa and for the government,” Kganki Matabane, the head of South Africa’s Black Business Council, told The Associated Press.
Godongwana will release a revised budget in about two weeks on March 12.
The Week Ahead
Wednesday, Feb. 26: The U.N. Security Council discusses the situation in Sudan.
South Africa hosts a two-day meeting of G-20 finance ministers and central bank governors.
Wednesday, Feb. 26, to Friday, Feb. 28: The Finance in Common summit is held in Cape Town, South Africa, co-hosted by the Development Bank of Southern Africa and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
Friday, Feb. 28: Kenya releases inflation data.
What We’re Watching
M23 continues territorial gains. Thousands of Congolese police are being trained to work for the Rwandan-backed M23 group in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo’s second-largest city, Bukavu, which was seized by the rebels earlier this month.
As of Tuesday, M23—also known as the March 23 Movement—had advanced toward Uvira near neighboring Burundi’s economic capital Bujumbura. Fighting between M23 and Congolese troops has killed 7,000 people since January, according to Congolese authorities.
Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi announced that he would reach out to opposition leaders and create a unity government in a bid to help end violence. “I lost the battle and not the war. I must reach out to everyone including the opposition. There will be a government of national unity,” Tshisekedi said—without giving details on a timeline.
The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution on Friday demanding that M23 cease hostilities. It also urged Rwanda to “cease support to the M23 and immediately withdraw from DRC territory without preconditions.” The resolution followed U.S. financial sanctions announced on Thursday against James Kabarebe, Rwanda’s minister of state for regional integration and a former army chief.
Washington also sanctioned M23 spokesman Lawrence Kanyuka and two businesses that he owns that are registered in the U.K. and France. The U.K. has also cut aid to Rwanda. On Monday, Kinshasa banned the export of cobalt for at least four months citing an oversupply in the market but this is unlikely to stop illicit transfers of cobalt to Rwanda as FP previously reported in 2024.
RSF’s parallel government. Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and allied militias met in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, over the weekend and signed a charter to form a rival Sudanese government. Sudan’s army condemned Kenya for allowing the meeting to take place in a building owned by the Kenyan government.
Among the signatories was Abdelaziz al-Hilu, the rebel leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), which controls the state of South Kordofan and particularly the Nuba Mountains. The group has long fought Sudan’s government and demanded secularism. It’s an offshoot of a rebel movement in South Sudan of a similar name, SPLM, that now runs the government there.
Ugandan opposition trial. Ugandan opposition politician Kizza Besigye has been charged with treason in a civilian court after his case was transferred from a military tribunal. His trial in a military court—after being abducted from Kenya and taken to Uganda in November—prompted him to begin a hunger strike which has since been called off.
Besigye has run for president four times against long-serving leader Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power since 1986. Besigye appeared frail and was wheeled in before the court to hear charges of plotting to forcibly remove Museveni from power. He has denied the charges.
Extreme heat closes South Sudan schools. South Sudan closed all schools starting last Friday for two weeks due to extreme heat, which has caused students to collapse. Deputy Education Minister Martin Tako Moi said an average of 12 students had collapsed daily in the capital, Juba.
South Sudan faces extreme weather conditions ranging from floods to heat due to climate change. “Public institutions will also operate on a half-day schedule for the next two weeks,” said Environment Minister Josephine Napwon Cosmos.
This Week in Tech and Culture
China’s Digital Silk Road. Egypt is among the technical partners in China’s Chang’e-7 space mission, which aims to send a flying robot to the moon’s south pole next year in search of frozen water. Beijing’s broader ambition to be a dominant player in space exploration involves more than 20 agreements with African nations.
As Foreign Policy reported, Chinese attendees at last year’s China-Africa summit pledged to work with African countries on space and satellite internet technology. Elon Musk’s Starlink provides satellite internet services across more than a dozen African nations, but the company faces regulatory difficulties and complaints that it employs few Africans.
Musk faces competition from partnerships established through China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which, crucially, generate African employment and skills transfers. Yet much of the assistance offered to African nations—including satellites, space monitoring telescopes and ground stations—allows Beijing access to the data collected, which significantly expands its global surveillance network, according to a Reuters report.
Bronze returns. Nigeria is receiving more Benin Bronzes, which were looted from the country in 1897 by British troops. The Netherlands returned 113 Benin Bronzes from the Dutch State Collection to Nigeria last week. A further six were transferred from the city of Rotterdam. “Cultural heritage is essential for telling and living the history of a country and a community. The Benin Bronzes are indispensable to Nigeria,” said Eppo Bruins, the Dutch minister of education, culture, and science, who approved the decision to return the Bronzes.
FP’s Most Read This Week
- It’s Time for Europe to Do the Unthinkable by Kishore Mahbubani
- The Speech That Stunned Europe by Christina Lu
- How Russian Money Helped Save Trump’s Business by Michael Hirsh
What We’re Reading
Why Sudan’s military can’t be its de facto government. In Foreign Policy, Mohammed Bahari argues that a reported alliance between some pro-democracy activists and the Sudanese Armed Forces is temporary and “does not imply an endorsement of the SAF. Instead, it reflects a desperate act of self-defense.”
Bahari argues that “Sudan’s civil war will continue to cause suffering for the Sudanese people regardless of who emerges victorious—the SAF or the RSF. The army’s long-standing role in suppressing democracy, committing human rights violations, and enriching its leadership at the expense of ordinary citizens makes it unfit to govern Sudan.”
Eritrea and Ethiopia’s bitter feud. In Al Jazeera, Mulatu Teshome Wirtu, who was the president of Ethiopia from 2013 to 2018, accused Eritrea of attempting to “exploit divisions” within the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. Wirtu argues that Eritrea and its president, Isaias Afwerki, have been involved “in almost every conflict” in the Horn of Africa. “Diplomatic pressure is needed to deter those who want to see an end to peace, like Isaias. The Pretoria Peace Agreement must be defended,” he added. Eritrea rejects the accusations.
A memorial to honor ‘Africa’s Che Guevara’. In the Guardian, Èlia Borràs interviews architect Francis Kéré about his designs for a mausoleum for the late Thomas Sankara in Ouagadougou. In 2022, Burkina Faso-born Kéré became the first African to win the Pritzker prize for architecture in the award’s 43-year history.