Forty years after the end of colonial rule in most of Africa, the continent that is the birthplace of humanity, home to an eighth of the world's population and a treasure trove of resources, is on the brink of catastrophe. Africa has been in turmoil enough for its tragedies to have grown commonplace. But this time the crisis is deeper and its potential consequences wider than before. Racked by war and sapped by disease, burdened by a traumatic past and failing to get to grips with the economic and technological revolutions that are reshaping the globe, Africa is slipping out of the control of the leaders who claim to govern it, and beyond the reach of the international institutions and coalitions that seek to rescue it.
Power changes hands at the ballot box in Senegal and debt relief comes closer.
But torrential rains batter Mozambique and drought threatens the lives of 8-million people in the Horn. Democracy is flouted in Zimbabwe, Eritrea and Ethiopia go back to an old war, Uganda and Rwanda threaten to start a new one. Deepening poverty spreads disease, encourages drug-trafficking, destroys the environment and encourages extremism. Fresh water, forests and arable lands are under unprecedented stress. Billions of dollars in public funds continue to be stashed away by some leaders, even while roads are crumbling, health systems have failed, schoolchildren have neither books nor desks nor teachers, and the phones do not work.