UAE: Dubai’s Djibouti deal ends but other friends emerge in Africa

The Djibouti government’s decision on 22 February to cancel a 30-year contract by Dubai’s DP World to manage its Doraleh Container Terminal (DCT) appears to bring closure to the UAE’s fractious relationship with the strategically located country on the Horn of Africa. But it does not signal the end of UAE ambitions in the region; it merely forces it to deepen the other alliances it has been assiduously developing, based on securing strategic access to ports and, if necessary, projecting hard military and humanitarian soft power as Gulf states seek to secure their ‘near abroad’.