Welcome to International Coverage’s Africa Temporary.
The highlights this week: South Africa faces financial fallout and a diplomatic balancing act within the face of the U.S.-Israel-Iran warfare, Africa’s largest refinery seeks to insulate Nigeria’s economic system from international oil worth shocks, and the 2026 Ladies’s Africa Cup of Nations is postponed till the summer season.
Because the outbreak of america and Israel’s warfare with Iran, South Africa has navigated a precarious diplomatic panorama, looking for to fix strained relations with america regardless of its traditionally shut relationship with Iran, a fellow BRICS+ member.
Pretoria has successfully taken a nonaligned stance on the battle. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has referred to as for peace and referred to the operation as an act of “[a]nticipatory self-defence” that isn’t permitted below the United Nations Constitution.
Iranian-South African ties have been robust for many years. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Tehran publicly supported the African Nationwide Congress’s (ANC) anti-apartheid motion, even because it privately bought huge quantities of oil to apartheid South Africa. Bilateral relations have remained robust regardless of the ANC having misplaced its 30-year parliamentary majority in 2024.
But lately, because the ANC has confronted home pushback over its overt ties with Iran and sought to placate U.S. President Donald Trump, Pretoria has made refined strikes to distance itself from Tehran.
In February, Ramaphosa launched a probe into how Iran got here to take part in current China-led BRICS+ naval workout routines off the coast of Cape City. Ramaphosa reportedly ordered protection officers to restrict Tehran’s standing within the drills to an observer after its lethal crackdown on Iranian protesters in January, however Iran ended up being a full participant. America has publicly criticized South Africa for Iran’s involvement: “South Africa can’t lecture the world on ‘justice’ whereas cozying as much as Iran,” the U.S. Embassy in South Africa wrote on X in January.
In the meantime, Pretoria has tried to strike an ever-elusive commerce take care of Washington, particularly after Trump’s international tariffs had been struck down by the U.S. Supreme Courtroom final month. Trump had imposed a 30 % tariff on the nation.
It’s a fragile balancing act that has proved to be tough to navigate inside the governing coalition. In January, South Africa abstained from a U.N. Human Rights Council vote to examine Iran’s clampdown on protesters—a transfer that drew sharp criticism from different events in Ramaphosa’s authorities of nationwide unity, together with the Democratic Alliance.
And following the killing of Iranian Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Feb. 28, senior ANC officers visited the Iranian Embassy in Pretoria to pay their respects.
South African enterprise leaders have additionally urged the federal government to undertake a “far more impartial stance” to guard the nation’s economic system and stop Pretoria from being seen as an “outlier” by worldwide corporations for its ties with Tehran.
“If traders begin worrying about geopolitical fallout for South Africa, that’s most unhelpful,” stated Mary Vilakazi, the CEO of FirstRand, one in all Africa’s largest banks.
Even earlier than the warfare, South Africa was dealing with appreciable financial challenges, although it has seen modest development in recent times. Its unemployment fee has remained above 30 % because the COVID-19 pandemic.
Because the warfare started, South Africa’s forex, the rand, hit a three-month low on Monday. Already, the federal government has raised gasoline costs amid unstable international oil costs, which quickly neared $120 a barrel on Monday earlier than easing.
South Africa’s central financial institution additionally stated final week that it will redraft its financial threat situations in response to the battle’s influence on international power provides. Lesetja Kganyago, the governor of the South African Reserve Financial institution, stated that earlier “antagonistic situations” are actually outdated and should be changed forward of a March 26 rate of interest determination.
Extended disruption to transport within the Strait of Hormuz, a slim maritime hall between Iran and Oman that carries 20 % of the world’s oil provide, would have a very unfavorable influence on an already strained South African economic system.
Wednesday, March 11, to Thursday, March 12: The Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Week takes place in Geneva, with programming targeted on the way forward for international assist.
Thursday, March 12, to Friday, March 13: Senior ministers from the Southern African Improvement Group meet in Pretoria to debate power and industrialization initiatives.
Sunday, March 15: Presidential elections are held within the Republic of Congo.
Nigerian oil shocks. The Dangote refinery, Africa’s largest oil refinery, has stated it’s going to prioritize native provide over exports with the intention to insulate Nigeria’s economic system from international oil worth shocks—regardless of having raised its costs in current days. The refinery stated at a press convention on Monday that it will additionally look to purchase extra crude oil from the Nigerian authorities.
Aliko Dangote, who owns the refinery, is Africa’s richest particular person. He has usually fought with President Bola Tinubu’s administration over the administration of oil assets, although tensions seem to have quickly cooled since Abuja halted issuing import licenses amid the warfare in Iran.
Final yr, Dangote filed a lawsuit accusing Nigerian authorities of operating a “mafia” that favored imports as he struggled to acquire crude oil for his services. He has additionally accused Farouk Ahmed, the previous head of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, of skimming oil income to pay for his youngsters’s non-public training in Switzerland. (Ahmed resigned following public backlash however denies wrongdoing.)
Nigeria is Africa’s high crude oil producer however imports giant portions of refined gasoline because of decades-long neglect of state-owned refineries. The $19 billion Dangote refinery, which launched in 2023 after practically seven years of building, was constructed partly to rework the nation into a serious exporter of petroleum merchandise.
Lebanon strikes. The Ghanaian army stated that 4 of its troopers had been injured following a missile assault on the headquarters of the nation’s U.N. peacekeeping battalion in southern Lebanon on Friday. Ghana has formally lodged a grievance with U.N. Secretary-Normal António Guterres over the incident.
Ghanaian authorities didn’t specify who launched the assaults, however Lebanese President Joseph Aoun straight blamed Israel for the strike. Round 700,000 folks in Lebanon have been displaced by Israeli strikes concentrating on Hezbollah, a proxy of Iran, as a part of the broader battle with Tehran.
South Sudan unrest. The dying toll from a March 1 assault in South Sudan’s Ruweng Administrative Space has risen to no less than 180 folks, in accordance with native officers and humanitarian organizations.
Ruweng’s data minister, James Monyluak Mijok, alleged that the armed youth who launched the assault had been linked to the Sudan Folks’s Liberation Military in Opposition (SPLA-IO), a political occasion that denied involvement.
South Sudan has confronted rising insecurity since a power-sharing association broke down final yr between President Salva Kiir and his sacked deputy, SPLA-IO chief Riek Machar, who’s on trial for numerous expenses, together with treason. Over the previous yr, Kiir has arrested or fired dozens of his high officers in his bid to consolidate energy.
In that very same interval, authorities forces in South Sudan have escalated ethnically focused assaults on civilian communities as a part of a wider crackdown on opposition teams and allied militias. A U.N. report launched final week discovered that Uganda helped Kiir’s authorities perform bombings of opposition areas in March 2025 that badly burned dozens of civilians, together with youngsters.
WAFCON postponed. The 2026 Ladies’s Africa Cup of Nations was postponed final week, lower than two weeks earlier than it was because of start in Morocco. The soccer event is now scheduled to happen between July 25 and Aug. 16.
The Confederation of African Soccer cited “sure unexpected circumstances” as the explanation for the rescheduling. Experiences have prompt that the delay could also be because of an absence of logistical preparation following crowd violence on the males’s remaining in January and a request from the Royal Moroccan Soccer Federation to keep away from scheduling conflicts with its home league.
South African officers beforehand expressed a willingness to step in as different hosts if Morocco withdrew. To this point, there was no indication that the host nation will change.
Community enlargement. Ethiopia’s state-owned telecommunications firm, Ethio Telecom, signed a partnership with Swedish community supplier Ericsson on Friday to develop 4G web protection in Ethiopia to succeed in 85 % of the inhabitants. At present, round 79 % of Ethiopians stay unconnected to the web because of poor infrastructure.
Ramaphosa speaks up. In a New York Occasions interview with John Eligon and Zimasa Matiwane, Ramaphosa lately described Trump’s coverage of granting refugee standing to white Afrikaners as “racist.” Ramaphosa referred to as Trump “uninformed” and stated that he views the nation via a “foggy lens” that ignores South Africa’s historical past of apartheid.
Ramaphosa said that regardless of the “demeaning” nature of current encounters with Washington, Pretoria would persist in its efforts to enhance the bilateral relationship. “We’re reasonably amazed on the consideration he [Trump] offers to us. We’re a small nation, and we aren’t any menace to america,” he stated.
Haftar’s grip. Within the Guardian, Anas El Gomati argues that the state of affairs in Libya—the place warlord Khalifa Haftar controls “all the pieces that issues”—serves as a cautionary story of the unintended penalties of international intervention.
Following the 2011 NATO-backed removing of Muammar al-Qaddafi, Libya fractured, resulting in the institution of two rival governments: a U.N.-recognized administration in Tripoli and japanese forces managed by Haftar, the nation’s strongest man.
“Each intervention makes the identical promise: take away the dictator and the folks will likely be free,” El Gomati writes. “Libya is what occurs when the dictator is eliminated and the persons are forgotten.”
