World
Africa ‘Reawakening’ In Emerging Multipolar World
By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh
In this interview, Gustavo de Carvalho, Programme Head (Acting): African Governance and Diplomacy, South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), discusses at length aspects of Africa’s developments in the context of shifting geopolitics, its relationships with external countries, and expected roles in the emerging multipolar world. Gustavo de Carvalho further underscores key issues related to transparency in agreements, financing initiatives, and current development priorities that are shaping Africa’s future. Here are the interview excerpts:
Is Africa undergoing the “second political re-awakening” and how would you explain Africans’ perceptions and attitudes toward the emerging multipolar world?
We should be careful not to overstate novelty. African states exercised real agency during the Cold War, too, from Bandung to the Non-Aligned Movement. What has actually shifted is the structure of the international system around the continent. The unipolar moment has faded, the menu of partners has widened, and a generation of policymakers under fifty operates without the inhibitions of either the Cold War or the immediate post-Cold War period. African publics, however, are more pragmatic than multipolar rhetoric assumes. Afrobarometer’s surveys across more than thirty countries consistently show citizens evaluating external partners on tangible outcomes such as infrastructure, jobs and security, rather than on civilisational narratives. China is generally associated with positive economic influence, the United States retains the strongest pull as a development model, and Russia, despite a louder political profile, registers a smaller and more geographically concentrated footprint. Multipolarity is not a destination Africans are arriving at. It is a working environment that creates more options and more risks at once.
Do you think it is appropriate to use the term “neo-colonialism” referring to activities of foreign players in Africa? By the way, who are the neo-colonisers in your view?
The term has analytical value when used carefully, and loses it when deployed selectively against whichever power one wishes to embarrass. Nkrumah’s 1965 formulation was precise: political independence accompanied by continued external control over economic and political life. The honest test is whether contemporary patterns reproduce that asymmetry, irrespective of the capital from which they originate. The structural picture is well documented. Africa still exports primary commodities and imports manufactured goods. Intra-African trade hovers around fifteen per cent of total trade, well below Asian or European levels. African sovereigns pay a measurable risk premium on debt that exceeds what fundamentals alone justify. Applied consistently, the lens directs attention to opaque resource-for-infrastructure contracts, security-for-mineral bargains, debt agreements with confidentiality clauses, and aid architectures that bypass African institutions. That description fits legacy French commercial arrangements in francophone Africa, Chinese mining concessions in the DRC, Russian-linked gold extraction in the Central African Republic and Sudan, Gulf-backed port and farmland deals along the Red Sea, and Western corporate practices that have not always met the standards their governments preach. Naming a single neo-coloniser tells us more about the speaker’s politics than about the structure.
How would you interpret the current engagement of foreign players in Africa? Do you also think there is geopolitical competition and rivalry among them?
Competition is real and intensifying, and the proliferation of Africa-plus-one summits is the clearest indicator. Russia has held two summits, in Sochi in 2019 and St Petersburg in 2023. The EU, Turkey, Japan, India, the United States, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and the UAE all host their own variants. Trade figures give a more honest sense of weight than diplomatic theatre. China-Africa trade reached around 280 billion dollars in 2023, United States-Africa trade sits in the 60 to 70 billion range, and Russia-Africa trade is roughly 24 billion, heavily concentrated in grain, fertiliser and arms. Describing the continent as a chessboard, however, understates how African states themselves are shaping these dynamics, sometimes through skilful diversification and sometimes through security bargains that entail longer-term costs. The Sahel illustrates the latter starkly. Between 2020 and 2023, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger expelled French forces, downgraded their relationships with ECOWAS and the UN stabilisation mission, and welcomed Russian security contractors. ACLED data shows civilian fatalities from political violence rising rather than falling across the same period. Substituting providers without strengthening domestic institutions does not produce sovereignty. It changes the terms of dependence.
Do you think much depends on African leaders and their people (African solutions to African problems) to work toward long-term, sustainable development?
The principle is correct, and it is regularly weaponised in two unhelpful directions. External actors invoke it to justify withdrawing from responsibilities they continue to hold, particularly over financial flows and arms transfers that pass through their own jurisdictions. Some African leaders invoke it to deflect legitimate scrutiny of governance failings, repression or corruption. Genuine African agency requires more than rhetoric. The AU’s operating budget remains modest in absolute terms, and external partners still cover a significant share of programmatic activities, which shapes what gets funded. The African Standby Force, conceived in 2003, remains only partially operational more than two decades on. The African Continental Free Trade Area, in force since 2021, has rolled out more slowly than drafters hoped because the political will to lower national barriers lags the speeches. Long-term development depends on African leaders financing more of their own security and development priorities, on publics holding them accountable, and on a clearer-eyed view of what foreign forces can deliver. Whether the actors are Russian-linked contractors in the Sahel and Central African Republic, Western counter-terrorism deployments, or others, external security providers tend to address symptoms while leaving the political and economic drivers of insecurity intact.
Often described as a continent with huge, untapped natural resources and large human capital (1.5 billion), what then specifically do African leaders expect from Europe, China, Russia and the United States?
Expectations differ across the three relationships, and that differentiation is itself a marker of agency. From China, leaders expect infrastructure financing, sustained commodity demand, and a partnership that does not condition itself on domestic governance reforms. FOCAC commitments have delivered visible results in ports, railways and power generation, though Beijing itself has shifted toward smaller, more selective lending since around 2018. From Russia, expectations are narrower because the economic footprint is. Moscow’s offer is political backing in multilateral forums, arms transfers, grain and fertiliser supply, civilian nuclear cooperation in a handful of cases, and security partnerships, including those involving private military formations. The record of those security arrangements in the Central African Republic, Mali, Sudan and Mozambique deserves a sober assessment on its own terms, because the human and political costs are documented and uneven. From the United States, leaders look for market access through instruments such as AGOA, whose post-2025 future has generated significant uncertainty, alongside private capital, technology partnerships and a posture that treats the continent as more than a counter-terrorism theatre. The priorities across all three relationships are essentially the same: transparency in the terms of agreements, arrangements that preserve future policy space, and partnerships that build domestic productive capacity rather than substitute for it. The continent’s leverage in this multipolar moment is real, but it is not permanent. It will be squandered if used to rotate among external dependencies rather than reduce them.
By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh
Russia’s system of foreign students’ admission is currently experiencing a completely different shape, due to the rapidly shifting geopolitical reality. The emerging trends are closely connected with increasing the number of highly interested applicants rather than the quality of education. The geopolitical shift is pushing Russia to make education for young Africans an ultimate priority. The quota campaign has already begun as the figure compares favourably with previous benchmarks but, to some considerable extent, noticeable challenges are currently affecting enrollment from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Despite that, general interest in Russian education among foreign nationals is increasing; the quota campaign confirms this trend. Last year, for instance, there were about 144,000 registrations in Rossotrudnichestvo’s Education in Russian system. The number has exceeded 160,000 in 2026. What is important here is that Russia shows preparedness to get more students from developing countries, especially from Africa and uses it as a factor for influencing its foreign policy in the region.
Regarding educational initiatives, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in conjunction with relevant agencies and organisations are active in Africa. Noticeably, Russia is developing and expanding the existing, successfully operating cooperation in the sphere of education. In fact, priority is given to projects in the field of education and training of professional personnel for African countries. Currently, over 37,000 students from Africa are studying at Russian universities. Reports say a gradual increase in the number of scholarships for African citizens and the expansion of the range of professional training programs will provide a strong incentive for further promoting education at Russian universities.
This will continue to actively strengthen inter-university ties with African partners, including through specialised umbrella organisations such as the Russian-African Network University, the Consortium of Technical Universities “Nadra Africa” based at the Empress Catherine II St. Petersburg Mining University, the Russian-African Network Transport University, and the Consortium of Russian Universities Working in West Africa based at the NGO “Centre for Public Diplomacy.”
Reports further indicated that the Rossotrudnichestvo representative offices—the Russian Science and Culture Centres—operating in eight African countries, as well as the Open Education Centres operating under the auspices of the Russian Ministry of Education in 31 African countries, serve as a solid foundation for our humanitarian presence in Africa. They serve as conduits for the Russian language and culture on the continent. It is, however, hoped that their number would only increase in the subsequent years.
While addressing the staff and students at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated Russia’s readiness to cooperate actively in the sustainable economic development and to strengthen efforts at training the needed specialists and professionals for Africa. After the collapse of the Soviet system in 1991, there were problems sustaining relations with Africa. Then, after more than a decade, Russia started to return to Africa. This process has been ongoing for the past 15 years, according to the top Russian diplomat.
According to Lavrov, these past few years have been characterised by frequent interactions between Russian and African Foreign Ministers, plethora of MoUs were signed that set out the broad parameters of cooperation. Russia’s Education Ministry and the Foreign Affairs Ministry have raised the quotas for many African countries, the highest given to Angola, Ethiopia, Namibia and Mozambique, and South Africa.
According to a report posted on the MFA website in August, for instance, some 1,120 Angolans have enrolled, on Russian scholarships or grants, at various institutes and universities throughout the Russian Federation. Figures for other African countries are available on the official information portal of the ministry.
Besides state-sponsored students, Russia’s Education Ministry has also launched a large-scale educational campaign targeting the recruitment of private foreign students into its educational institutions across the Russian Federation. The program is to be implemented until 2025, which has a website (studyinrussia) translated into different languages, seeks to boost the popularity and improve its image abroad.
Undoubtedly, Russia aims at strengthening the next generation of pro-Russian elites who will help promote its interests, including long-term ones in their home countries. With this in mind, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ultimately, hope to improve the efficiency of “soft power” in Africa, though not to the levels during the Soviet era.
Understandably, Russia is now targeting Africa’s fast-growing population as a huge potential market for knowledge transfer and export education. Rossiyskaya Gazeta, a widely circulated Russian daily newspaper, reported that Russia has been focusing on the young population in developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, targeting the elite and middle class in these markets for the export of education, which has great potential.
The newspaper reported on the advantages of multiculturalism and cross-cultural interactive activities paving the way for integration in Russian society. As far back as 2023, Russia’s Federation Council and State Duma (upper and lower houses of parliament) passed a bill. That bill was finally signed into law, allowing foreign students the right to employment, a replica of the work and study model in Western and European countries.
Professor Viktor Sadovnichy, Rector of Moscow State University and Chairman of the Russian Rectors’ Association, an organisation that unites more than 700 heads of higher education institutions, argued that education and demography are interconnected; developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America have growing middle classes. “This favours the export of our education; it has great potential cooperating in the education sphere, it could serve as a huge market – training young professionals that are in demand on the labour market,” Sadovnichy said, addressing a plenary meeting of the Russian Rectors’ Association at Peter the Great St Petersburg State Polytechnic University.
Professor Natalia Vlasova, Deputy Rector at the Department of International Relations and Cooperation of the Ural State University of Economics in Yekaterinburg, explained that many African countries are developing rapidly, and the African elites and the growing middle-class have great potential for sponsoring their children’s education abroad. “In the times of the Soviet Union, African countries were strategic partners, and now we should reactivate these relations because in the near future they will have big economic and political power. This could, indeed, be a huge market and has the business potential,” she noted assertively.
An educational survey released in September 2024, divided into five major groups, said Russia has made significant efforts at improving teaching (the learning environment), research, citations (research influence), knowledge transfer, and international outlook (staff, students, research) in the educational field, according to the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings.
By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh
One year after launching a continental initiative designed to make excellence in public governance the foundation of a new drive to transform Africa, LEAD, the Africa CEO Forum’s pan-African leadership programme, takes stock of its first cohort and announces the launch of its second class. Built around a community of senior public decision-makers committed to modernising the state and to the continent’s digital transformation, this new cohort gathers for three days, from 28 to 30 August 2026, on the campus of Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) in Rabat, Morocco.
A second cohort that confirms the programme’s durability
For its second class, LEAD brings together 50 fellows, senior public decision-makers engaged in the design and implementation of the continent’s economic and social policies. Over three days, participants take part in collective and collaborative working sessions, peer exchanges and meetings with figures from the public, business and academic spheres, in order to compare their practices and build shared responses to the major challenges of governance.
Speakers include Mehdi Jomaa, former Head of Government of Tunisia, Donald Kaberuka, Managing Partner & Founder, SouthBridge Group, and former President of the African Development Bank, Serge Ekue, President of the West African Development Bank (BOAD), Sanjay Jain, co-creator of India Stack and Director of Digital Public Infrastructure, Gates Foundation, and Mauricio Cardenas, Professor of Professional Practice in Global Leadership, Columbia SIPA, and former Finance Minister of Colombia (2012-2018).
They share their reform experience, their public policy trade-offs and their view of continental priorities. Throughout the programme, the cohort benefits from the dedicated support of Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Asafo & Co, BOAD, BCG and the African Development Bank, LEAD partners that have chosen to invest in the transformation of African public action.
LEAD, a pan-African community serving public action
Created by the AFRICA CEO FORUM, LEAD is a leadership programme whose ambition is to reposition Africa’s administrative elite as a driver of reform, of performance and of dialogue with all the continent’s stakeholders.
Designed for senior African public decision-makers, LEAD sets out to build a lasting community of public officials able to share their experience, compare their practices and build common solutions to the major economic, technological and institutional transformations under way in Africa. That community is structured around three pillars: modernizing the state, improving public services, and strengthening cooperation between governments, development institutions and private-sector players.
From fellows to alumni: a long-term initiative
Made up of 36 fellows drawn from a range of administrations and institutions and representing 24 countries across the continent, LEAD’s first cohort demonstrated the quality and the potential of this community from its very first year. In less than twelve months, six of its members have taken a significant step forward: two have been appointed ministers, two have moved into strategic positions at the highest level of the state and two have been promoted to chief executive roles. These moves, which account for 16.7% of the first class, show the role LEAD plays as an accelerator of impact within African administrations.
By bringing together a new cohort of fellows every year, each of them joining the LEAD alumni community, the initiative follows a long-term trajectory: in time, to unite several hundred African public decision-makers around a shared culture of transparency, performance and regional cooperation.
A first year devoted to public service and digital public infrastructure
Throughout the year, the fellows devoted their work to strengthening African public action, to make excellence in public governance a central lever of transformation. An awareness campaign, run as part of Africa Public Service Day, brought to light those who, within the continent’s administrations and institutions, are concretely transforming public policy and improving the services offered to citizens.
Members of the cohort also took part in a special round table held in Kigali during the ACF 2026, in order to carry their thinking to a wider community of public and private leaders. That forum reinforced LEAD’s role as a platform for dialogue between the administrative elite and the continent’s economic players. Digital public infrastructure (DPI) formed the main thread of this first year of work.
Discussions covered issues at the heart of the digital sovereignty of African states: digital identity, payments, secure data exchange, interoperability, governance and the protection of citizens. This work examined the conditions under which African states are developing, in some cases, and can develop, in others, shared, open infrastructure robust enough to improve the quality of public services while supporting local innovation and preserving the capacity of public authorities to set the rules of the game.
A white paper to move from consuming technology to creating value
This year of work concludes with the publication, in collaboration with BCG, LEAD’s Knowledge Partner, of a white paper on Africa’s place in the digital economy and in artificial intelligence. With the digital economy still accounting for around 5% of African GDP, against close to 15% worldwide, the paper calls on the continent to shift from a logic of technology consumption to one of value creation.
The white paper identifies three structuring priorities for African public actors:
- Building shared digital infrastructure that serves as the backbone of public services and private innovation.
- Pooling investment in order to reach critical mass and avoid the fragmentation of efforts across the continent.
- Favouring open and interoperable architectures, with trust and governance built in by design, so as to protect citizens while stimulating the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
The white paper is available here to all public decision-makers, technical partners and institutions concerned.
“LEAD’s first cohort confirms a simple conviction: Africa already has the women and men capable of profoundly transforming public action. Our responsibility, either with our partners, is to give them, at pan-African level, a space in which to compare experience, build common solutions and bring forward a new generation of public policy. With this second cohort, we want to accelerate the move from ambition to execution, in particular on digital public infrastructure and artificial intelligence, two decisive issues for sovereignty, for the effectiveness of the state and for value creation across the continent,” says Amir Ben Yahmed, President of the Africa CEO Forum.
By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh
Africa is set to make history as it hosts the World Public Summit for the first time, with Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, welcoming global leaders and changemakers from July 29–30, 2026, for the landmark gathering under the theme “New World: Africa in Shaping a Shared Future.”
The inaugural African edition of the World Public Summit marks a significant milestone in the continent’s growing role in shaping international dialogue on governance, sustainable development, human-centred leadership and global cooperation.
Hosted by the World Peoples Assembly in partnership with African and international organisations, the summit will convene government officials, diplomats, business leaders, academics, journalists, youth representatives, civil society organisations and cultural leaders from across Africa and around the world.
According to Andrey Belyaninov, General Secretary of the World Peoples Assembly, “the Summit is not just a meeting—it is a space for unity. A space where the ‘values that unite us’ come to life: respect for people, openness to the world, responsibility for the future, and a commitment to creation.
“Today, we understand more clearly than ever: the future cannot be built alone. It is born in dialogue, in trust, in the ability to listen to one another and to act together.”
The programme begins on July 29 with a series of high-level roundtables and expert discussions covering Pan-African economic integration, civil society, education, scientific cooperation, cultural diplomacy and humanitarian partnerships.
The opening plenary, “Values, Development and Partnership as the Basis of a Sustainable and Just World,” will explore how African values—including Ubuntu—can help shape a more inclusive and sustainable global future. Discussions will also focus on youth leadership, innovation, civil society, ethical AI, public initiatives and international partnerships.
The summit will also showcase Africa’s creativity and innovation through the “Innovations for the Future” exhibition, the contemporary African art exhibition “Unity,” and the international exhibition “The World Paints Happiness.”
Another featured initiative is “The Zambezi River: Economy, Society, Soul,” an international interdisciplinary project exploring the river’s socioeconomic importance across Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, highlighting the shared heritage and development potential of one of Africa’s most important waterways.
The event will conclude with the adoption of the African Communiqué, reflecting the summit’s shared vision for stronger international cooperation, sustainable development and people-centred leadership.
Tsegaye Chama, General Secretary of the Global Black Centre, promised that, “The Summit will be delivered with exceptional distinction, reflecting the magnitude and spirit of the World Peoples Assembly. It embodies a unity that is not transactional, but purposeful and conscious, a unity that shapes new contours for a world that works for all peoples of the World.”
As delegates prepare to arrive in Addis Ababa, anticipation continues to build for what promises to be one of Africa’s most significant international gatherings of 2026—one that will place the continent firmly at the centre of global conversations about the future.
