The transformation of African–Russian economic relations in the multipolar world-system

SUMMARY

Despite the historical legacy of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation’s economic presence in Africa today is minuscule in comparison to that of the West or China. The aim of this Briefing is to provide a framework for the trajectory of African–Russian economic ties in the changing international environment. Although the economic, trade and investment affairs could develop more complementarity, it is still an open question whether African countries benefit from the deepening economic ties or whether these inhibit local socio-economic development.

Acknowledgements

I am sincerely thankful for the comments received on the first version of this paper from members of the Nigeria Institute of Social & Economic Research (NISER), Ibadan; students from the Centre for Sustainable Development at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria; students of the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania; and from Gideon Ojinga Omiunu, Alex Ugwuya, Lydia T. Adeoye, Dawit Haileyesus, Tumbu Ladislaus, Richard Itaman and Jerome Lange.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note on contributor

Tamás Gerőcs is a political economist at the Institute of World Economics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Gerőcs is currently studying for a PhD at the State University of New York in Binghamton. His research field of interest includes uneven and combined development, and peripheral development in Africa with respect to financial and trade dependencies. Gerőcs is also a member of the Budapest-based Working Group for Public Sociology, Helyzet.

Notes

1 China’s massive investments and loans in many African countries have already led to defaults and coercively seized assets in countries such as Zambia and Ivory Coast. Chinese financial assistance often comes in the form of loans which are for projects usually tied to Chinese state-owned companies. These contracts have very strict conditionalities with which African governments cannot always comply in the long run (Landler and Wong 2018).

2 For example, Alexander III sent an expedition led by N. I. Ashinov to establish a Red Sea colonial outpost in 1888 (Henze 1991, 69). Regarding Soviet policies in the 1930s, see Cohen (1979); for detailed accounts of pre-Soviet contacts in Africa, see Wilson (1974) and Matusevich (2007).

3 Cuban intervention in Angola in 1975 was requested by the then leader of the MPLA, Agostinho Neto, in June 1975, before Angola’s formal independence.

4 Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has been in and out of the intergovernmental G8 forum. After attacking Ukraine in 2014, Putin was expelled from the group, but at the G7 meeting in Quebec in 2018, US president Donald Trump attempted to convince his fellow G7 leaders (namely British, French, Canadian, Italian, German and Japanese) to reinvite Putin to their meetings.

5 These payments are coordinated by Rossotrudnichestvo, Russia’s agency for international humanitarian cooperation. The nominal value of Russian assistance, which was US$785 million in 2009, had fallen by 40%, to US$472, by the first year of the crisis. This figure has fluctuated since that time; according to the most recent statistics, it rose to US$514 million in 2011 and dropped back to US$458 million in 2012. See Larionova, Rakhmangulov, and Berenson (2014).

6 Russia did not support the 2011 international military intervention in Libya, the fallout from which caused Rostec to report US$4 billion in losses (Giles 2013).

7 Mugabe’s 2017 resignation was pre-negotiated with the help of the Chinese authorities, who have been among the largest investors in Zimbabwe. President Mugabe also maintained a good relationship with Vladimir Putin and his foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, who made a short visit to Zimbabwe after Mugabe’s resignation to meet the new president Emmerson Mnangagwa. Mugabe signed a US$3-billion deal with Rostec, which involved concessions in Zimbabwe’s largest platinum mine project, Darwendale.

8 Africa’s share in Russia’s total FDI outflow was estimated at 9% by UNCTAD (2013). Reports on the size of Russian FDI in Africa vary from a low estimate of US$9 billion to approx. US$17 billion (collected from individual company reports). Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s minister of foreign affairs, estimated that Russian investment in Africa increased to US$20 billion in 2018 (African Review 2019).

9 The payment for the production of the second satellite would come from the insurance reimbursement for the lost AngoSat-1 satellite worth US$121 million. The rest of the cost will be paid by Russia. The overall sum of the project amounts to US$320 million (TASS 2018).

Additional information

Funding

This research was co-financed by the project ‘From developmental states to new protectionism: changing repertoire of state interventions to promote development in an unfolding new world order’ (OTKA FK_124573), supported by the National Research, Development and Innovation Office (NRDIO/NKFIH) in Hungary.