ROMA – 2023 on the African continent – writes Jean Leonard Touadi on Africa magazine – has seen many global projects opened that deserve attention and a lot of implementation work. There are at least three international events that can represent significant moments of changes in direction of the pan-African projection in global dynamics.
The first fact.
It was the United Nations General Assembly that voted in February 2023, by an overwhelming majority, in favor of a resolution calling for the “immediate” withdrawal of the Russian troops who had invaded Ukraine a year earlier and a “just and lasting.” The text received 141 votes in favor from the body’s 193 member states. Seven countries voted against: Belarus, Syria and North Korea, Russia’s traditional allies, as well as Nicaragua, Eritrea and Mali.
The return of multi-alignment. More generally, among the countries that had abstained, many were African, including Angola, Ethiopia, Algeria, Guinea and Mozambique. Positions that are explained by the traditional relationship between some states of socialist heritage and the Soviet Union, and therefore Russia. These abstentions signal, however, the return of a form of “multi-alignment” in an international context in which partnerships multiply and diversify.
The vote of “multi-dependent” Africa. In an article published the day after the first vote, the researcher of the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri) Thierry Vircoulon however tempered the reasons for the abstention of the African states, stating that it was not only the result of «the influence of Moscow and the decline in popularity of Europeans and Americans” but “also and above all a reflection of prudence and protection on the part of a multi-dependent Africa”.
The second fact.
Worth taking into consideration is the entry of the African Union (AU) among the permanent members of the G20. Another fundamental moment that implements one of the objectives of Agenda 2063, namely putting an end to the geostrategic subordination of the continent and making its specific weight count more.
The continent’s 2.5 billion inhabitants in 2050. From a demographic point of view, in 2050, according to UN forecasts, Africa will have almost 2.5 billion inhabitants. In other words, more than 25% of the world’s population will be African. Growth will slow thereafter, but Africa will remain by far the main driver of global population growth: it will represent almost 40% of the world’s population by the end of the century. From an economic point of view, Africans represent a total GDP of three trillion dollars and constitute, from 2021, a market of 1.2 billion people. The African Free Trade Area (AFCTA) should increase intra-African trade by more than 50%, with an important impact on trade with the rest of the world, respectively 29% of exports and more than 7% of imports. A significant increase of 10% in average real GDP per capita is expected. It is now up to the AU to drag the continent towards the necessary reforms capable of making similar potential and expectations effective.
How do you sit at the “grown-ups” table? In short, it is not enough to aspire to sit at the table of the “big men”, we must demonstrate that we are so by implementing structural reforms of governance and economic models capable of breaking the centuries-old predatory economy so dear to the extra-African exploiters and the offshore elites of impoverished.
The third fact
It is the entry of Egypt and Ethiopia into the BRICS club of emerging countries, with the aspiration of many others to join (Algeria, Nigeria, Morocco…). The partnership envisaged between the African continent and the Brics – a grouping of emerging world economies formed by the countries of the previous BRIC – Russia, China, India, Brazil and the addition of South Africa and Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates – is aimed at three specific areas: trade, foreign direct investment and development aid. In each of them, Africa has the experience to not repeat the mistakes of the past.
Africa’s cooperation with the Brics. If priority areas are well identified and targeted, it could boost economic growth, create jobs and accelerate the continent’s inclusion in global value chains. It’s a shame that the match was played individually by Ethiopia and Egypt instead of the African Union.
That not wanting to cross the boundaries drawn by the colonizers. A unitary deficit that betrays the proclamations of wanting to overcome the borders drawn by the colonizers. «Africa Must Unite», wrote Nkrumah, father of pan-Africanism. But when it comes time to play together, nationalistic reflexes return. We have plenty of time to rethink our membership of the BRICS and implement an Afro-African agenda to bring into it so as not to suffer new paracolonial influences.
* Jean Leonard Touadi, Italian journalist, academic, FAO official; article taken from Africa magazine
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– 2024-04-30 19:54:38
