Africa

Cameroon, until now a point of stability in the region, faces potential instability in the run-up to the presidential elections scheduled for late 2011.

Cameroon’s apparent stability is deceptive: even if it overcomes its near-term challenges, longer-term deterioration could lead to conflict.

Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG) must engage dissidents among the country’s insurgent groups in order to strengthen its authority and combat al-Qaeda inspired extremists.

If, as likely, South Sudan decides to secede from the North at its January 2011 self-determination referendum, it will need support from Sudan’s neighbours to ensure the decision is respected and new conflict is prevented.

Unless senior Ivorian politicians refrain from xenophobic language and more is done to ensure the security of the whole electoral process, they may be preparing the ground for violent chaos, either before, during or in the immediate aftermath of elections.

To make an end of the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) once and for all, national armies, the UN and civilians need to pool intelligence and coordinate their efforts in new and creative ways.

State building in the Democratic Republic of Congo is at risk of failing without a new impetus to support democratic consolidation in 2010.

The Khartoum government is rigging the 11-13 April elections in Darfur to return an indicted president and his party to power with catastrophic consequences for Sudan.

Since Muammar Gaddafi came to power in 1969, Libya has been Chad’s most important neighbour.

Madagascar has been in crisis since the bloody upheavals in early 2009. Several rounds of mediation under the auspices of the African Union (AU) and others have not unlocked the stalemate.