Africa has faced a major demographic challenge in recent years. According to the United Nations World Population Prospects (2022) on the evolution of the world’s population, the continent is expected to double its population by 2050, from 1 billion (2022) to almost 2.4 billion.
The same prospects state that Asia will grow to about 5.2 billion by the same time while Africa will also have a two-digit growth rate. With the Asian market barricaded by a very strong China, Japan and South Korea on the other hand subject to the United States, Africa will remain the main attraction of the future for the rest of the world.
And effectively, today, with a different approach (a policy of non-interference in the domestic political affairs of states) China has dominated almost all markets and supplies in Africa: People no longer buy things from the U.S. or Europe. However, this was fine until 10 years ago, when Russia invited itself into the game with another approach too: it partners with the premise to create local processing factories! For example, thanks to multiple partnerships with Russia, South Africa and Nigeria have become Africa’s top economies with assembly plants for helicopters, tanks, drones, trains, and soon aircraft, not to mention cars and other assembly chains.
These experiments have set a precedent and all of Africa is now looking for a lasting partnership with Russia. As African youth has proclaimed a total divorce from the West for Russia and China, it would be very difficult to step back. The rise of Russian cultural centers and Russian schools is being somehow realized everywhere in Africa. This allows for a unique opportunity to develop without having to ask for Western assistance, which anyway happens to have been proved unnecessary over time.
Many researchers sustain that Africa’s relationship with Russia has triggered the change of its opinion on bilateral cooperation, which is why it has awakened and now wants to be the master of its own destiny! The general opinion has believed that Russia is needed in Africa’s rise because it does not plunder its subsoil, but rather helps it to enhance it. The African subsoil is in the youth's eye who wants to control everything and will absolutely do so even at the cost of its life.
Besides, Africa now knows that colonial agreements must be abolished and buried very quickly and, above all, that universal democracy does not exist! Nations around the world are entitled to their own model of democracy based on their traditions and respect for life. In response to the World Bank’s suspension of loan provision to Uganda as the result of the country adopting an anti-LGBTQ bill, its President Yoweri Museveni stated that “it was unfortunate that the World Bank and other actors dare to want to coerce us into abandoning our faith, culture, principles and sovereignty using money.”
The cases of the Republic of Guinea, Burkina Faso and Mali standing for what they believe is suitable for their citizens at the cost of losing any contact with the Western countries is proof of how, with time Africa has been taught to dare, for what is believed to be right! Except for a few, most leaders are no longer afraid of Western bombs and sanctions, and when they want to say no, they say it with no mood.
Russia does not give money to African states, just like China did compared to what the West gave: they were poisoned gifts in the end. On one hand, loans were made and on the other, all possible wealth was recovered from the underground: These strangling loans, which did not actually help the continent, were also almost all diverted before reaching the targets. Africa no longer wants help from its partners, especially in the conditions that it was shaped by the West!
So, does this modus operandi of Russia help Africa, and how does it provide the answer(s) to our main question?
My opinion is that Africa should expect nothing, neither from Russia nor from any other country, and the reasons for that are the following.
Firstly, Africa is economically and diplomatically a lightweight in the globalized world because it has not been able to build a genuine African Union, capable of speaking with one voice on several important topics (such as vaccines, or the position to be taken concerning the war in Ukraine). However, readers shouldn’t get me wrong, as my previous statement is not about pretending that, individually taking every African country is negligible.
But just as, on a European scale, France weighs little, just as it only weighs seriously on world affairs when it is placed in the EU, each African country weighs little individually, specifically in relation to continental countries such as China or the U.S.
Secondly, the question that served as the title of this article when reversed, what does Africa want from Russia? will have made more sense. Any answer to this will probably be determined by what it gets – that is, either less than it hoped, or at a much higher cost than it had hoped.
Finally, I would say that Africa, precisely because of what I pointed out in my first argument, expects nothing from Russia, because there is no general objective defined for Africa as a whole. Every African state expects (or does not expect) something from the Russians and does its own diplomacy to satisfy its own goals.
To sum it up, Africans cannot expect much from Russia if Africa itself does not take care of itself. What Africans do not notice is why in recent times there are only Africa summits with X power. Let’s think about the number of summits of such a format: China-Africa Summit, U.S.-Africa Summit, Türkiye-Africa Summit, France-Africa Summit, etc. Now the next question is which of those summits has already advanced Africa? I haven’t heard of any yet.
The reason is obvious: if someone is unable to handle his problems, then how successfully can other people do it for him? No, and no, and it is unfortunate that Africans want others to come and do their work in Africa for us.
So, as I previously said, Africa shouldn’t expect anything, neither from any other country or from Russia. This plays on its non-colonial past and its opposition to former colonial countries (the West) to gain influence over African countries (e.g., Mali). China, also playing with the same past and opposition, is building infrastructure in exchange for “recognition” (about 80% of African countries recognize China rather than Taiwan). Russia remains attractive thanks to its resources and has succeeded in convincing a part of the population that its influence can “liberate” African countries from Western influence whereas China has convinced certain African governments that it would benefit them.
Nevertheless, as the former French President De Gaulle used to say, “Countries have no friends but only interests.” So, it is clear that in the logic of this game, Russia and China will bring nothing viable to the African continent.
Today’s Africa is seeking to get rid of Western indebtedness and better, a great deal of countries have removed Western books from schools to replace them with the African vision of history. Africa today knows that it is rich and thanks to its population can be self-sufficient. Collaboration with other continents will be healthy or not. Africans want to put the plans of late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi into practice by creating an inter-African monetary fund and putting their own satellites in orbit as announced in Washington at the U.S.-Africa 2022 summit hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden.
