Africa, Russia should up ties

Russia today does not have a concrete policy agenda for Africa and offers much less to the continent now than it did during the Soviet era, at least according to Irina Filatova, professor emeritus at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa and a professor at the National Research University at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.
“Russia is interested in developing economic relations with Africa, but does not have much to offer,” Filatova said. “And what it does have to offer, it does not quite know

how to. There are some good projects there on the continent.”
Although South Africa is now part of the BRICS grouping, this partnership is more about global political relations than connecting Russia with Africa.
“This is, as we know, an ideology aimed at changing the world economic (and political) order,” said Filatova, discussing BRICS. “Any other strategic partnership between

Africa and Russia does not exist, and is impossible because of Russia’s negligible economic ties with the continent.”
BRICS does not fulfill the need for a “platform for Russia-Africa dialogue,” in the words of Lesley Masters, a senior researcher at the Institute for Global Dialogue in South Africa. “African engagement with Russia has been difficult, especially in building up economic ties. Relations need to be more visible and opened up to promote greater exchanges across sectors between Africa and Russia. There is not enough understanding in Africa regarding Russia,” Masters said.

More than economics From Russia’s perspective, there are important geo-political implications for working with Africa. The continent’s 54 states represent a key voting bloc within the structures of global governance. Nevertheless, Russia’s soft power efforts in the region have been limited thus far.
Dr Shaabani Nzori, an expert in Russian-African relations says that Russian president Vladimir Putin and his foreign policy team are pragmatic and so African leaders interested in working with them should take a very business-like approach. “Our (African) leaders must formulate exactly what they want and what to expect from

Russia, what they are ready to offer in exchange and spell this out very clearly without any bonhomie,” said Nzori in an interview soon after Putin was inaugurated in May.

“With regard to African mineral resources and Russia’s intended role in their exploration and exploitation, we need to be principled and not let Russians determine the agenda on how these our resources ought to be exploited and managed,” he said.
So far, Nzori continued, African authorities have failed to use mineral assets as trump cards to negotiate better terms when going into contracts with foreigners not only in exploiting and managing the minerals deposits themselves, but also in using them to achieve inroads into other spheres of economic, technical and technological

cooperation, for example, obtaining access to Russia’s technology and prowess in nuclear power generation or asset-swapping for ownership stakes in Russian enterprises.

Dr Bashir Obasekola, chairman of the Russian chapter of the Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation Europe (NIDOE-Russia), a non-profit social organisation based in Moscow, said that many people still expect to see a very robust Russian policy implemented in Africa, despite the fact that China has outpaced Russia significantly in Africa engagement in recent years.

Medvedev’s legacy “Some attempts were made by Medvedev to change the trend,” Obasekola said. “He even appointed a new special envoy on African affairs, Mikhail Margelov, to bring in new ideas to Russian-African relations, on his part he organised business forum in Addis Ababa, visited southern and eastern African countries drumming about Russian investment with little results.” — African Executive.