How the US-Israel war on Iran is affecting African economies

For some, the impact is already being felt but others remain in limbo over their energy security and are hostage to an unlikely de-escalation

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It remains a confusing situation, but the strait of Hormuz now appears to have been closed twice. Once by Iran, and then by the US, which this week announced a blockade of its own on the reduced number of ships using Iranian ports. Higher fuel and energy costs for ordinary people across the world are the headlines, but as the war on Iran enters its sixth week, shipping restrictions and strikes on energy facilities in Gulf countries are affecting some of the poorest and most vulnerable economies in the world in more profound ways.

I spoke to Dr. Zainab Usman, senior research scholar at the Centre on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, about how the war and its blockades are affecting some African countries.