Restructuring Africa’s partnerships easier said than done
The African Union is trying to better coordinate Africa’s engagements with other continents and countries, but this will take time.
African leaders are again asked to travel to a ‘partner’ country in October this year for an inaugural Russia–Africa summit in Sochi. The planned summit was announced by Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov during a visit to Rwanda last year.
This comes at a time when the African Union (AU) is trying to better coordinate Africa’s engagements with other continents and countries. Instead of a loose gathering of all Africa’s leaders with one partner country, the AU Commission proposes that it should take the lead and represent the continent.
A decision was taken at the level of ministers during the 32nd AU summit in Addis Ababa recently to review all ‘strategic partnerships’ and draw up guidelines on how the continent should engage with them. This is part of the ongoing AU reforms aimed at ensuring Africa ‘speaks with one voice’ on the world stage.
Over the years Africa has been largely on the receiving end of such initiatives from outside the continent
Over the years Africa has been largely on the receiving end of such initiatives from outside the continent. France–Africa summits have been instituted by France since 1973 and initially occurred on a yearly basis. They were increasingly criticised for symbolising Françafrique – France’s policy of keeping a hold on its former colonies. United States (US) presidents have also convened summits with African leaders – mostly hand-picking those leaders it wants to showcase. These were rather ad hoc gatherings with little follow-up.
The more institutionalised Forum for China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) and the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) are somehow in another league, with various levels of engagement between summits and detailed roadmaps on implementing the various agreements signed at these meetings.
Still, it has not been clear who should chair the meetings on behalf of the continent and why African leaders should all have to be mobilised when, for example, the leaders of Turkey, India or South Korea want to engage their counterparts. The agendas of these summits are also more often than not dominated by the host country or by issues that might be of paramount interest to one part of the continent and not the collective.
Continent to continent partnerships
The AU–European Union (EU) partnership, referred to by AU Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat in a report tabled at the AU Assembly and seen by the PSC Report as a ‘C2C [continent to continent] partnership’, is at this stage the only one where the AU Commission is an integral part of the planning and agenda setting. Even there, some believe the focus on migration at the 2017 AU–EU summit in Abidjan, for example, shows that the priorities are mostly driven by the Europeans.
Some see these summits and partnerships as the continuous ‘scramble for Africa’ by big powers
Some commentators see these summits and partnerships as the continuous ‘scramble for Africa’ by big powers eager to exploit Africa’s resources and benefit from Africa’s growing consumer market. The summit organised in 2017 by US President Donald Trump, for example, was seen as a reaction to the growing Chinese ties with the continent, institutionalised through FOCAC.
The perception is created that Africa has little agency in determining the direction of these engagements. Clearly conscious of these sensitivities, the AU ministers stress in their draft decision that ‘the principles of dignity and respect should guide the participation of AU member states in partnership meetings’. The decision also ‘reiterates the need to approach all engagements with the AU Strategic Partnerships in a more robust purpose-driven, result-orientated manner and focusing on common African interests’.
The principles of dignity and respect should guide the participation of AU member states in partnership meeting
The AU Commission proposes that in future Africa be represented at partnership meetings by the AU Troika – the current, past and incoming chairpersons of the AU – the chairpersons of the regional economic communities (RECs) and the chairperson of the NEPAD Agency. There is also a suggestion to enlarge the troika to include the AU Bureau, comprising representatives of the five AU regions.
Currently, the decision notes six partnerships: that between the AU and the EU, the AU–League of Arab States partnership, the AU–South America partnership and the partnerships between the AU and India, Korea and Turkey. The ministers are also asking the AU Commission and ambassadors in Addis Ababa to agree on mechanisms to make sure the AU has greater involvement in both FOCAC and TICAD.
Divisions over post-Cotonou negotiations
This is, however, not yet a done deal. The confusion and disagreement among member states concerning the post-Cotonou agreement are indicative of the problems such a proposal could encounter. Initially, African countries had agreed in July 2018 to allow the AU Commission to negotiate a new agreement with the EU for when the current African, Caribbean, Pacific (ACP) accord expires in 2020. The argument made by Mahamat, Rwanda’s Paul Kagame and others was that a new relationship with Europe should be negotiated by Africa as a continent and that the ACP framework is now outdated. The ACP also excludes North Africa.
However, at the AU summit in November last year, divisions emerged among member states and it was decided that the ACP framework should be maintained in the negotiations with the EU.
Divisions emerged among member states and it was decided that the ACP framework should be maintained
In a report presented at the 32nd Session of the Assembly of the AU, Mahamat stated that an agreement had been reached on a two-track approach to relations between Africa and the EU post-2020. On the one hand, there will be the ACP–EU framework and, on the other hand, the AU–EU framework, building on the previous Africa–EU meetings and the AU–EU summit of November 2017. Mahamat stressed that the future C2C negotiations would focus on issues such as peace and security, trade (within the framework of the African Continental Free Trade Area), migration and the promotion of multilateralism.
In this regard, it will be important for African countries to strategise and agree on common positions before each of these summits so that the continent can truly ‘speak with one voice’. With 55 member states that have vastly different development trajectories, interests and historical ties, this is exceedingly difficult.
In the long run, for the strategy on partnerships to work it would also in effect mean agreeing on a common foreign policy for the continent. In a fast-changing global environment, African countries will have to decide on the principles that guide their engagement with the rest of the world. If a number of African member states are opposed to a certain partnership, should this be discussed within the AU? And on what basis
Efforts by Israel, for example, to organise an Israel–Africa summit in Togo in 2017 did not materialise, on the surface because of the internal political crisis in Togo, but also because of the traditional pro-Palestinian stance of many member states and the AU as an institution.
Regulating Africa’s strategic partnerships is clearly a necessity but one that comes with considerable challenges and pitfalls
Linked to the strategic partnerships (beyond simple trade and economics), the growing foreign military presence on the continent has also been a worrying sight. This is one area where the AU will have to step in. It is no small conundrum, as it touches directly on the sovereignty jealously guarded by many AU member states. In effect, the political, economic and military sovereignty of AU member states remains the main stumbling block to the continent’s speaking and acting as one.
Regulating Africa’s strategic partnerships is clearly a necessity – for ensuring peace, prosperity and development on the continent – but one that comes with considerable challenges and pitfalls.
Urgent discussions around this issue will have to take place at the upcoming mid-year summit of the AU between the AU leadership and RECs for the continent to make progress on its nascent foreign policy.
