Nigeria, Feb. 20 -- The peripheralisation of Africa was again evident at last week's Munich Security Conference - the world's premier forum on global security issues. Conflicts dominating world news, such as Ukraine, Venezuela, the Indo-Pacific, and Greenland, monopolised the debate. Africa struggled to be heard.

"Generally, the focus of the Munich Security Conference is . hard security, military security issues because of the war in Ukraine, and of course the bad transatlantic relationships," Jakkie Cilliers, Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Board of Trustees Chair and Head of its African Futures unit, told ISS Today. "So that focus has tended to dominate and crowd out space for thinking on other issues."

Mr Cilliers and ISS Specia...