Madagascan president Andry Rajoelina will stay in power until free elections are held after most opposition parties signed up to an agreement to end the island’s political crisis

Following a peaceful return to civilian rule in Niger, the country’s new government faces challenges to reinvigorate its mining sector

 The murder of four Americans are part of a wider trend of pirates’ increasing violence towards hostages

The deadlock between the incumbent and the challenger is descending into violent unrest as government and rebel forces clash

The international community has become captivated by the ongoing crises in North Africa, which have seen strongmen deposed and a full-blown civil war erupt in Libya, a major oil producing state. This has been to the detriment of a range of slower burning situations, not least the apparent slide towards conflict in Côte d’Ivoire, a country that was once a major economic force in West Africa, which looks set to be denied a smooth transition back to relative prosperity. Nigeria, the largest oil producer south of the Sahara, is heading towards another election and stability there is far from assured. However, there have been some apparent bright spots, with a negotiated solution breaking the impasse in Madagascar and a return to civilian rule in Niger.

“What I believe is that the peoples of Africa are straining to be counted. They want to feel that it is they that make their leaders and unmake them”

Demography, not democracy, drives change: the unrest that began in Tunisia and then spread across the Middle East and North Africa took the world by surprise, but what are the prerequisites for popular uprisings?

Peter Eigen, the founding chair of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and one of the world’s leading transparency campaigners, stepped down as chair of the EITI in March. As he hands over to Clare Short, the former UK secretary of state for international development, he explains that transparency on its own was never enough.

An amendment to US post-crisis financial regulation has caused a stir amongst the consensus of resource companies, civil society organisations and governments that are working towards better transparency in the extractive industries

Transparency and the fight against corruption is only one element of a larger governance picture for natural resources, says Paul Collier, the director for the study of African economics at Oxford University.

Africa may only have limited exposure to the clean development mechanism, but with the scheme under threat, what does the future of carbon trading hold for the continent?

African resource companies saw a dramatic increase in dealmaking in 2010, as commodity demand returned and perception of sovereign risk on the continent improved relative to developed markets

Sub-Saharan Africa’s healthcare sector is increasingly luring in investors, as the growing consumer story offers opportunities to carve out business models that enable companies to meet basic needs while generating substantial profits

With patchy liquidity continuing to persist in the sub-Saharan African Eurobond market, some investors are branching into local currency bonds

Islamist movements will doubtless play some role in the political systems that emerge following the upheavals in the Arab world, but Western anxiety over their involvement is misplaced

Much is made of Africa’s oil, gas and diamonds. But the full exploitation of another natural resource could be even more fundamental to the continent’s future. Given the prohibitive cost of rolling out more fixed-line telecoms infrastructure, the development of broadband in Africa depends almost entirely on the efficient use of its radio spectrum.

Capacity is critical for achieving development results. Whether we are talking about human or institutional capacity, we at the African Capacity Building Foundation believe that capacity means having the aptitudes, resources, relationships, and facilitating conditions required to act effectively to achieve specified mandates. For us, capacity is conceptualised at three levels and is embedded in individual champions and their values. It resides in those critical organisations responsible for development results and is captured across specific areas of intervention.

The spread of telecommunications can bring greater efficiencies to African agriculture