Africa By Sea is GA's weekly magazine on the contest at the water's edge: the ports, shipping routes and coastlines that connect Africa to the world. More than four-fifths of global trade moves by sea, and Africa sits on some of the most strategic corridors on the planet, from the Atlantic gateways to the Indian Ocean lanes; yet most of the ships that carry its trade, and many of the terminals that handle it, are run by international shipping lines and global port operators. Behind the containers lie economic, geopolitical and strategic choices: a concession signed, a deep-water port built, a corridor opened or closed, a route rerouted. Each week, Africa By Sea reports one of those contests from the quay — the players, the strategies and the consequences — in both directions of GA's lens: the shipping giants and port operators at work on African coasts, and Africa's own ports and carriers in the world. It is not a maritime programme; it is a magazine about power and interests, of which the sea is the terrain. Its question never changes: who moves Africa's goods, who controls the gates, and on whose terms?
01 — Who Controls Africa's Gateways? — The handful of global operators running the continent's container terminals: why they invest, which terminals they hold, and what port control means for sovereignty. Pilot.
02 — The Shipping Giants — Maersk, MSC, CMA CGM and the alliances: why foreign lines carry most of Africa's trade, how freight is priced, and what the continent's routes are worth to them.
03 — The Mega-Port Race — Lekki, Tanger Med, Ndayane, Lamu, Berbera: the new deep-water ports, their backers, and which of them can become a global hub.
04 — Crossroads — Suez, Bab el-Mandeb, the Cape, Gibraltar: Africa on the world's shipping lanes, and what a disruption in the Red Sea does to Europe and Asia.
05 — The Indian Ocean Contest — Mombasa, Dar es Salaam, Djibouti, Berbera: East Africa's ports, the routes to Asia and the Gulf, and the powers competing for them.
06 — West Africa's Container Boom — Lagos, Tema, Abidjan, Lomé: the fastest-growing container market on the continent, the rivalry between ports, and the corridors inland.
07 — Port Cities — Tangier, Durban, Djibouti: how a port remakes a city, an industrial zone and a country's trade.
08 — Smart Ports — Automation, digital platforms, data: the technologies changing global logistics, and whether African ports will leapfrog or fall behind.
09 — Africa in the Supply Chain — Cocoa, copper, cars and phones: where Africa sits in the world's production networks, and what the ports decide about it.
10 — The Geopolitics of Ports — Concessions as strategy, naval bases beside container terminals, security at sea: ports as assets in the competition between powers.
11 — The Blue Economy — Beyond containers: foreign fishing fleets, offshore energy, ship repair, coastal tourism. What Africa's oceans are worth, and to whom.
12 — Crossroads or Power? — Season synthesis: African shipping champions, the next hubs, the ports of 2035. Will Africa remain a maritime crossroads or become a maritime power?