South African president Cyril Ramaphosa will assume chairmanship of the African Union in February 2020. Africa and the World emerges just as South Africa begins to chair the AU while sitting as a non-permanent member on the UN Security Council. This means the South African AU chairmanship will have to engage the EU on a twining of Sahrawi self-determination in activating the Arab Maghreb Union as well, and extending its remit into the Sahel. As such, stabilising Libya represents but the tip of the iceberg of extending Island Africa’s continental sovereignty to the Mediterranean. Navigating shifting geopolitics amid Africa’s increasingly global centrality, therefore, looms front and centre on South Africa’s foreign policy agenda in 2020.

Source: The North Africa Journal February 02, 2020 21:42 UTC