Across Africa, two powerful trends are unfolding: rising levels of conflict and fragility, and a surge of investment in the extractive sector, driven by the global energy transition. These dynamics often converge in the same regions, fuelling demand for private security companies that provide essential protection and risk management services in volatile environments. However, these fragile contexts are what security scholars often call “hybrid security environments,” characterised by a weak state presence and multiple public and private security providers engaged in ad hoc security arrangements with varying degrees of legitimacy, authority, and oversight. This raises the risk for companies of…
Stephen Buchanan-Clarke
Stephen Buchanan-Clarke
Stephen Buchanan-Clarke is a security analyst with several years' experience working in both conflict and post-conflict settings in Africa, primarily on issues of peace and security; transitional justice and reconciliation; democratisation and governance; and preventing and countering violent extremism. He currently serves as head of the Human Security and Climate Change (HSCC) project at Good Governance Africa and is a co-editor of the Extremisms in Africa anthology series.
On Saturday, June 24, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the private military company Wagner Group, announced that he was leading his troops in a rebellion against the Russian government. The move followed a trajectory of deteriorating relations between Prigozhin and the Russian Defense Ministry. Prigozhin has become an increasingly vocal critic of the Ministry’s handling of the invasion of Ukraine, while concerns around Prigozhin’s own political ambitions, outsized public profile in Russia, and influence on the Russian information space have raised alarm bells within the Kremlin. The events of the weekend seem to have been triggered by recent efforts by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to…
