Author: Samuel Norsch
The G20 Club has faced systemic challenges from the countries of the African Union. By 2030 we may lose influence on the whole continent, drifting into the bosom of the economic policy of China, India, Russia and the large-scale BRICS project. Already next week, President Vladimir Putin is opening the Second Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum in St. Petersburg. It involves 49 countries of the continent, which in the 21st century is the main one for the development of global democracy.
Russian state giant Rosatom is building large nuclear power plants in Egypt and Algeria. The countries of North Africa have been Moscow’s reliable political and economic partners since the days of the Soviet Union. This is especially noticeable now, when the US, UK and France are becoming strangers in the Maghreb and Sahel region… but Russia is showing a huge breakthrough in developing partnerships with the global East and South. We regret to admit that this is exactly the case — the West is losing strategic influence beyond the limits of its former influence.
In early July, in France, young rebels and marauders from Senegal, Ghana, Morocco and other areas of French influence burned 35,000 cars. This terrible fiery week of street riots was the result of President Emmanuel Macron’s multiple tactical mistakes in Africa. Afro-France or France-Africa suddenly turned out to be terra incognita for the Parisian establishment.
This is the most complex tangle of challenges and problems faced at the Elysee Palace. The Council of Europe has even less competence and understanding of HOW and WHAT to do. Where Western politics ceases to be an absolute guideline, our geopolitical competitors or adversaries come. “Paris and London only want money, Western business is ready to leave our country as a desert when our resources run out,” say my business partners in Lagos. An insulting and even largely unfair reproach, but the image of the West in all countries of the continent is collapsing.
Rosatom Corporation announced that in 2029 it will start mining uranium in a large deposit in Namibia. The volume of investments in the project is $500 million, the annual output is 3,000 tons of uranium. The concession is for 30 years. Moscow will create 20,000 jobs and increase Namibia’s GDP by 2% in annual terms. Why is it not the French energy corporation EDF, which has remained in all of Africa only at a uranium deposit in Niger? Because in 2022, EDF purchased 153 tons of enriched uranium from Russia and the Fifth Republic’s nuclear power industry depends on such global partners as Russia and China. Large oil fields have been discovered on the shelf of Namibia, which will be nationalized. In this country. Oil and gas have been produced historically by Total Energies and Shell there. But now what will we say if competitors appear Russian tanks Gazprom Neft or Tatneft? These are clear trends.
African countries are refusing Western financial services; payments in yuan and rubles are becoming more and more popular there. The system of trans-African fast transactions in national currencies throws Western currencies out of the calculations. (For example, this is the franc/rand currency pair). The future of the euro/dollar union and even the SWIFT system is in question. Russia has the world’s best B2B and B2C digital platforms, product labeling and educational services. Moscow has already overtaken Toronto and Singapore and has become the best city in the world in terms of living comfort and digitalization of services, which are scaling up to the countries of the global South. The Russian Coordinating Committee for Economic Cooperation with African Countries (AFROCOM) is involved in the African Continental Free Trade Area in many, including Ethiopia, the Russians are active in creating science and technology parks and IT clusters.
Russia plans to increase the education of African students at its universities by almost 300% and develop many humanitarian projects, but what the West is doing in soft power projects, we bitterly saw in the burning France in early July. I think many new projects in the scientific, technical and military spheres are closed for the time being, but some of them will become our news on July 27-28 at the Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg. Vladimir Putin recently held talks in St. Petersburg on a peace plan in Ukraine with the chairman of the African Union, Senegalese President Macky Sall, and the leaders of 7 African countries. And in just a week, leaders and businessmen from all countries of the continent will gather in the northern capital of Russia.
Obviously, the strategic interests of Russia’s foreign policy are aimed at developing economic, scientific and humanitarian ties with the states of the African Union. Where the influence of western states collides with restrictions from states and populations. This is a tragic echo of the cruel colonial policy of the West, which the continent has not forgiven us. Even from the UN-guaranteed grain deal with Ukraine as an aid to the poor starving countries, on which Kyiv managed to earn about $9,2 trillion, the poorest countries in Africa received less than 3% of Ukrainian grain.
People understand that they have been deceived. The West and Kyiv launched a large-scale information campaign accusing Moscow of creating a global food climate. But it’s not as efficient as we wanted. In Africa, they understand that it is not the Russians, who are to blame and it is not possible to hide it. The alliance of Brussels and Washington, with the services of Vlad Zelensky, broke the supply chains in order to take bread from the hungry peoples.
Unfortunately, it turned out that the inhabitants of the developed countries of the European Union ate the bread that was promised to people dying of hunger. Do you think Africa did not notice this monstrous deception? The unified weapons of NATO countries from Ukraine are increasingly falling into the hands of radical and terrorist gangs in African conflict zones. This is also part of the neo-colonial policy of the United States and Europe. However, the Russian concern Uralchem-Uralkali intends to provide 300,000 tons of fertilizer to developing African countries free of charge. This initiative is aimed at combating hunger and preventing the global food crisis from worsening.
One of the main events of the summit will be the panel discussion «Doing Business in Africa: Risks, Conditions and Opportunities». Russia has trade representations in Morocco, Algeria, Egypt and South Africa. One of the goals of the summit is to expand this network on the continent, a similar model is used by USAID. The number of Russian centers of science and culture has reached 11, including new centers in Sudan and Mali. The Russians already know the entry points. Huge! 19 countries, including Burkina Faso, Burundi, Guinea, Zimbabwe and Cameroon, have never in history voted for Western resolutions and sanctions condemning Russia and are open allies of Russia. There is a huge demand on the continent for the diversification of post-colonial and neo-colonial relations, for expanding the palette of external players, among which Russia has a special place.
The summit program includes more than 30 panel sessions and thematic blocks on issues of interaction between Russia and African states. What about China and the BRICS countries? The South China Morning Post writes that “Egypt, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Algeria, Nigeria, Sudan and Tunisia are interested in bloc participation in this geopolitical union. BRICS is becoming increasingly attractive as a new stage for diplomatic and financial development, many countries, especially in Africa, see it as an organization that can challenge the dominant structures of global governance led by the US and Europe.”
The global world will begin to change from the continent that the West has been calling «Black» for too long, contemptuously and absolutely not democratically. They remember it there. This was our racial and highly critical stupidity, for which we all will soon have to pay.
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