China has become the number one provider of development finance in the world. Because of its significant share in Low and Middle Income Countries’ (LMICs) external debt, China should take up responsibilities and cooperate with traditional development finance providers, but its particular lending style and distinct approach to debt management pose many challenges and do not make international cooperation straightforward.

“Humanity has opened the gates of hell”, stated UN Secretary-General António Guterres at the Climate Ambition Summit in September 2023, emphasising that we are currently on a path of global warming above 2.4°C or even 2.9°C.

The deployment of the French Navy’s multi-mission frigate (FREMM) Bretagne in the Indo-Pacific in recent months demonstrates France’s capability to project power far from the mainland and solidifies its Indo-Pacific strategy.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has triggered profound changes in the Arctic region, the consequences of which remain uncertain in the long term.

The United States of America (US), Canada and the European Union (EU) all now consider aluminum as strategic. This metal is indeed increasingly used, especially for the energy transition, be it for electric vehicles (EVs), electricity grids, wind turbines or solar panels.

Nigeria is known for its rapid demographic and urban growth. 

Before Angola surpassed Nigeria as Africa’s top oil producer in April 2023, Nigeria was Africa’s main oil exporter even before the country gained independence in 1960.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the attacks of 11 September 2001, the proliferation of local conflicts and the partitioning of certain states (Yugoslavia, Somalia) have given rise to external interventions, both bilateral and multilateral, in which the military element has been combined with civil action in innovative ways.