Photo Credit: Owomugisha Blessing Immaculate on Twitter.
Amid tough pressures from the West and other economic conditions, Iran, Russia, and China are increasing their footprint in Africa. A few African countries, including Kenya, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, are now openly drifting eastward from the “West” to align with rising powers in the Middle East, Asia, and Eastern Europe.
Eyes on Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran
In recent years, China has been the single largest investor in Africa, with the figures even expected to grow. In 2022, China’s investments on the continent were valued at $282 billion, nearly two-thirds of which were poured into twelve resource-rich African countries– South Africa, DR Congo, Zambia, Ethiopia, Angola, Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Algeria, Ghana, Tanzania, and Mozambique. According to Xinhua News, a state-owned Chinese media outlet, China topped the list of investors in Uganda in Q3 of the 2019/20 financial year.
Some of China’s major investment projects in Uganda include Uganda’s first-ever toll road, the Kampala-Entebbe Expressway, a 51km four-lane highway, the 183 MW Isimba hydropower project, and the upgrade of Entebbe Airport, Uganda’s only international airport, among others. In Kenya, China funded the $764 million Nairobi Expressway, and 90% of the $US4 billion 480-kilometer Standard Guage Railway (SGR) connecting the capital Nairobi to the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa, among others. Finally, in Zimbabwe, China is Zimbabwe’s second-largest trading partner and, like in the cases of Uganda and Kenya above, the largest bilateral lender. According to the Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Guo Shaochun, speaking in October 2022, China’s direct investment stock in Zimbabwe reached over $2 billion by the end of 2020 and ‘is still rising.’ In fact, most African countries are heavily indebted to China. In Kenya’s case, a recent analysis by Business Insider put Kenya's debt-to-GDP ratio at 69.7%. A 2023 research finding put Kenya’s current debt at $6.3 billion as of March 2023, 64% of which was owed to China. Unsurprisingly, although it was an oversight by Kenya’s Auditor General that Kenya was at the point of losing its Mombasa port over defaulting China, Kenya’s debt is worrying.
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and China’s Future in Africa
Most of China’s economic engagements with the African continent have been through the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing’s multitrillion-dollar infrastructure financing project in Asia, Europe, and Africa launched in 2013. The mega infrastructure projects have been met with numerous criticisms by Western countries. Recently, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen accused China of leaving countries “trapped in debt”.
September this year will mark 10 years since the BRI was announced. However, analysts doubt the progress of the BRI in the 10 years since its launch. Two major issues have been raised with the BRI: the inability of the borrowing countries to repay the BRI loans and the depletion of the BRI funds.
President Xi, although still determined, must have learned something from delivering and nurturing the BRI baby for 10 years. In November 2021, President Xi encouraged companies and their regulatory bodies to prioritize ‘small and beautiful’ projects in international cooperation and to avoid ‘dangerous and turmoiled places’. But what happened to the “projects of the century” that President Xi envisioned at the launch of the BRI in Astana, its birthplace, back in 2013? China is not going to invest in megaprojects anymore through the BRI.
Russia: The ‘Politics First’ Friend of Africa
Unlike China and perhaps the traditional Western ‘friends’ of Africa, Russia’s Africa strategy in the new “battle for Africa” has taken on a rather political dimension. Russia’s strategy believes in economic growth and other forms of development after political stability. On the economic side, Russia has had very little to offer the African continent, with total investments accounting for only about 1% of investments on the continent. Since 2017, Russia’s Wegner Group, a Private Military Company linked to the Kremlin, has expanded its operations to about half a dozen African countries, including the Central African Republic (CAR), Mali, Sudan, and Libya. It is estimated that the Wegner Group’s presence in Africa is about 5,000 troops, and they provide military support to their ‘clients’ and sometimes engage in direct military activities.
However, Russia might rethink its engagements with Africa to include more economic investments. This might be due to the recent Western sanctions directed at the Kremlin over its forceful intervention in Ukraine. Over the past six months, Russia’s Foreign Minister has visited numerous countries in Africa, including Uganda, Kenya, Mali, South Africa, and Burundi, among others.
Uganda, especially, seems to upset the West after President Museveni welcomed Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, in July 2022, just about six months after Moscow invaded its next-door neighbor, Ukraine, an act Uganda abstained from condemning in a UN vote.
At Lavrov's visit a year ago, Uganda’s President, a long-standing ally of the West, tweeted, most probably referring to the West, “How can we automatically be against those who have been with us for the last 100 years? We have forgiven those who did bad things to us and we are working with them, How about those who have never harmed us?”
In fact, just as China initiated the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), Russia also held its first Russia-Africa Summit in 2019 and is due to hold the second from July 27-27, 2023, in St. Petersburg. In the first Russia-Africa Summit, the Kremlin pledged $14 billion in arms sales to Africa annually.
The arrival of Tehran
The geopolitical situation in Africa is getting more complex, with prominent ‘friends’ losing positions and new players joining the competition.
The President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, just wrapped up his Africa tour in three countries: Kenya, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. The heavily-sanctioned, and internationally ‘isolated’ nation might be in search of rescue in Africa. In fact, President Raisi, who only took office in August 2021, has embarked on the “Look to the East” policy, first proposed by Iran’s first supreme leader, Khomeini Ayatollah, in the 1970s to counter Western hegemony. Khomeini’s “East” was mainly Russia and China, but Raisi seems to expand the policy to cover the geographically farther Southwest and Southwest of Iran, including Africa.
Victims of the same “calamity.”
Iran has survived under sanctions for years after refusing to abandon its nuclear program. While the economy of Iran struggles to recover from the series of sanctions, Tehran seems to have resorted to an adaptation mechanism to live under Western sanctions. The first batch of Western sanctions on Iran was imposed in November 1979, and the country has since faced various magnitudes of sanctions. My Iranian friend, whose identity I choose not to disclose for security reasons, responding to our conversations on sanctions in Iran, mentioned that ‘I lived in sanctions all my life.' But Iran has proven that sanctions may not mean “total death” after the economy survives. Today, Iran’s economy is the 11th largest, with a total GDP of nearly $2 trillion. This is a large economy for a population of just about 86 million people.
Under former President Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe received its first dose of Western sanctions in 2002. The economy suffers from growing public debt, the impacts of COVID-19 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, poverty, and climate change, among other difficulties. According to the African Development Bank (ADB), the Zimbabwe dollar depreciated 521% against the US dollar in 2022, falling from 108 per US dollar in January 2022 to 671 in December 2022. Despite the Western sanctions, Zimbabwe continues to press on. Meeting the Iranian top leader in Harare on July 13, President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Raisi promised to strengthen bilateral relations amid Western pressure.
In Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni ‘pledged a stronger partnership with Tehran in agriculture, fishery, automobile, and energy. The two countries signed four Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) on Visa exception, agriculture, joint permanent commission, and joint communiqué. The Iranian leader outright attacked the West over homosexuality. This comes as Uganda has recently received enough criticism from the West over the anti-gay law it passed back in May. US President Joe Biden issued a statement condemning Uganda’s anti-gay law and ordered an investigation into the law to arrange punishment for the East African nation. This might be one of the reasons for Uganda’s eastward tilt in recent months.
On the one hand, conditions on the continent have recently forced several African countries to look to rising geopolitical powers, including China, Russia, and Iran. On the other hand, China, Russia, and Iran, amid tensions with the West, have sought partnerships with Africa. Beijing, although it dominated Africa’s investment space for a long time, is now rivaled by rising Russia and Iran. Whether or not these relationships bear fruit remains to be seen.
Comments