Push for multipolar economic world gains momentum, and why Africa is an important piece in the power play

 

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin with African Union chairperson and president of the Union of Comoros Azali Assouman at the Russia-Africa Summit recently.

JACK ZIMBA

THE Russia-Africa Summit held in St. Petersburg recently had one overarching message – a push by Vladimir Putin for a multipolar economic world, and the de-dollarisation of the world economy (which basically means promoting international trade in other currencies other than the dollar).

A multipolar economic world refers to a system where there is more than one central power or the domination of more than one nation or region.
In other words, the push is to end America’s hegemonic domination in the world.
During a plenary session, Mr Putin was unequivocal in his quest to win Africa over to his side of the geopolitical divide, which has only widened with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, on one hand, and the cold war between the US and China, on the other.
And the Russian leader had a strong bait to woo African nations – grain.
The second Russia-Africa Summit came just weeks after the collapse of the grain deal brokered by the United Nations to allow grain exports from Russia to various parts of the world, including Africa, which is much in need of the supply.
Of course Africa’s dependence on Russia and Ukraine for grain supplies only became apparent after the war between the two countries over two years ago.
In 2022, Russia exported 11.5 million tonnes of grain to Africa, and almost 10 million tonnes in the first half of this year.
The collapse of the grain deal, which Mr Putin blamed on the West, posed a threat to many African countries, but the Russian leader promised a solution – free shipments of thousands of tonnes of grain to African countries most in need: Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, the Central African Republic and Eritrea.
Mr Putin, known for talking tough, was endearing in his speech, addressing the 17 African heads of state that had shown up at the summit as “my friends”.
But the fact that less than half of the leaders on the continent showed up in St. Petersburg, far less than the 44 that turned up for the inaugural summit in 2019, could have sent a strong message to Mr Putin that perhaps not everyone is willing to jump over the geopolitical chasm.
But that did not stop him from sharing his vision of building strong ties between Russia and Africa and, in essence, ending the dominance of the US and its allies.
The Russian leader’s vision is to increase and improve access between Africa and Russia.
“Connecting the North-South transport corridor with Africa, launching regular freight lines, which is our goal, and opening a Russian transport and logistics hub in a port on the eastern shore of Africa could be a good start of our cooperation,” he said.
He said expanding a network of direct flights to Africa is also “extremely important”, as well as improving the railway network on the continent.
“These are the most important goals of our time that we invite our African friends to tackle together,” he said.
Of course there is a reason why Africa has become a significant piece in the power play, and why it is being courted by both the West and East.
For Mr Putin, Africa’s potential is obvious to everyone.
The continent’s annual gross domestic product growth in the past two decades averaged four percent, exceeding the world’s average, with a fast-growing population set to hit 1.5 billion in the next few years, doubling in the next two decades.
Russia has a growing economic presence on the continent.
Last year its trade with African countries in agricultural products increased by 10 percent to US$6.7 billion.
Moussa Faki Mahamat of Comoros, who also represented Africa as chairperson of the African Union Commission, also added his voice on behalf of the continent to the call for a multipolar world.
“The multipolar world of the 21st century cannot close on itself. That is why Africa wants to establish a fair and mutually beneficial partnership with the entire world. In particular, economically, Africa, where 3.8 billion people will live by the end of the century, wants to work closely with more partners, both bilaterally and multilaterally. Given the abundance of our human and natural resources, the dynamics of our continent, the workforce that we have, we look forward to close cooperation,” he said.
Core to having a multipolar economic world is the expanding BRICS (now joined by Egypt, Bangladesh and the United Arab Emirates) and its financial arm, the New Development Bank (NDB), established in 2014.
NDB is now a full-fledged development bank with 98 projects approved in member countries, worth US$35 billion.
Dilma Rousselff, who is former president of Brazil, is president of NDB. She spoke at the summit.
She said the goal of NDB is to accumulate resources to facilitate logistics and infrastructure projects in different countries so as to promote the development of their energy and social infrastructures such as schools, universities and medical facilities, as well as digital infrastructure.
But one ambitious goal of NDB is de-dollarisation of the global economy by having member countries of the BRICS trade among themselves in local currencies.
“Our programme for 2022 to 2026 provides for a share of about 30 percent for transactions in national currencies. I would like [you] to pay special attention to the fact that using national currencies is one of our priorities in the process of building a new architecture of financial relations in the world. We are not saying that the currencies now in use should be replaced. What we mean is that the range of currencies now in use should be expanded as should the existing financial infrastructure. This is meant to prevent the economic shocks that poor nations suffer once crisis hits the Western economies.
“We no longer want to be affected by these changes and figures, which we cannot control. We just suffer from their consequences,” said Ms Rousselff.
She explained that NDB will receive money in different markets and in the currencies of all developing nations, not only in dollars or in euros.
“We would like to increase the number of transactions in national currencies in order to strengthen the markets of the countries that are part of the NDB,” she said.
Many global leaders now acknowledge that a multipolar world is no longer a matter of if, but when.
In her keynote speech to the US Council of Foreign Relations in New York back in April, Christine Lagarde, who is head of the European Central Bank, analysed the issue of a multipolar world economy.
“The global economy has been undergoing a period of transformative change. Following the pandemic, Russia’s unjustified war against Ukraine, the weaponisation of energy, the sudden acceleration of inflation, as well as a growing rivalry between the United States and China, the tectonic plates of geopolitics are shifting faster,” she said.
According to Ms Lagarde, “We are witnessing a fragmentation of the global economy into competing blocs, with each bloc trying to pull as much of the rest of the world closer to its respective strategic interests and shared values. And this fragmentation may well coalesce around two blocs led respectively by the two largest economies in the world.”
The US sees China, which is part of the BRICS, as the biggest threat when it comes to the “pole war”.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said in a speech at George Washington University in May last year: “China poses the most serious long-term threat to the international order, and is the only country that – along with a serious desire to reshape the international system – possesses the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power qualified to do so.”