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Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.
Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa article.
This week’s highlights: Violence in Darfur escalates in Sudan, tensions rise between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and Kenya announces planned deployment to Haiti.
Saudi Arabia’s African diplomacy
Riyadh hosted African leaders last Friday at the first Saudi-Africa summit on fostering trade ties. Among other measures, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman proposed $10 billion to finance and insure Saudi exports through 2030 and an additional $5 billion in development financing for African nations.
Saudi Arabia is touting both debt relief and conflict resolution to African nations. This month, Riyadh has attempted to mediate peace negotiations between Sudan’s warring generals. And an ambitious blueprint to invest a total of about $25 billion in Africa by the end of the decade was recently unveiled, in fields ranging from clean energy cooperation and counterterrorism to climate change response and cheaper financing.
Back in 2020, during its G-20 presidency, Saudi Arabia had called for the suspension of African debt service payments.
Now Riyadh is starting to put those plans into action. The Saudi Development Fund signed a conservative 2 billion riyals ($533 million) worth of deals with Arab and African governments during the Saudi-Arab-African Economic Conference, which was held ahead of the Nov. 10 summit. “We are working with partners to support Ghana and other countries regarding their debt,” said Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan.
Security experts say that the global energy crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has provided Saudi Arabia with an opportunity to strengthen its influence and become less reliant on Washington.
As Persian Gulf analyst Anna Jacobs writes, “The new technique also builds on the Saudi perception that the United States is unreliable in its de facto role as guarantor of Gulf security, putting more pressure on the Saudi political apparatus to create a geopolitical climate that is conducive to its ends and interests.
The centerpiece of the crown prince’s strategy is Vision 2030, a geoeconomic plan presented in 2016 to alleviate Saudi Arabia’s dependence on oil wealth and expand its economy in renewable energy, sports, tourism, logistics and synthetic intelligence.
Of course, this task requires a variety of partners. To achieve this, Riyadh has followed a comfortable and competitive diplomatic policy towards the countries of the South, especially Africa. And other Middle Eastern rivals have also increased their diplomatic presence on the continent, adding the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Turkey.
“As we know, Africa is a focal point for major powers such as the United States, China and Russia, in addition to emerging countries,” said Khaled Manzlawiy, the Arab League’s undersecretary-general for foreign policy. Its role on the external level requires expanding with both East and West, in addition to the African continent,” Manzlawiy told the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat.
Those efforts culminated with the crown prince launching the King Salman Development Initiative in Africa—a project expected to run until 2030, the global deadline for the U.N. sustainable development goals— at the summit in Riyadh. Moreover, he announced an intention to increase the number of Saudi embassies on the continent from around 27 to more than 40.
Participants included the leaders and foreign ministers of Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Rwanda, Seychelles and Mauritania. Also in attendance were leaders of ostracized African countries in Europe and the United States, Gabon, Niger and Sudanese junta leader Abdel Fattah al. -Burhan.
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu accompanied Riyadh through several ministers, including the ministers of economy, education and national security.
The Saudis agreed to a series of Nigerian investment deals, including one to revamp Nigeria’s four oil refineries and a financial deposit to sustain the government’s foreign-exchange reforms. Other energy agreements were signed with Senegal, Chad, and Ethiopia; meanwhile, the Seychelles sought partnership for managing its exclusive economic zone.
Mozambique’s Ministry of Finance announced that it has signed a $158 million financing agreement with the Saudi Development Fund for the construction of hospitals and a dam.
The occasion was also aimed at uniting Africa in opposition to what Saudi Arabia sees as Israel’s disproportionate reaction in the Gaza Strip to last month’s attack by Hamas militants. It is part of a series of summits organized in Saudi Arabia with Arab, Islamic and African countries to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Leaders attending the African summit issued a joint declaration calling for a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza and intensified efforts toward a two-state solution, the state Saudi Press Agency reported.
Just over a month after the crown prince told Fox News that his country was moving closer to normalizing relations with Israel, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi visited Riyadh on Saturday — the first visit by an Iranian leader to Saudi Arabia in 11 years — to put pressure on Arab nations. The crown prince condemned what he called “violations of foreign law by professional Israeli authorities. “
At the Arab-Islamic summit in Riyadh, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi warned that a delay in ending the war in Gaza could lead to an expansion of military clashes in the region. On the sidelines, Raisi spoke about the normalization of diplomatic relations between Egypt and Iran.
Wednesday, Nov. 15: Ghanaian Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta will present the 2024 budget in parliament.
Wednesday, November 15 to Thursday, November 16: African Finance Industry Summit held in Lomé, Togo.
Thursday, Nov. 16: Presidential elections held in Madagascar.
Wednesday 22 November to Thursday 23 November: EU-Mozambique Global Investment Forum held in Maputo.
Kenya needs 36 million Kenyan shillings ($237. 55 million) to exercise and deploy 1,000 troops to Haiti, Kenyan Home Secretary Kithure Kindiki told parliament on Thursday. The bill excludes costs for other African countries expected to be part of the UN-backed mission. adding troops from Senegal, Burundi and Seychelles. The price tag exceeds the $200 million pledged through the U. S. government for the mission. A lawsuit is underway in Kenya opposing the deployment.
A year after a peace deal signed in Pretoria, South Africa, ended a bloody civil war, Tigray’s leaders say the terms of the deal have not been implemented. Eritrean forces had intended to withdraw from Tigray, but according to a report by the interim administration of the region, around one million Tigrayans remain internally displaced, while several parts of Tigray remain occupied by Eritrean forces and Amhara fighters.
At the same time, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has inflamed tensions with Eritrea over access to the Red Sea, which he said was “an existential issue.” Ethiopia became landlocked after Eritrea’s independence in 1991. More than 90 percent of Ethiopia’s imports currently come through Djibouti, while Eritrea controls the Assab port. As Mohamed Kheir Omer writes in Foreign Policy, Eritrean military sources suggest that the country is now bracing for a potential war as Ethiopia amasses troops and weapons near the border.
Liberians cast their votes on Tuesday in the runoff between incumbent President George Weah and former Vice President Joseph Boakai. Weah got 43. 83% of the votes and Boakai 43. 44% in the first series. It is a rematch of the last one in 2017, lost to Weah through Boakai. Final effects are expected later this week.
Around 4. 5 million people have been internally displaced since fighting began in April between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). In recent days, there has been an increase in the number of civilians fleeing the Darfur region to Chad. A video circulated on social media last week showing ethnic Masalit civilians being detained or shot dead by the RSF and allied militias. The head of the RSF, Mohamed Hamdan “Hemeti” Dagalo, leader of the Janjaweed, a conglomerate of Arab militias accused of murder, rape and torture in Darfur between 2003 and 2006.
The United Nations said last week that it had obtained credible reports that the RSF had committed atrocities against civilians between November 4 and 6 at a military base it seized from the Sudanese army in the Ardamata neighborhood of Geneina, West Darfur. Peace talks have failed to result in a ceasefire. The RSF now controls four of Darfur’s states.
Egypt’s luxury sales. Egypt is close to finalizing the sale of historic state-owned hotels built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the head of the Sovereign Fund of Egypt, Ayman Soliman, said Thursday. The sale forms part of Egypt’s effort to sell $1.9 billion of state assets and enhance private sector participation, which is required for a $3 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan that was approved in December 2022.
Egypt is seeking funding to close a projected $17 billion budget deficit through 2026. According to the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram, the country will face debt service bills totaling $71,000,000. 6 billion dollars in the next 3 years. There are fears that the war in Gaza will have an impact on Egypt’s tourism sector; Meanwhile, rating agencies, including Fitch, have downgraded Egypt’s sovereign rating even further, placing it in junk territory. Fitch said the downgrade reflected the dangers to tourism stemming from the Israeli-Hamas war and the likelihood that Egypt’s final deal with the IMF would be “potentially more significant” after Egypt’s December elections.
A company in the United Arab Emirates is displacing communities. Last week, Foreign Policy reported on the public backlash against UAE investments in ports and land across Africa. Hundreds of members of Kenya’s Ogiek network are being evicted from their land in the Mau forest Sasimwani region, allegedly to give land to a UAE carbon offset scheme, reports the BBC. Last month, Dubai-based Blue Carbon signed a carbon credit agreement with Kenya for “millions of hectares” of forest.
The $2 billion global carbon credits market allows companies to generate higher carbon emissions by paying to preserve forests elsewhere. The firm has similar deals with Liberia, Zambia, and Tanzania, which have been opposed by rights groups.
The global will be the same after the war between Israel and Hamas by Stephen M. Walt
Are Ethiopia and Eritrea on the Path to War? by Mohamed Kheir Omer
The Inevitable Fall of Putin’s New Russian Empire by Alexander J. Motyl
The multibillion-dollar failures of USAID. La U. S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and its contractor Chemonics weakened the functionality of a $10 billion fitness task by “adopting simple goals and performing poorly” while conducting few independent assessments, according to a report by the U. S. Department of Homeland Security. medical supplies (including HIV medicines, bed nets, and contraceptives) around the world. standards; however, according to the survey, Chemonics is most likely to secure more investments despite past failures.
A misinterpretation on the part of Nigerian youth. In Africa Is a Country, Afolabi Adekaiyaoja – an occasional FP contributor – argues that the effects of the Nigerian elections in February, in which Peter Obi (a veteran politician supported by young activists) came third, illustrate that young Nigerians are not a uniform group. The ‘monolithic voice of the youth’ has had far less resonance than expected,” writes Adekaiyaoja, noting that Obi failed to secure critical votes in the North, as FP’s research demonstrates. Adekaiyaoja suggests that one technique of choice would be to take a look at Nigerians through their other generational reports on independence, civil war, and, more recently, military-led and democracy-led governments.
Nosmot Gbadamosi is a multimedia journalist and editor of Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief. She has reported on human rights, sustainable progress and human rights across the African continent. Twitter: @nosmotg
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