The barometer for world food commodity prices declined for the fifth consecutive month in August 2022, as quotations for most benchmark items dropped.
This is according to a new report released today by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The closely watched FAO Food Price Index averaged 138.0 points in August, down 1.9 per cent from July although remaining 7.9 per cent above its value a year before.
The Index tracks monthly changes in the international prices of a basket of commonly traded food commodities.
The FAO Cereal Price Index decreased by 1.4 per cent from the previous month, a drop driven by a 5.1 per cent decline in international wheat prices that reflected improved production prospects in North America and the Russian Federation as well as the resumption of exports from the Black Sea ports in Ukraine.
Rice prices on average held steady during the month, while quotations for coarse grains increased marginally, by 0.2 per cent, as firmer world maize prices due to hot, dry growing conditions in the European Union and the United States of America were offset by lower barley and sorghum prices.
The FAO Vegetable Oil Price Index decreased by 3.3 per cent from July, reaching a level slightly below that of August 2021.
World soy oil prices rose moderately due to concerns over the impact of unfavourable weather conditions on production in the United States of America, but the gain was more than offset by lower quotations for palm, sunflower, and rapeseed oils, reflecting increased availabilities of palm oil from Indonesia, due to lower export taxes, and a gradual resumption of sunflower oil shipments from Ukraine’s ports.
The FAO Dairy Price Index decreased by 2.0 per cent in August, while remaining 23.5 per cent above its August 2021 value.
World cheese prices increased for the tenth consecutive month, while those of milk eased amid expectations of increased supplies from New Zealand, even as production tracks lower in Western Europe and the United States of America.
The FAO Meat Price Index declined by 1.5 per cent from July, but it remained 8.2 per cent higher its value a year ago. International quotations for poultry meat fell in August amid elevated global export availabilities, while world bovine meat prices declined on weak domestic demand in some leading exporting countries. Pig meat quotations rose.
The FAO Sugar Price Index decreased by 2.1 per cent to its lowest level since July 2021, triggered mainly by high export caps in India and lower ethanol prices in Brazil.
FAO also issued its updated cereal production forecast for 2022, with a significantly lower outlook. Global cereal production is anticipated to decline by 38.9 million tonnes, or 1.4 per cent, from the previous year while the world trade in cereals is predicted to decline by 1.9 per cent in 2022/2023 (July/June) from the year-earlier period to 469.6 million tonnes.
IMF Approves New Extended Credit Facility for Zambia
Adedapo Adesanya is a journalist, polymath, and connoisseur of everything art. When he is not writing, he has his nose buried in one of the many books or articles he has bookmarked or simply listening to good music with a bottle of beer or wine. He supports the greatest club in the world, Manchester United F.C.
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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved a 38-month arrangement under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) in an amount equivalent to SDR 978.2 million (around $1.3 billion, or 100 per cent of quota) to Zambia.
The Executive Board of the Washington-based lender gave the approval based on the country’s homegrown economic reform plan that aims to restore macroeconomic stability and foster higher, more resilient, and more inclusive growth.
The Southern African country is dealing with the legacy of years of economic mismanagement, with an especially inefficient public investment drive. Growth has been too low to reduce rates of poverty, inequality, and malnutrition which are amongst the highest in the world.
Zambia is in debt distress and needs a deep and comprehensive debt treatment to place public debt on a sustainable path.
The ECF-supported programme will help reestablish sustainability through fiscal adjustment and debt restructuring, create fiscal space for social spending to cushion the burden of adjustment, and strengthen economic governance, including by improving public financial management.
The programme, it says, will also catalyze much-needed financial support from development partners.
The Executive Board’s decision will enable an immediate disbursement equivalent to SDR 139.88 million (about $185 million.
Speaking on this, IMF Managing Director, Ms Kristalina Georgieva, said: “Zambia continues to face profound challenges reflected in high poverty levels and low growth. The ECF-supported program aims to restore macroeconomic stability and foster higher, more resilient, and more inclusive growth.
“Restoring fiscal sustainability will require a sustained fiscal adjustment. The authorities’ adjustment plans appropriately focus on eliminating regressive fuel subsidies, enhancing the efficiency of the agricultural subsidy program, and reducing inefficient public investment. Domestic revenue mobilization also needs to support the medium-term adjustment.
“The adjustment creates fiscal space for increased social spending to cushion the burden on the most vulnerable, help reduce poverty, and to invest in Zambia’s people.
“The ongoing expansion of the authorities’ Social Cash Transfer program and their plans to increase public spending on health and education are particularly welcome. Together with the fiscal adjustment, Zambia needs a deep and comprehensive debt treatment under the G20 Common Framework to restore debt sustainability.
“A substantial strengthening of fiscal controls is needed to support the fiscal adjustment, as well as address governance and corruption vulnerabilities. Public investment management and procurement practices need to be strengthened to ensure transparency and the efficient use of scarce resources. It will also be important to bolster the framework for monitoring fiscal risks, particularly those related to large state-owned enterprises.”
She advised that, “The Bank of Zambia should continue its efforts to reduce inflation and preserve financial stability. International reserves should be replenished as conditions allow and the exchange rate should continue to reflect market conditions. Addressing high NPL levels and ensuring adequate capital buffers will also be important.”
By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh
Russian Presidential Special Representative for the Middle East and Africa, Mikhail Bogdanov, in an April interview with Interfax news agency, offered an insight into aspects of Russia’s policy objectives, initiatives and future prospects in Africa.
He highlighted a few obstacles to the Russian government’s inability in realizing its set goals and tasks during the past several years. But what is spectacularly interesting in the interview text concerns Soviet and Russian education for Africans.
Bogdanov authoritatively told the interviewer, Ksenia Baygarova, that Africa has always been an important region from the point of view of the foreign policy of the Russian Federation.
“This cooperation is very multi-dimensional. For instance, how many Africans have studied at our universities? Back at the end of the 1950s-1960s, the Soviet Union played the most important historical role for African peoples in getting their statehood and independence during their fight against colonial rule. Of course, these historical ties give a solid basis for cordial relationships. Many generations of politicians and diplomats have changed but it is good that continuity and solidarity between our country and Africa have been upheld,” he narrated about the past historical records.
Understandably, now is the time for creating the foundation for the restoration of Russia-African ties after a certain pause which was mainly linked to domestic problems in the country. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, other problems emerged and they pushed cooperation with Africa into the background. “Some of our embassies in African countries were closed. Regrettably, much has been lost over this period, and as they say, nature abhors a vacuum. Others, western countries, China, Turkey, and India, filled the vacuum that emerged after our ‘retreat’ from Africa,” he convincingly explained.
Monitoring, researching and analyzing the post-Soviet developments in Africa with information resources on official Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs website indicated that during the past years, there have been several top-level bilateral meetings. The overwhelming truth is that some of the information pointed to the signing of MoUs and bilateral agreements, at least during the past decade. In November 2021, a policy document titled the ‘Situation Analytical Report’ presented at the premises of TASS News Agency was very critical of Russia’s current policy towards Africa.
While the number of high-level meetings has increased, the share of substantive issues on the agenda remains small. There are few definitive results from such meetings. Apart from the absence of a public strategy for the continent, at the same time, there is a lack of coordination among various state and para-state institutions working with Africa. Many bilateral agreements, at the top and high political levels, have still not been implemented. A lot more important issues have received little attention since the first African leaders’ summit held in Sochi.
In addition to the above, our monitoring and research show Russia grossly lacks public outreach policies that could help form good perception and build an image, especially among the youth and the middle class that form the bulk of Africa’s 1.3 billion population.
Researchers have been making tangible contributions to the development of African studies in Russia. The Moscow-based Africa Studies Institute has a huge pack of research materials useful for designing an African agenda. In an interview, Professor Vladimir Shubin at the Institute for African Studies under the Russian Academy of Sciences reiterated that Russia is not doing enough to communicate to the broad sectors of the public, particularly in Africa, true information about its domestic and foreign policies as well as the accomplishments of Russia’s economy, science and technology to form a positive perception of Russia within the context of the current global changes of the 21st century.
Under the geopolitical changes and circumstances, Russia would have to open up more especially working with strategically chosen social groups and business associations in Africa. China has such a strategy and resultantly has excellent footprints. While Deputy Minister Mikhail Bogdanov still talking about the 1950s-1960s, and about the past Soviet Union education, China’s current focus is on different forms of education, ranging from short-term, requalification courses and academic fellowships to the regular intake of African students.
With far-sightedness and long-term strategy, Beijing is very desirous to win the hearts and minds of Africa’s future leaders and influencers by offering them educational opportunities in China. It is investing and exercising soft power in the education sector, and it is reported that China provided 12,000 scholarships to African students in 2021, despite the fact that it was during the Covid-19 pandemic period.
Besides that, China has been training African civil servants and runs the Confucius Institute in some 20 African countries. It has recently opened the first Party School and admitted the first batch of 120 participants from African ruling parties who are attending the workshop at the US$40 million facility in Tanzania funded by the Chinese Communist Party. There is now a total of 81,562 African students this 2022/23 academic year in China, according to the Chinese Ministry of Education.
The data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics shows that Asian countries have become the second most popular destination for African students studying abroad with China being number one followed by the likes of India, Japan, Korea, and Israel, among others. Judging from our monitoring and research, India has also taken steps aimed at building a more practical partnership in a number of spheres in the continent. New Delhi has a new set of opportunities in human resources development, information technology and education.
While Indian companies rely more on African talent, they do capacity building for the local population. The Indian diaspora plays its own bridging role between India and Africa. As the world focuses on Africa’s fast-growing economies, India offers many academic fellowships and internship opportunities for young Africans, it has the traditional annual training programmes in various universities and institutes in India.
The United States and European countries are investing in the youth. These European and Western countries, which Russians often criticized, train thousands yearly, ranging from short-term courses to long-term academic disciplines. During the days of Barak Obama, the White House created the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI). It brings 500 Africans to the White House in Washington and this YALI still runs various academic and training programmes for Africans. Before Covid-19, The Times Higher Education index indicated that approximately 43,000 Africans enrolled on American universities. There are many African universities and institutes with joint agreements running programs, including fellowships, together with Westerners and Europeans. That is compared to Russia’s annual scholarship of about 1,800.
The European Union (EU) has been focusing on the African youth. It embraces them with different kinds of training, fellowship programmes et cetera under its flagship policy on education. Many African countries have enormously benefited from educational initiatives during the past years. For instance, in August 2022, it offered postgraduate scholarships to over 200 young Nigerians in top European universities for the academic year. And if considering the whole of Africa, this is just the tip of the iceberg. The EU shows a consistent commitment to ramping up programmes and activities targeting vibrant young people from Africa.
France is a member of the European Union. France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs together with the Ministry of Education is collaborating with French-speaking African countries to offer intensive orientation and educational training for 10,000 French teachers in Africa. The five-year training programme aims at strengthening France’s soft power.
Besides training French teachers, it has regular students intake from Africa. France, like any other foreign player, has been looking for effective ways of improving its public diplomacy, especially in French-speaking African countries.
From the Arab world and Gulf region, Turkey has been making inroads these years into Africa. It has shifted direction and now pursues a more diversified, multidimensional foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. Turkey was accorded observer status by the African Union. In a reciprocal move, the AU declared Turkey its strategic partner in 2008, and since then relations between Africa and Turkey are still gaining momentum. It trains more and more agricultural specialists for Africa.
In 2009, there were only 12 Turkish embassies in African countries, with five of them in North Africa. Now, there are 43. With tourism promotion at the hotspot, Turkish Airlines has flights to 60 different destinations in 39 countries on the continent while the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA) has nearly 30 coordination centres throughout Africa.
Arguably, the Presidential Special Representative for the Middle East and Africa, Mikhail Bogdanov, most probably understands all these when he admittedly said in his Interfax interview that other foreign players are active and operating in Africa. Statistics on African students are, in fact, still staggering. Russia’s Ministry of Science and Higher Education, citing confidentiality, declined to give the current figure for Africa.
For the coming years, Russia needs a model template of social policy for Africa. With the emerging new world order which invariably incorporates in its fold education and cultural influence – the importance of soft power – for making alliances and inroads, networking and collaborating with institutions, in Africa. In a transcript posted to the State Duma’s official website, during the inter-parliamentary conference, Chairman of the State Duma, Viacheslav Volodin, was convinced that cultural and educational cooperation could be equally important areas needed to be developed and intensified in Russia-African relations.
Professor Vladimir Filippov, former Rector of the Russian University of People’s Friendship (RUDN), popularly referred to as Patrice Lumumba Friendship University, has underscored the fact that social attitudes toward foreigners first have to change positively, the need to create a multicultural learning environment, then the need to expand educational and scientific ties between Russia and Africa.
Established in 1960 to provide higher education to Third World students, it later became an integral part of the Soviet cultural offensive in non-aligned countries. His university has gained international popularity as an educational institution located in southwest Moscow.
“The present and the future of Russia-Africa relations is not about charity, it’s about co-development,” stated Evgeny Primakov, Head of the Russian Federal Agency for International Humanitarian Cooperation (Rossotrudnichestvo) and also a member of the Secretariat of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum.
The Secretariat of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum works under the Russian Foreign Ministry. It has, under its aegis, three coordination councils namely business, public and scientific councils. Primakov heads the humanitarian council that deals with education and humanitarian questions for the Foreign Ministry. While talking about initiatives especially in the sphere of education within the framework of the relationship between Russia and Africa, Primakov explicitly underlined the changing state of affairs in education and added that the number of Russian state scholarships for African citizens – for the whole continent made up of 54 African countries – has only increased from 1765 in 2019 to 1843 in 2020.
Primarily due to the coronavirus outbreak, Russian universities since then potential students have had difficulties with transportation, safety, and financing scholarships allocated through the budget. The Russian system of higher education needs to be adapted to the new realities so that it could gain more value on the international market, especially for Africa’s middle class whose kids could study on contracts in the Russian Federation. This is strictly not humanitarian aid as perceived by Mikhail Bogdanov and Evgeny Primakov.
Similarly at the Valdai Discussion Club, academic researchers from the Institute for African Studies and policy observers held discussions on current Russia’s policy, emerging opportunities and possibilities for partnerships in Africa. Quite interestingly, the majority of them acknowledged the need for Russia to be more prominent as it should be and work more consistently to achieve its strategic goals on the continent.
The Valdai Discussion Club was established in 2004 with the primary goal to promote dialogue between Russia and the rest of the world. It hosted an expert discussion themed “Russia’s Return to Africa: Interests, Challenges, Prospects” to brainstorm views on Africa. Officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Africa Department were present and noted that there have been developments in relations with Africa.
Russia claims to have substantial influence in the education sphere. It consistently claims to have trained thousands and thousands of Africans from the 1950s and 1960s as emphatically explained by Deputy Minister Bogdanov. But why currently are the African youth and the middle class, African NGOs and civil society, so remote in Russia’s policy towards Africa? Cultural issues are catastrophic, indeed! There is nothing African, except African diplomatic offices in the Russian Federation. Who runs public outreach programmes that could change perceptions in Africa?
With the youth’s education, experts are still critical. Gordey Yastrebov, a Postdoctoral Researcher and Lecturer at the Institute for Sociology and Social Psychology at the University of Cologne (Germany), argues in an email interview discussion that “education can be a tool for geopolitical influence in general, and for changing perceptions specifically, and Russia (just like any other country) could use it for that same purpose. However, Russia isn’t doing anything substantial on this front, at least there is no consistent effort with obvious outcomes that would make me think so. There are no large-scale investment programmes in education focusing on this.”
He explains that Russian education can become appealing these days, but given that Russia can no longer boast any significant scientific and technological achievements. Western educational and scientific paradigm embraces cooperation and critical independent thinking, whereas this is not the case with the Russian paradigm, which is becoming more isolationist and authoritarian. Obviously, by now, Africa should look up to more successful examples elsewhere, perhaps in the United States and Europe.
In an interview with Professor Natalia Vlasova, Deputy Rector at the Department of International Relations and Cooperation of the Ural State University of Economics (USUE) in Yekaterinburg, explained that many African countries are developing rapidly, and the African elites and the growing middle-class are great potentials for sponsoring their children’s education abroad. She explained the necessity to develop bilateral ties not only in the economic sphere but also in education and culture and to promote the exchange of people and ideas in the social sphere.
“We must use the full potential interest and mutual sympathy between the peoples of Russia and Africa, a great desire of Russians and Africans to visit each other to make friends, establish new connections. It will be of high appreciation to African countries when Russian authorities create a social platform towards strengthening Russian-African relations,” suggested Vlasova.
According to her, Russia could still offer credible alternative programmes bringing together Russians and Africans. She finally concluded: “In times of Soviet Union, African countries were strategic partners, and now we should reactivate these relations because in the nearest future they will have big economic and political power. This could, indeed, be a huge market and has a potential basis for future diversified business.”
Nevertheless, experts from the Moscow-based Center for Strategic Research acknowledged in an interview with this author that the percentage of Russian universities on the world market is considerably low. Due to this, there is a rare need to develop Russian education export opportunities, and take progressive measures to raise interest in Russian education among foreigners. This would raise the collaboration between Russia and Africa to a qualitatively new level and ultimately contribute to the economies and prosperity of both Africa and Russia.
As part of the renewed interest in Africa, Sergey Lavrov and Mikhail Bogdanov at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and top officials at the Ministry of Higher Education and related agencies have to work more on opportunities and diverse ways to increase the number of students, especially tuition paying agreements for children of the growing elite families and middle-class from African countries. It has to review its cultural component in its current foreign policy, undoubtedly, be directed at strengthening relations. It is certainly true that western and European systems classically appeal more to Africans. If Russia’s ultimate interest is to lead a fairer and more stable global system, then it is necessary to share these interests through the educational sphere in sub-Saharan Africa.
Rossiyskaya Gazeta, a widely circulated Russian daily newspaper, in the article also reported that Russia has to focus on the young population from developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. It has to target the elite and middle class in these markets for the export of education which has great potential. The Gazeta concluded that Africa’s fast-growing population is a huge potential market for knowledge transfer and export education.
Beyond all these trends in the Russia-African relations discussed above, it is necessary here to recall that President Vladimir Putin particularly noted the good dynamics of specialist training and education in Russian educational institutions for African countries. Putin, however, suggested to Russian and African participants map out broad initiatives in the sphere of education and culture during the first summit in Sochi. For the joint work, there was a final joint declaration, adopted at the end of the summit. The document outlines a set of goals and objectives for further development of Russia-African cooperation.
By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh
“Russia sets aside $1 billion to boost trade ties with Ghana” – simply made the media headline, but has serious implications for Russia’s diplomacy.
The published article described the bilateral relations as “sustainable partnership” between Russia and the Republic of Ghana. That was far back in January 2018 and given wide publicity to show Russia’s economic presence in Africa. Taking into cognizance the participating dignitaries including the Russian Ambassador Dmitry Suslov inside the Russian diplomatic premises, is most probably reflected in official documents of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.
The Russian Federation set aside $1 billion to assist Russian companies wanting to invest in Ghana’s economy, in a move aimed at reinvigorating the sixty-year-old diplomatic relations that exist between the two countries and which were strongest in the Nkrumah era, archive research shows.
In commemorating the 60 years of established diplomatic relations with Ghana, and at that reception, Chairman of the Ghana Russian Business Development Council, Dr Lawrence Awuku-Boateng, explained that Ghanaian business people wanting do business with Russia would be assisted. The money would be disbursed through the Russian Export Centre.
“I am glad to announce that the Russian government has decided to assist all Russian companies that would like to work in Ghana, and Ghanaian companies who would like to do business with the Russians should contact the Embassy or Council for assistance,” Awuku-Boateng told the gathering.
Ambassador Suslov took his turn and said his country was committed to building “sustainable partnerships” with Ghana. “I can see Ghana now attracts more Russian businesses due to its stable democracy, sustainable macroeconomic performance and advanced business infrastructure. The importance of Ghana to Russia as an anchor partner country within the West Africa region is in a way being recognised and affirmed by the continuous presence of Russian delegations in the country,” he said.
Similarly, different Russian companies have been rushing for investment. With its stated purpose to create developing economic cooperation, Russian Railway Company, Geo Services, said it was ready to invest over $12.5 billion in the redevelopment of Ghana’s Railway network, a project the President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo government has shown keen interest in realizing to boost the transport network (railway infrastructure) and ultimately the economy.
Geo-Services CEO, Sergey Kamnev, headed a delegation to attend the market-sounding event organized by the Ministries of Railways Development and Transport, on the development of the Eastern Railway Line and the Boankra Inland Port projects. The government was seeking to enter into a Public, Private Partnership arrangement for the two specific projects, for which an estimated US$2.4billion was required.
“With our own unofficial pre-feasibility conducted, we are assuring you that we will give Ghana the best. Considering our record, even in the area of fatalities within the industry, I can say that, with over 100years experience in railway in the world, we have recorded, I am sure, the least of fatalities,” Sergey Kamnev said at the event in Accra, Ghana.
“Having said that, if we are given the right to build the rail lines in Ghana, we are going to use Ghanaians to manufacture everything in Ghana, from executive wagons to bolt and knots. This is going to help us openly, at least, 20 factories in the country,” he added.
Eastern Railway Line was planned to complete by 2020. The Minister of Railway Development, Joe Ghartey, informed that the government set 2020 as the deadline for the completion of the Eastern Railway line project. The project will accommodate speed trains which have a speed of over 500 km per hour, making the journey faster and easier.
“The government is ready and feasibility is almost complete; that is why we are having this market-sounding event which is a meeting with investors to share ideas on how to build a better railway network in Ghana. I have directed that the project is completed by 2020, using speed trains. Ghana deserves the best and we, as a government, are willing to sign up for the best in this project for Ghana,” Minister Joe Ghartey stated.
The market sounding conference was attended by investors interested in partnering government in the rehabilitation and expansion of the country’s rail network from the south to Paga in the Upper East Region.
Ghana’s rail network that is currently operational, which is approximately 947 kilometres, is faced with an obsolete network and poor track infrastructure, resulting in the closure of greater part of the Western and Eastern lines and the entire Central line, leading to a high incidence of derailments that lead to loss of operational hours and damage to rolling stock.
The revamping of the railways sector was expected to happen hand-in-hand with the construction of the Boankra Inland Port, strategically located near Kumasi, to ease the movement of goods to the northern parts of the country and neighbouring landlocked countries.
Perhaps the most important way forward beside the official interaction, and in order to enhance further relations between the two countries, the Russian Federation has endorsed creating the Ghana-Russian Business Development Council to help in linking up business, education and culture.
Early October 2021, within the framework of the official visit to Ghana, the Head of the Secretariat of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum, Ambassador-at-Large Oleg Ozerov, participated in discussions between the Association of Economic Cooperation with African States (AECAS) and the Ghana-Russia Business Development Council. According to reports, the ceremony was also attended by the current Ambassador of the Russian Federation in Ghana, Sergei Berdnikov.
The two parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding which stipulates developing and strengthening bilateral cooperation. The focus is to promote Russian companies’ products and services on the African market, to share expertise and exchange information in order to create favourable conditions for the development of Russia-Ghana relations.
On the other hand, critics say Russian officials consider it inexpedient to deal with well-established agencies and organizations such as the Ghana Export Promotion Council, Ghana Export Authority, Ghana Investment Promotion Centre, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry et cetera. These business entities make the entire process of trading quite easy and convenient for the business parties involved by liaising with other agencies to simplify documentation and import/export procedures as well as customs and freight carriers in the country.
Another important issue critics singled out in their discussions was the importance of the Russia-Ghana Permanent Joint Commission for Cooperation (PJCC) created several years ago for ensuring and strengthening bilateral relations in the political, economic, trade, technical and cultural spheres between the two countries. At least, Russia and Ghana are looking forward to expanding trade and investment exchanges using the mechanism of the Intergovernmental Commission on trade-economic and scientific-technical cooperation.
During the session of the Russia-Ghana Permanent Joint Commission for Cooperation (PJCC) held in Saint Petersburg in May, the both Foreign Affairs Ministers of Russia and Ghana agreed to speed up work on agreements and memoranda that will strengthen the legal framework of cooperation. Further agreed to encourage business circles, chambers of commerce and industry of the two countries to continue and intensify direct contacts and frequent interactions.
Our monitoring and interviews show that not everybody is highly-satisfied with the current approach toward Africa. In an interview conducted by this author, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration explains explicitly that “Russia and Ghana have excellent diplomatic relations, which have been developed over the years, precisely more than 30 years. Russian Federation started in 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet era. Although, for a relationship lasting this long, one would have expected it to move past where it is now. In short, there is still room for improvement.”
Despite the policy challenges and shortcomings, Ghana is still open to all the support that it could get from its external friends and development partners in the nation-building drive, particularly in the nationwide industrialization programme of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration. Ghana could benefit a lot from the rich experiences of Russia, which has advanced knowledge, in the area of industrialization, she underscored in the interview discussion.
An undeniable and acknowledgeable fact is that Russia plans to boost multifaceted relations with Africa. As pointed out in a policy report last November, Russia’s approach is practically marked by a high degree of inconsistency and lacks effective systematic coordination on several important issues with Africa. The report points to shortsightedness and little desire to face the rapidly changing political and economic realities in Africa.
According to that report, high-level meetings have increased but the share of substantive issues remains extremely minimal, and worse so far there were few definitive results from the unprecedented huge number of high-level official meetings. The report indicates clearly that Russia’s possibilities are overestimated both publicly and in closed negotiations. It further stresses the lack of “information hygiene” at all levels of public speaking among the main flaws of Russia’s policy on Africa.
Nevertheless, according to the policy experts’ assessment of the situation, Russia needs to shift steadily towards new paradigms – first to move away from the most often stereotypical narratives, and frequent criticisms of other key external players. And second to seriously begin implementing, especially in this crucial time of global geopolitical changes and emerging new order, some of its own decade-old pledges and promises, and take concrete steps in fulfilling those several bilateral agreements signed with individual African countries.
The report provides useful recommendations aim at closing the gap between mainstream policies, how to remove the policy pitfalls and turning a new page by adopting a well-refined approach toward Africa. The authoritative 150-page report was researched and prepared by 25 Russian policy experts headed by Professor Sergei Karaganov who is currently the Honorary Chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy. The report titled – Situation Analytical Report – was publicly presented at the premises of TASS Information News Agency in November 2021.