World
Russia Assures Equatorial Guinea Strong Trade, Economic Ties
By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh
Russian President, Mr Vladimir Putin, has held talks with the Equatorial Guinean President, Mr Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who was in Moscow on an official working visit.
The visit could be characterized as historic and interpreted as one major step to broadly review the political situation in the Central African region, and specifically assess the prospects for deepening bilateral cooperation between Russia and Equatorial Guinea.
As the current rotating Chairman of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), the regional economic bloc uniting Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and São Tomé and Principe, Teodoro Obiang Nguema’s task, among others, is to oversee political governance and developments relating to regional integration within the seven-nation bloc.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema was at the residence Novo-Ogaryovo on November 2 as part of his scheduled trip to the Russian capital and held talks with President Putin.
According to official reports from the Kremlin’s website, the negotiations began with a tete-a-tete conversation between the leaders. Then international consultations continued in an expanded format with the participation of members of the delegations of the two countries, Russia and Equatorial Guinea.
According to Putin, Russia and Equatorial Guinea have many overlapping mutual interests. Russia’s relations with Africa are developing very intensively, as evidenced by the results of the Russia-Africa summit held in St. Petersburg.
During that summit, delegates from Equatorial Guinea held a number of serious meetings with Russian oil and gas and mining companies. But now, for Russia and Equatorial Guinea, the other priority is to focus on developing trade and economic ties.
The interest and opportunities for developing economic relations are good, as Russian companies look forward to working in Africa.
“We also talked about security issues, about relations with the countries of the region. We agreed on what and how we will do further in this area,” Putin underscored in his speech.
Taking his turn, Teodoro Obiang Nguema expressed appreciation for the invitation and further emphasized the fact that the world is facing enormous challenges in the area of international security. Obviously, Russia is a traditional and strategic partner of Equatorial Guinea and the African continent.
“And we must keep in mind that Russia contributed and fought for the liberation of African states to achieve political independence. This struggle should not be forgotten. Therefore, at the moment, especially at the UN level, when they want to take certain measures, Equatorial Guinea always votes against such proposals,” the Equatorial Guinean President told Putin.
Clearly, Africa is being heavily exploited at the moment. Africa needs to develop. More than a century has passed since Africa achieved independence, but the entire continent is still underdeveloped economically. Not because Africa cannot develop but because the natural resources are being used – are being exploited. And this hinders Africa’s development, he explained and added that, “Therefore, when Russia promises to send its businessmen to help Africa develop, we can only say: let them come. And Equatorial Guinea accepts this proposal with satisfaction.”
In addition, the Russian government has decided to reopen its embassy in Equatorial Guinea. Practical cooperation between Russia and Equatorial Guinea will then receive a fresh impetus, and facilitate the expansion of cooperation.
There are signs that Equatorial Guinea intends to expand defence cooperation with Russia. The implication is that this will lead to political development not only in Equatorial Guinea but also in Central Africa as the region faces security challenges in the Gulf of Guinea.
In addition, Africa is currently suffering from the activities of terrorists. Russia, as a key partner of Africa, must monitor the security of African countries so that they continue to fight against their weak level of development.
From experts’ analysis, Russia’s relations with Equatorial Guinea are only seeing real development now despite previously concluded agreements in various fields. For example, there have been no dynamics in trade turnover over the past 20 years, Nikita Panin, program coordinator at the Russian International Affairs Council and researcher at the Centre for African Studies at the Higher School of Economics (HSE University), told Financial Izvestia. According to him, the sides may have touched on cooperation in healthcare and education because students from Equatorial Guinea are already attending universities in Russia.
Later, the delegation had wider separate discussions. The agenda included the state and prospects of bilateral cooperation in various fields, as well as issues of developing Russia’s relations with the countries of the Central African region, taking into account Equatorial Guinea’s chairmanship of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCA). But seemingly, Russia might not be keen on forging closer cooperation with the regional bloc as this particular organization is rather too weak compared to other subregional groups. Worse, these central African countries have sharply differing approaches to international agenda, further economic development and even disparities in the political environment.
Participants in Russian-Equatoguinean negotiations (in expanded format) were listed as follows: Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo – President of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Simeon Oiono Esono Angué – Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation and Diaspora Affairs of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, and Alejandro Evuna Ovono Asangono – Minister of State for Special Assignments under the Administration of the President of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea.
Job Obiang Esono Mbengono – Minister for the Civil Service Cabinet under the Administration of the President of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Victoriano Bibang Nsue Okomo – Minister of National Defense of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Biyogo Nsue Okomo – Assistant to the President of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea for Protocol Issues and Luciano Nkogo Ndong Ayekaba – Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea to the Russian Federation.
From the Russian side: Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov – Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Alexey Logvinovich Overchuk – Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Sergeevich Peskov – Deputy Head of the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation, and Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation and Yuri Viktorovich Ushankov – Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation.
Nikolay Grigorievich Shulginov – Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Evgenievich Shugaev – Director of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, Alexander Vasilievich Fomin – Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, Sergey Nikolaevich Gorkov – General Director of JSC Rosgeologiya and Alexander Alexandrovich Mikheev – General Director of JSC Rosoboronexport.
The two countries signed business agreements, including a declaration of intent on partnership in the field of mining. In many respects, both parties’ lengthy discussions highlighted the teething insecurity arising from political opposition and militant groups and development challenges facing countries in the region.
Russia has severally expressed concern over the growing diplomatic activity, examined possible ways to work collectively for economic development and to improve the lack of large-scale infrastructure to position the private sector as the primary engine for job creation.
At the meeting both parties identified commitment as the fundamental step along the path to the development in Equatorial Guinea, its regional integration which is essential for the economies of that zone in central Africa.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema currently heads the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), a regional bloc that includes members such as Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and São Tomé and Principe.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo is an Equatoguinean politician and former military officer who has served as the second president of Equatorial Guinea since the overthrow of his uncle on August 3, 1979, in a bloody coup d’état. He is the longest-serving president of any country ever and the second-longest consecutively-serving current non-royal national leader in the world (after Paul Biya in Cameroon).
Teodoro Obiang Nguema’s rule was at first considered more humane than that of his uncle. By some accounts, however, it has become increasingly brutal, and has bucked the larger trend toward greater democracy in Africa. According to most domestic and international observers, he leads one of the most corrupt, ethnocentric and repressive regimes in the world.
Several international groups have called for Teodoro Obiang Nguema to observe the following:
* to increase fiscal transparency and accountability by publishing all government revenues, conducting and publishing annual audits of government accounts, including those abroad, and forcing officials to declare assets.
* disclose natural resource revenues, greatly increase spending to alleviate poverty, uphold political freedoms and rights
* to allow judicial practices to meet international standards and cease harassing and hindering his critics and further to allow foreign inspectors and groups to travel freely, unhindered and unharassed.
The constitution grants Obiang sweeping powers, including the power to rule by decree. The economy of this small nation continued to struggle under President Obiang, with the country depending mostly on foreign aid to pay its bills. This changed in 1995 when Exxon-Mobil, the American oil giant, discovered oil in the country. Massive offshore discoveries over the past decade have boosted oil to about 380,000 barrels per day, ranking Equatorial Guinea behind only Nigeria and Angola among Sub-Saharan African producers.
In Equatorial Guinea, despite its natural resources, the majority of the estimated 1.5 million population wallows in abject poverty. Subsistence farming predominates, with shabby infrastructure in the country. Equatorial Guinea consists of two parts, an insular and a mainland region. Equatorial Guinea is the third-largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa.
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.
By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria regained its position as Africa’s leading destination for equity startup investment in the first half of 2026, raising $214 million in equity financing and a total of $254 million across equity and debt, according to the latest Africa: The Big Deal report.
The report, titled H1 2026: Mapping the Money, showed that Nigeria ranked second on the continent in total funding, behind Egypt, which attracted $327 million, while Kenya and South Africa followed with $126 million and $83 million, respectively.
However, the report noted that Egypt’s top position was largely driven by a single fundraising by electric mobility company Spiro, which secured $327 million, including $270 million in equity and $57 million in debt. Excluding debt financing, Nigeria emerged as Africa’s largest equity funding market in the first six months of the year.
According to the breakdown by Africa: The Big Deal, Nigeria’s equity funding of $214 million was higher than Egypt’s $183 million, while South Africa and Kenya attracted $66 million and $46 million, respectively.
Beyond funding value, Nigeria also led the continent in the number of startups that raised at least $100,000 during the review period, reclaiming the top spot after what the report described as an “underwhelming” second half of 2025.
The publication observed that Nigeria’s fundraising performance has remained relatively stable over the past few years and exceeded the $250 million mark for the first time since 2022, pointing to renewed investor confidence in the country’s startup ecosystem.
It also found that while the Big Four startup markets—Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya and South Africa—continued to dominate Africa’s investment landscape, their combined share of total funding stood at 58 per cent in the first half of 2026.
“Zooming back on the Big Four (110 out of 190 $100k+ deals, i.e. 58%), Nigeria is head and shoulders above its peers, with Egypt and Kenya almost tying, and South Africa in fourth position again,” the report noted.
The report highlighted contrasting performances among the continent’s largest startup ecosystems. While Nigeria and Egypt maintained strong funding momentum, Kenya recorded its weakest funding performance since early 2021 after a strong second half of 2025, and South Africa failed to attract $100 million in funding during the period despite leading the continent a year earlier.
Africa: The Big Deal also noted a broader shift in investor behaviour, with funding increasingly concentrated in larger transactions while early-stage investments continued to decline. According to the publication, the drop in smaller funding rounds reflects growing concerns about limited capital available for early-stage startups across Africa.
