Everything will be said and done about the UK-Africa Investment Summit which opened in London on Monday, January 20. With the Great Britain/Africa Summit, all the five members of the Security Council (United States, China, France, Great Britain, and Russia) therefore have their very high level individual meeting with the African continent.
By Abba Seidik
In this exclusive with APA, African contributor, Seidik Abba believes that “the London Summit is indeed, the climax of a process.”
Anticipating its departure from the European Union, Britain has launched an all-out offensive on Africa over the past two years.
At the political and diplomatic levels, the British, who have so far entrusted their African policy to the High Representative for Foreign Policy of the European Union, have decided to enrich their diplomatic and consular network with the opening of new embassies particularly in Mauritania, Niger and Chad, three countries, which were not necessarily in their traditional sphere of influence.
By gaining a foothold in the Sahel (Mauritania, Niger, Chad), post-Brexit Britain wishes to remain a key player in the resolution of burning international crises.
On closer inspection, the diplomatic offensive supports an economic presence that the prospect of Brexit has led to consolidate.
In addition to Nigeria and Kenya, its most favored African economic partners, Great Britain signed in September 2019, a new commercial partnership agreement with South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique and Namibia.
And as a token of the importance its attaches to economic exchanges with Africa, British direct investment in Africa reached £ 38 billion in 2018, according to the British National Statistical Office.
The German Model
Just as Germany had done by launching its initiative with Africa under the name “Compact with Africa,” in favor of the G-20 Summit in 2017, London intends to bet on trade and mutually beneficial partnerships.
The Commonwealth Development Corporation, an entity in charge of private sector investment, will be the tip of the British offensive spear in Africa with a budget of about £ 7 billion.
Across the continent, finance, new technology, agriculture and renewable energy are post-Brexit Britain’s targets.
In the logic of post-EU Great Britain, the paradigm is not to announce large amounts of aid for African development, nor is it to make debt cancellation, but to increase exchanges with Africa, which currently amount, for the Commonwealth member countries alone to nearly 9.8 billion pounds a year.
It is therefore clear that for the London Summit, Britain has a long-standing agenda with quantified targets and even a strategy to assess the progress of its Africa policy.
And again Africans have no agenda of their own
On the other hand, like other summits with the rest of the world, Africans will come to London with no specific agenda.
Indeed, there has been no prior African consultations (pre-Inter-African Summit), not even among Commonwealth member countries.
Each state will therefore come with specific expectations.
There is ultimately little hope that the London Summit will be able to advance major continental projects such as the funding of trans-Saharan roads, continental railroads, the Great Green Wall, or even the agenda to placate hot spots with major tensions: the Lake Chad Basin, the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, and Libya.
However, African leaders will leave with the satisfaction that they have received with all due respect and a few announcements an increase in the volume of trade, of which we do not know the main beneficiaries.
Because it is part of the same tradition, the London Summit will not be fundamentally different from the big meetings that Africa has already had with countries such as China, France, Russia, Japan, Germany, and Turkey.
At best, it will be another dress rehearsal, which will bring no added value to the mobilization to improve the well-being of Africans.
ABS/Los/cd/fss/as/APA