Browsing: Africa Russia Summit

The US is pushing for friend-shoring pacts with Asia and Africa looking for more commitment in deal.

Pundits advise that the US is better off supporting the African Union’s Agenda 2063 even though the US strategy is exclusive for Sub-Saharan Africa. However, that part of Africa is still accounted for in the continent-wide Agenda 2063. It would bode well for all parties concerned if US support to Sub Sahara Africa served to help the region better place itself in the overall African vision.

There is the matter of friend-shoring as well, Africa feels the US gave Asia a much better deal, more explicit, more concrete, specific and committed than it ever did with the motherland. How will it play out? Will the US-China trade war help Africa secure a better deal from China than the US?

Even though the strategy does mention a willingness to facilitate ‘new geographic groupings’, it is not specific as to what these new alliances are and what they will mean in terms …

Russia's inaugural Africa summit. Russia is expanding brisk business with Africa. www.theexchange.africa

Apart from the absence of a public strategy for the continent, there is a lack of coordination among various state and para-state institutions working with Africa.

Despite the growth of external players’ influence and presence in Africa, Russia has to intensify and redefine its parameters. Russia’s foreign policy strategy regarding Africa has to spell out and incorporate the development needs of African countries.

Unlike most competitors, Russia has to promote an understandable agenda for Africa: working more on sovereignty, continental integration, infrastructure development, human development (education and medicine), security (including the fight against hunger and epidemics), normal universal human values, the idea that people should live with dignity and feel protected.…