Editorial Director, Africa Confidential
Patrick Smith is Editorial Director of Africa Confidential, the premier news and analysis service on economic, political and security developments in Africa, owned by London-based Asempa Ltd. He was a founding editor of the Paris-based The Africa Report, owned by Jeune Afrique Media Group. In 2021 he co-organised a conference with the International Crisis Group and the Royal African Society on Demography, Climate Change and Security in Africa. Since starting as a correspondent for Associated Press in the 1980s, Patrick has written widely on politics and economics in Africa and what he calls “geo-history”, the enduring power of trade and warfare in shaping the international system.
His other work includes: Associate Producer of the Channel 4 documentary “My Friend the Mercenary”, on an attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea; Technical Advisor to the UN panel on the exploitation of mineral and other resources in Congo-Kinshasa. His publications include: Who’s Who in Southern Africa (Blackwell Publishing 1997) and Africa 2000 (Blackwell Publishing 2000). Patrick contributed to a collection of short stories about Ghana published as “Accra Noir” by Akashic Books (New York, 2020).