It is the need of the hour that India and the African countries collaborate to control the outbreak of the pandemic and to mitigate its long-term economic impact.
Africa is a geopolitical arena where many big powers have been engaging either due to their own strategic interests or due to the changing dynamics of geopolitics. Russia is no exception. Russia’s interests in Africa are mainly due to heavy investments in raw resource megaprojects and as one of the major suppliers of arms. However, Russia needs to unveil an ambitious and new vision that could satisfy the requirement of African countries and subsequently could be leveraged for tangible rewards for Russia, and the year 2019 set the tone for such actions.
Israel’s relations with African countries go back to the late 1950s when it began extending significant support to many African countries undergoing decolonisation. Since then the relations have experienced many fluctuations with a major shift seen in the past few years. There has been an accelerated improvement under the premiership of Benjamin Netanyahu, who proactively pursues an African region centric ‘Return to Africa policy’.
The recent spate of violence in South Africa appears to be rooted in the country’s failure to fully transform itself in the post-apartheid era. If the government fails to effectively address the issue of rising unemployment and widening socio-economic inequality in the country, the violence is likely to recur from time to time.
Existing concepts (e.g. ‘non-interference’ and ‘pragmatism’) remain too vague to provide explanations for China’s increasingly assertive security policy. To avoid this pitfall, this article adopts a narrower focus on Chinese security policy towards Africa.
China's Belt and Road Initiative helps African countries in reducing the infrastructure gap in the region. However, it also leaves them open to the risk of unsustainable debt.
Facing huge political and security challenges in the Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia now looks westward to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden coast for a new regional security arrangement.
As the digital infrastructure backed by China becomes increasingly prevalent in the African continent, it is also important for the latter to have enough oversight to ensure that these tools are not misused. Moreover, it would be more beneficial for Africa to allow other players to thrive in the region.
With John Bolton conceding that the US has limited resources to compete with the tens of billions of dollars that China is pouring into Africa, it is not clear how effective America’s new Africa strategy would prove to be in containing China.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent tour of Rwanda, Uganda and South Africa increased to 26 the number of African countries visited by very senior leaders, thus contributing to a significant reduction in India’s visibility deficit in the continent.
