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The Republic of South Africa and the Kingdom of Sweden are often said to share a special relationship. This relationship, as Anna-Mart van Wyk’s article in this special issue illustrates, is firmly rooted in Sweden’s support for the Anti-Apartheid Movement. Since then, both South Africa and Sweden, and indeed the world as a whole, have experienced significant political, economic, and social changes.The bilateral relationship between South Africa and Sweden has grown since the former’s transition to democracy on the 27th of April 1994. To this end, South Africa and Sweden enjoy a bi-national commission and a total of 22 bilateral agreements1 (DIRCO, 2022).In addition to these milestones, innovative initiatives have been established in areas of mutual concern. Chief examples in this regard include the South Africa-Sweden University Forum (SASUF)2 and the Cape Town-Stockholm Connect Initiative3, which seek to stimulate collaboration in higher education and business and technology respectively. There have also been developments in our cultural exchanges in recent years. One such example was the facilitation of the Sweden-South Africa Live Connection: Digitally Yours Campaign (hereafter the Digitally Yours Campaign) which sought to keep both countries connected virtually during the Covid-19 Pandemic. The Digitally Yours Campaign ran from the 4th of April 2020 until the 2nd of May 2020 and hosted a number of virtual exchanges4 whereby both Swedish and South African artists participated in roundtable discussions and cultural performances in the areas of fashion, poetry, and music (Embassy of Sweden in Pretoria, 2020).

As the new decade dawns, Africa remains a key frontier for terrorist activity with ongoing terrorist campaigns in Nigeria, Kenya and Somalia, among other places, while new insurgencies have emerged in the Central African Republic and Mozambique. This article provides an introduction to this special issue on terrorism and counter-terrorism in Africa, highlighting the need to review African response(s) to terrorism as the problem worsens. While Africa often appears to speak with one voice against terrorism, it does not act as one. Thus, it is argued that African states need to review their domestic and joint responses to terrorism, to allow for a more comprehensive understanding of (in)capabilities and how best to address them. With the backdrop set, assessments are undertaken in Somalia, South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria. The issues of terrorism financing and bioterrorism are also discussed. Collaboration and sharing best practices among peers on the continent are proposed.

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Science diplomacy has been an endeavoured area of cooperation between Sweden and South Africa despite Sweden’s reluctanceto practice science diplomacy. However, the introduction of the South Africa-Sweden University Forum (SASUF) in 2017 remains an underexplored phenomenon of knowledge diplomacy. Using Knight’s five characteristics of knowledge diplomacy (focus on higher education, research, and innovation; diversity of actors and partners; recognition of different needs and the collective use of resources; reciprocity; and the building and strengthening of relations between states), this paper argues that SASUF is an essential frontier for knowledge diplomacy in the context of South Africa-Sweden relations. The employment of Knight’s framework finds that SASUF can indeed be classified as an example of knowledge diplomacy. In conclusion, a new research agenda on knowledge diplomacy within the context of South Africa-Sweden relations is proposed.