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China and Russia are mounting a coordinated challenge to the US-led liberal order in North Africa, blending economic leverage with security influence to reshape regional dynamics. Beijing deploys its Belt and Road investments while Moscow relies on mercenary networks and trade arms to access strategic infrastructure and natural resources. Together, they are fuelling instability by deepening existing rivalries and promoting an alternative, multipolar order hostile to Western interests.

This growing Sino-Russian footprint has reinforced authoritarian tendencies across the region, where regimes now tighten controls on civil liberties and religious freedoms to maintain internal stability. Algeria is a striking case: Moscow’s largest arms customer in Africa and a key energy partner for both Russia and China, it has simultaneously intensified repression at home, including against religious minorities and the Kabyle population of between 10 to 12 million people seeking greater autonomy. US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have warned that Algeria’s soaring defense spending and deepening military ties with Moscow pose a strategic risk to Western influence in the Maghreb and Sahel.

While the United States is unlikely to recognize every self-determination movement in the region, Washington can still outmanoeuvre its adversaries by expanding the Abraham Accords beyond traditional state actors to include emerging North Africa’s regional stakeholders. This would signal a liberal and inclusive regional order that is tied to the West—one where democratic aspirations, economic cooperation, and religious freedom form the foundation of long-term stability in North Africa.

Chair:

Lord Eric Pickles

Lord Pickles co-chairs the United Kingdom’s Holocaust Memorial Foundation, working to establish a permanent national memorial for remembrance of the Holocaust. The memorial will commemorate the 6 million Jewish men, women and children murdered in the Holocaust and all other victims of the Nazis and their collaborators. He was made a Life Peer in 2018. First elected to Parliament in 1992 he retired as MP for Brentwood and Ongar at the 2017 general election. He was previously Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. Lord Pickles held the role of UK Special Envoy for Post-Holocaust Issues from September 2015 to April 2025, working closely with the wide range of Holocaust academics, survivors and educational and social organisations in the UK and internationally. He was chair of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments from 2020 to 2025.

Speakers:

President Ferhat Mehenni

President Ferhat Mehenni is a towering Kabyle leader, artist, and life-long political activist. He has pursued a peaceful campaign for the freedom of the Kabyle people for the last five decades. After the 2001 Black Spring and the massacres of young Kabyles, Mehenni founded the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylia (abbreviated by its French acronym “MAK”), a decisive step that shifted his activism toward rebuilding a Kabyle state. After his son Meziane was assassinated in 2004, Mehenni went on to establish the Kabyle Provisional Government in exile in 2010, along with a new Constitution.

Under his leadership, a number of symbolic and diplomatic milestones have followed: the Kabyle flag was adopted (2015); he submitted a memorandum to the UN seeking recognition of the Kabyle people (2017); a Kabyle Parliament was founded (2020); a revised draft of the Kabyle Constitution was presented to the people (2022); “provisional” was dropped from the name of the Kabyle government (2024); and a Kabyle judicial system was established (2025).

Through music, writing, governance, and diplomacy, Mehenni is leading the Kabyle people’s enduring struggle for freedom, dignity, and national identity. He received the Independentium prize awarded by the University of Quebec in Montreal in 2023 along with another recipient for “exemplary conduct in the process of liberation, emancipation of peoples, and creation of their States.” He has been a Laureate of the Gusi Peace Prize since July, 2013. Mehenni holds a degree in political science from the University of Algiers.

Bob Sawers

Bob Sawers has a career spanning military leadership and national security, and specialising in resilience, crisis, reputation, and security management for corporate clients. Bob has extensive experience advising C-suite executive, senior leaders, and government ministers, excelling in delivering effective strategic risk solutions under pressure and in complex environments.

Laura Roberts

Laura Roberts is the former Executive Director of the UK Abraham Accords Group, where she played a central role in strengthening diplomatic, economic and cultural ties between the United Kingdom and the signatory nations of the Abraham Accords. Her leadership in international engagement led to her elevation to the Group’s Board, where she continues to serve as a senior adviser. She also holds the role of Gibraltar Diplomatic Director, helping to establish and guide the organisation’s newly launched office in Gibraltar and expanding its reach across the Mediterranean.

Laura is the Founding Partner of Roberts Consulting Group, a London-based diplomatic consulting firm specialising in international engagement, strategic communications, investment promotion and government relations across the Middle East, North Africa and key global markets. Drawing on extensive experience in diplomacy, public affairs and high-level delegation management, she advises governments, sovereign entities, and private-sector leaders on building strategic relationships and advancing their international priorities.

Barak M. Seener

Barak M. Seener is an Associate Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society and the founder of Strategic Intelligentia and the Gulf Futures Forum. Barak also co-hosts The Geo-Godfather Wars podcast on geopolitical affairs. Previously, Barak was a Global Intelligence Manager at HSBC and the Middle East Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) on whose behalf he has debriefed international defence and security policy makers and diplomats on matters relating to Middle East security. Barak has lectured at NATO as well as the Royal College for Defence Studies. He also staged the world’s first, and hugely successful conference in London at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) on Palestinian statehood. This examined the security Implications for the Region bringing together leading Israelis, Palestinians, US and European representatives in London 2011. Prior to joining RUSI, Barak was one of the Henry Jackson Society’s founders in Westminster and was the Henry Jackson Society’s Greater Middle East Section Director.