Cameroon hosted the World Trade Organization’s ministerial conference in March, only the second held on African soil. Ministers left without a declaration. The question now is what the host gained. For four days, from 26 to 30 March 2026, Yaoundé hosted nearly 2,000 trade officials and more than 90 ministers for the WTO’s 14th Ministerial...

Washington’s flagship trade preference programme was rescued in February and expires again on 31 December. For most of Central Africa, the deadline is academic: the region was already locked out. On 3 February 2026, President Trump signed legislation reauthorising the African Growth and Opportunity Act through 31 December 2026, retroactive to 30 September 2025, when...

Why Central Africa’s banks do not finance Central Africa — and what architecture could make them I. Anatomy of a rational bank — II. Bankability is not a quality of the project; it is infrastructure — III. Who actually finances young entrepreneurs? — IV. Why the region does not take off: four explanations, three of...

BRICS’s New Delhi summit showed a group big enough to rival the West economically — and divided enough to avoid saying so out loud NEW DELHI — For two days in the Indian capital, the leaders of eleven nations that together generate 41 percent of the world’s economic output at purchasing-power parity and are home...