Under the aegis of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and Roscongress, the Russia–Africa Partnership Forum will host its highly anticipated first Ministerial Conference from 9th–10th November 2024 at the Sirius Federal Territory in the southern coastal city of Sochi. According official reports, this two-day conference will be under the patronage of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the programme includes a plenary session to be attended by officials, and also round tables and discussions focusing on aspects of declarations from the first and second summits respectively held in 2019 (Sochi) and in 2023 (St. Petersburg).
The programme architecture released for the first Ministerial Conference would enhance building on the strategic decisions taken both at the first and second Russia–Africa summits and bring together the heads of ministries of foreign affairs of Russia and African countries, the African Union Commission (AUC), as well as the executive bodies of regional integration associations from Africa. The heads of African regional organizations as well as representatives of government agencies, financial institutions, Russian and African businesses, public and scientific communities, and the media are part of the conference.
It would be an opportunity to review the culmination, within the context of geopolitical shift at a critical stage, the evolving relations between Russia and African countries, which is high level of cooperation in several areas: from the collaboration and implementation of economic projects, energy and food security dimensions, the development of bilateral trade and investment partnerships, and scientific-technical, healthcare, tourism and education. These would broadly be discussed with special attention to cooperation between countries of the African continent and the Eurasian Economic Union. In addition, the business programme includes a presentation of the English-language version of the Africa 2025. Prospects and Challenges policy brief prepared by a team of experts at the HSE Centre for African Studies with the support of Uralchem Group, which aims to provide guidance for African experts, scientists, and decision-makers.
Reviewing Sochi Summit (2019)
Russia has a long time-tested relationship with Africa. After the symbolic Russia-Africa summit in the Black Sea city of Sochi in October 2019, both Russia and Africa adopted a joint declaration, a comprehensive document that outlined the key objectives and necessary tasks that seek to raise assertively the entire relations to a new qualitative level. That official document shows there has been a great interest in the further development of relations between Africa and Russia. Until the 2023 summit, priority areas of economic cooperation in which concrete results could be achieved. Documents showed 92 agreements, contracts and memoranda of understanding were signed at that first Russia-Africa summit. The agreements signed there worth a total of $12.5 billion.
Reviewing St. Petersburg Summit (July 2023)
The socond summit renewed the commitment to support the struggle for the eradication of colonialism and the establishment of independence of African States, and strengthening their national sovereignty. The 74 point-declaration pointed out explicitly the growing sustainable collaboration in mechanism for dialogue partnership, political and legal cooperation, strengthen cooperation between States to counter new challenges and threats, strengthen trade and economic cooperation, as well as engage Africa in comprehensive spheres including scientific and technical, humanitarian, educational, cultural, sports, health, youth and information cooperation.
Joint inter-governmental Commissions
Long before holding the two historic summits, there are joint commissions handling matters on trade and economic between Russia and a number of African countries. According to the official documents of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 28 of such joint commissions were created and have been functioning admirably these several years. The primary responsibility is to coordinate projects and oversee its implementations in Africa. Until today, none has reported any completed infrastructure projects undertaken, completed and handed over to any African country since Soviet’s collapse in 1991. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov have never, throughout the post-Soviet history of relations between Russia and Africa, cut white ribbons marking the completion of any projects in Africa.
Provision of Nuclear Energy
In the nuclear power sector, here are a few developments. Russia pledged to thrash out energy deficiency which has affected more 800 million of Africa’s 1.4 billion people. Energy shortage negatively affects both domestic and industrial use, and has made provision of nuclear energy its policy priority across Africa. Under an official authorized license from the Egyptian regulator and under the signed intergovernmental agreement, Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation has started the construction of the planned four power units at the El Dabaa nuclear power plant in Egypt. The bilateral agreement was signed as far back in November 2015. Research shows that Russia granted a loan $25 billion for the construction of the nuclear power plants which covers 85% of the work. The remaining expenses be covered by the Egyptian side by attracting private investors. The NPP design envisages four 1200-MW power units with VVER-1200 reactors. Construction is expected to be completed by 2028-2029.
Late February 2020, Chairperson of the Federation Council (the Upper House or the Senate), Valentina Matviyenko, headed a Russian delegation on a three-day working visit aimed at strengthening parliamentary diplomacy with Namibia and Zambia.
According to an official release from the Federation Council, the visit was within the broad framework mechanism of parliamentary consultations between Russia and African countries. The key focus were on political dialogue, economic partnership and humanitarian spheres with Namibia and Zambia. The delegation held talks with President Edgar Lungu at the State House in Lusaka, Zambia. Matviyenko said: “Now the start of the construction of a center for nuclear science and technology has been suspended due to financial issues.” According to her that request was submitted to the Russian president and was being carefully considered by the ministries and departments. And it was expected to jointly find options for funding to roll out the construction of a center for nuclear science and technology.
More than thirty years, Russia has been pushing for post-Soviet relations. Russia and South Africa are BRICS members. South Africa has also had nuclear contract signed with Russia back from 2015 under Jacob Zuma, at the time of his presidency. According to research sources, main reason why the 2015 nuclear power agreement thrown out by the South Africa’s parliament, it attributed to the fact that the agreement was an opaque unilateral deal with Moscow. South Africa’s parliament did not discuss and approve the mega-project for the country.
According to analytical reports, African countries which signed agreements for such construction of nuclear plants by Russia as follows: Algeria (2014), Ghana (2015), Ethiopia (2019), Republic of Congo (2019), Nigeria (2012, 2016), Rwanda (2018), South Africa (2004), Sudan (2017), Tunisia (2016), Uganda (2019) and Zambia (2016). Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) were signed with Kenya in 2016 and Morocco in 2017. A simple ‘memorandum of understanding’ on nuclear with Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali in July 2023 in St. Petersburg went viral world-wide as part of Russia’s information propaganda, to show its preparedness to support their development initiatives of these French-controlled African states.
Sustainable Food Security
Russia also has a full-fledged ambitious interest to guarantee sustainable food security by supplying grains across Africa. Russia is a leading producer as well-known. But a critical examination of this corporate deal reveals that Russia’s grain supply would still remain as a soft bait (i) to reinforce the existing time-tested relationships with Africa and (ii) to earn revenue from exports to Africa. Notwithstanding that Africa is blessed with huge expanse of land and climate for agricultural production to feed its population.
Some experts and international organizations have also expressed the fact that African leaders have to adopt import substitution mechanisms and use their financial resources on strengthening agricultural production systems. Establishing food security is important for millions of people facing hunger in Africa and is crucial for sustainable economic development and long-term prosperity of the continent. A few African countries have adopted import substitution, agricultural policy and strategically working towards self-sufficiency.
Interfax reports indicated that Russia expected to export up to 70 million metric tonnes of grain in the 2023-2024 agricultural year. In the previous season, Russia shipped 66 million tonnes worth almost $16.5 billion. Besides that, Russia plans to earn estimated revenue amounting to $33 billion by exporting food to African countries.
Military-Technical Cooperation
Russia has an indivisible security relationship with many African countries. Notably, Russia’s military influence has been increasing in Saharan-Sahel region, an elongated landlocked territory located between North Africa (Maghreb) and West Africa, and also stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. Quite recently, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have withdrawn from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and, more significantly have also created their own military bloc, the Alliance des États du Sahel (translates in English as the Alliance of Sahel States), citing reasons as fighting frequent militant attacks and against indiscriminate manipulation by foreign governments.
For better or for worse, by creating their own Alliance of Sahel States (AES), it exposes ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) powerlessness, weaknesses and its long-term inability and incompetency to deal with regional problems, particularly rising insecurity in the region. Russian President Vladimir Putin mentioned this security issues during his opening and closing speeches at St. Petersburg summit and even previously, indicating its importance on Russia’s agenda with Africa. At the end, both Russian and African leaders reaffirmed their collective stance to deal with the persistent ethnic conflicts and militant threats among the magnitude of wide range of priorities. In fact, there were five key documents and one of them focuses on ‘Strengthening Cooperation to Combat Terrorism’ which neatly relates to this theme under discussion.
Often said that Russia has rich experiences as in developing an effective set of measures to counter terrorism, curtail illegal activity, and provide dependable protection for citizens. Therefore, Russia’s Ministry of Defense together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs express profound readiness to coordinate in sharing their experiences with African partners, particularly in the Saharan-Sahel. Revisiting the first summit declaration which says in part, “firm intention to fully contribute to achieving peace and security” points to the principles of respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity on these countries in the region. The first primary step is implementing joint programmes to build the necessary capacity of the requesting African States and train African peace-keeping personnel at specialized educational institutions of the Russian Federation and inside African States. It has to be noted clearly that Russia works for its revenue from increased exports. Therefore, several agreements signed would allow Russia a full access to exploring natural resources in exchange for its military assistance. Updatedly, Russia has signed bilateral military-technical cooperation agreements with more than 20 African countries.
Notable Quotes
– Federation Council Deputy Speaker Konstantin Kosachev told a roundtable on Russia’s strategic interests in Africa at Valdai Discussion Club, that Russia’s Western opponents are trying to prevent African states from taking part in Russia-Africa summits. In Senator Kosachev’s opinion, several meetings, conferences and summits have been successful, “but, in many respects, its results remained within the dimension of politics” and were not translated into additional projects in trade, economic, scientific or humanitarian cooperation. “Trade turnover speaks for itself. Roughly, the European Union’s trade with Africa stands at around $300 billion, China’s – at around $150 billion, and the United States – approximately $50-60 billion. Despite the tendency to grow, our current turnover is around $20 billion,” Senator Kosachev added, quoting trade figures to illustrate his argument.
– Speaker of the Parliament of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Jacob Mudenda, during the conference on Russia-Africa, organized within the framework of International Development on Parliamentarism forum in March 2023 said: “participation in the conference is another opportunity to discuss many issues, compare positions, develop solutions and give impetus to further cooperation, but it is important to turn words into concrete actions.”
He further argued that it was distinctively evident from the large number of African delegations that had been invited, so far, to Moscow over the past few years, and that marked a new chapter to re-activate relations with Africa. But, Russia’s influence might not take roots anytime soon if the conference declarations are not vigorously and promptly implemented.
Russia-African Interactive Symbolism
The history of Russia–Africa Summit is the highest-profile and largest-scale event in Russian–African relations, aimed at bringing about a fundamentally new level of mutually beneficial partnership to meet the challenges of the 21st century. The goal of the event is to promote efforts to strengthen comprehensive and equal cooperation between Russia and African nations across all areas of society including politics, security, economic relations, science and technology, and the cultural and humanitarian spheres.
The first Russia–Africa Summit took place on 23–24 October 2019 in Sochi under the motto of ‘For Peace, Security and Development’. This was the first time such a large-scale event had been held in the history of modern Russia, and was unprecedented in Russian–African relations.
The second Russia–Africa Summit was held in July 2023 in St. Petersburg under the the same motto of ‘For Peace, Security and Development’. This was the second time such a large-scale with participation of high-level government delegations from both sides, and was described as unprecedented in bilateral relations.
At both Summits the participants identified priority areas of economic cooperation where concrete results could be achieved in subsequent years. At the closing in Sochi and St. Petersburg, declarations were adopted outlining the approval of goals and objectives for the future development of Russian–African cooperation across politics, security, economics, science and technology, culture and the humanitarian sphere.
Logical and Final Words
Much time has elapsed, but meetings, conferences and summits are consistenly organized to review the past and current stage of relations. Russia and Africa are the new centers of the emerging multipolar world. But more admittedly, Africa has become competitive but still continues attracting external players to significant sectors. In this context, Russia undoubtedly needs to adopt its approaches and mechanisms necessary for driving effective cooperation in order to take the relations to the next level in this new changing conditions of global politics and economics. Basic questions, often and simultaneously asked are: what steps are needed to give a new impetus to bilateral economic relations? What are the key initiatives and competencies that can create a deeper strategic partnership between Russia and Africa?
Regardless of the fact that the continent has enormous reources both natural and human, Africa’s development issues are still very lamentable, and leaders are excited at Africa being described as poorest in the world. In a nutshell, African leaders pay lip service in pursuit of working towards attaining their own economic sovereignty. In fact 80% of Africa’s population still live in abject poverty. The Global Development Index shows that African governments continue to pursue trivial development questions, poor governance and deep-seated corruption. In practical terms, Africa has rather exposed the collective weaknesses, inability to sharpen development priorities, gross mismanagement and incompetencies of Africa leaders. It is shameful and incredible for characterizing being used as pawns in geopolitical reconfiguration, but instead African leaders essentially have to take cognizance of the key necessity and acknowledge the popular hyperbolic saying ‘African problems, African solutions’ and/or alternatively the ‘Africa We Want’ within the framework of the Agenda 2063 as widely propagated by the continental organization – the African Union.