The Covid-19 pandemic has hit African economies hard.
However, the recently launched African Continental Free Trade Area offers an opportunity to boost intra-African trade, helping to overcome the recession and recover from the devastating economic impact of Covid-19.
A consistent rollout of vaccination programmes could curb the spread of the virus that causes Covid-19 but could also revive travel and tourism in Africa, provided there are no further international travel restrictions.
The upcoming European Union-African Union (AU) summit in February and the COP27 climate summit in Egypt are opportunities to call for more investment and job creation in Africa and to further align Africa's priorities with those of its international partners.
With this in mind, News24's Africa Desk, together with the Institute for Security Studies and the Hanns Seidel Foundation, is organising a discussion with African analysts about significant upcoming developments and events on the continent in 2022.
Will the African Union step up its efforts to develop an effective conflict prevention, conflict management, and peacekeeping strategy?
Given its own political and socio-economic challenges, what role can South Africa play to promote peace and economic development in the region?
What are the opportunities for international cooperation, and what needs to be done to improve Africa's development trajectory further?
To answer these and other questions, join us for a discussion on Thursday at 12:00.
Join News24's Africa Desk journalist Lenin Ndebele; executive director for the Institute for Security Studies, Dr Fonteh Akum; executive director at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, Professor Cheryl Hendricks.
Liesl Louw-Vaudran, a senior researcher and project leader for Southern Africa at the Institute for Security Studies, will moderate the conversation.
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