Why RussiaAfrica Summit must deliver more than speeches and photo opportunities

 

A section of African Presidents pose with Russia's President Vladimir Putin for a photo during the BRICS summit in Kazan on October 23, 2024. [AFP]

As African leaders prepare to descend on Moscow for the third Russia–Africa Summit on October 28–29, one uncomfortable question deserves a direct answer.  What exactly has Africa gained from these expensive diplomatic gatherings?

For years, Russia has presented itself as Africa's dependable friend, champion of sovereignty and defender against Western domination. President Vladimir Putin has mastered Pan-African solidarity, invoked colonial injustices and promised a more equitable international order.

Yet behind the grand speeches, ceremonial handshakes and carefully choreographed photographs lies an inconvenient reality. Russia's economic contribution to Africa remains minuscule compared with China, Europe, and the United States.

The summit risks becoming an expensive sightseeing pilgrimage, offering African delegations generous travel allowances, diplomatic entertainment and opportunities for Moscow to demonstrate that it is not internationally isolated.

Africa deserves better than serving as an audience for Russia's geopolitical theatre.

At the inaugural summit in Sochi in 2019, Putin promised to double Russia–Africa trade to $40 billion within five years. By 2022, trade remained around $18 billion, below its 2018 peak of approximately $20 billion.

Russian investment accounts for less than 1% of foreign direct investment into Africa. Meanwhile, Africa's trade with the European Union, China and America operates on an entirely different scale.

Although Moscow has maintained longstanding diplomatic and security relationships with several African countries, historical friendship cannot substitute for measurable economic benefits. Kenya illustrates this imbalance particularly well.

In 2024, Kenya exported goods worth Sh6.3 billion to Russia while importing Sh76.6 billion, leaving a staggering trade deficit exceeding Sh70 billion.

Our exports remain concentrated in tea, coffee and spices, while Russia sells us cereals and fertilisers worth billions.

After years of diplomatic courtship, where are the Russian manufacturing investments, technology partnerships, industrial developments and employment opportunities for Kenyan youth?

Contrast this with the Africa Forward Summit, co-hosted by Kenya and France in Nairobi in May. It announced €23 billion in investment commitments, including €14 billion from French investors and €9 billion from African investors. Kenya secured five financing agreements worth €170 million targeting energy, water, digital connectivity and education.

Such commitments should define Africa's international partnerships, not endless declarations of goodwill and ideological solidarity.

Equally significant, Nairobi demonstrated something Moscow should seriously consider.  Why must African leaders repeatedly travel to Russia for a summit supposedly founded on equal partnership?

Why not hold the next Russia–Africa Summit in Ouagadougou, Addis Ababa, or Lilongwe?

If Africa is genuinely an equal partner, Russia should travel to Africa, experience its investment environment firsthand and engage directly with African businesses and communities.

More troubling is the recruitment of African nationals into Russia's war in Ukraine, an issue that diplomatic pleasantries cannot conceal.

Kenyan authorities have reported over 300 citizens linked to the conflict, including 84 killed or missing. Families still lack answers about missing relatives and the recovery of their remains.

These are not abstract geopolitical statistics. They represent grieving families whose sons travelled abroad seeking economic opportunities and ended up on foreign battlefields.

How can African leaders celebrate friendship with Moscow without demanding accountability for their citizens?

The upcoming summit must therefore be about more than another round of declarations on sovereignty, multipolarity and Western imperialism.

African governments should arrive with clear demands for reciprocal market access, funded investments, technology transfer, industrial partnerships and credible safeguards for African nationals.

The era when international relations could be sustained through ideological nostalgia, ceremonial hospitality and flattering speeches should be over.

Africa's greatest diplomatic asset is its growing economic importance. Its leaders must negotiate accordingly.

Putin may understandably want a spectacular gathering to demonstrate Russia's continued global relevance, particularly to European capitals. But African taxpayers should not finance an expensive diplomatic pilgrimage merely to provide the Kremlin with impressive attendance figures.

When the delegations return from Moscow, success must not be measured by photographs taken, allowances earned or speeches delivered.

It should be the investments secured, jobs created, markets opened and African lives protected.

Anything less makes the Russia–Africa Summit another costly exercise in diplomatic tourism.

The writer is a Pan-African political commentator