Uppsala
(Sweden): It was a week of Africa in this historic
Swedish university town of castles, cathedrals and itinerant
scholars.
With the African continent's economy predicted to grow at the rate
of around six percent next year, hundreds of experts and
researchers gathered here mid-summer to re-script the unfolding
narrative of Afro-optimism that is set to reconfigure the emerging
geography of power in the emerging world order.
There were rock bands and photo exhibitions celebrating African
resurgence and experts sat in the stately Ekonomikum of Uppsala
University discussing topics ranging from aid politics to the
changing ideas of citizenship in Africa.
The Nordic Africa Institute, a preeminent think-tank in this
region, brought together experts from each of the five BRICS
(Brazil, Russia, India, China and now South Africa) mid-June to
discuss the implications of the rise of BRICS for a renascent
African continent.
China has multiplied its trade with Africa from $3.5 billion in
1990 to over $108 billion in 2010. India's trade with Africa is
estimated to be $45 billion; Brazil's trade is pegged at around
$16 billion; and Russia's bilateral trade is around $10-12
billion.
Africa has become "a vital market" to the original BRIC (minus
South Africa that joined in April) , which increased its trade
with the continent from merely $3.5 billion in 2000 to $166
billion in 2008, according to Goolam Ballim, group economist at
Standard Bank.
While each BRICS country has varying motivations and even
competing ambitions for engaging Africa, there is an increasing
realisation that the emerging powers provide alternative
investment and development paradigms for the African continent.
BRICS presents a powerful challenge to the US and traditional
Western donors and partners, some of them former colonialists, who
have dominated the continent through the IMF-World Bank combine
and their prescriptive aid policies, many discussants noted.
Unlike western countries, BRICS countries do not impose conditions
on doing business with Africa. BRIC countries also like to believe
that their investments in Africa are development-oriented and are
done within the framework of the South-South cooperation.
BRICS countries' engagement can potentially outline how
South-South cooperation can be done differently and outside the
neo-colonial framework, says Dr Fantu Cheru, the co-editor of "The
Rise of China and India in Africa".
Not all agree with this view though, with many critics targeting
China as a mercantilist power pursuing resources, markets, and big
power ambitions in the African continent.
BRICS countries believe that there is a cluster of long-term
strategic goals that bind them and Africa. The reform of
political, security and economic institutions of global governance
is the professed goal of BRIC countries and they know that they
can't achieve this without getting Africa on board.
As the process of reform of the UN Security Council gathers
momentum in New York, the spotlight will be on Africa's position.
Other areas where BRICS countries can make a difference in Africa
include food and energy security; poverty reduction; and inclusive
growth.
Each of the BRICS countries has core competence in different
sectors they can help Africa develop, it was pointed out. India
leads in IT, Russia is an acknowledged space power, China is a
leader in green technologies, and Brazil has broken fresh ground
in agriculture-related innovations.
"If you were to think about Africa collectively, and consider it
in the same framework that informs our 2050 scenarios for the Bric,
next 11 and other major economies, you would see an economy as big
as some of the Brics," says Jim O'Neill, aGoldman Sachs economist
who coined the acronym BRIC to denote the world's fastest growing
economies.
BRICS - it's part of bricolage, an improvisatory evolving process
that is recasting the world order, says James Mittelman, the
author of "The Globalisation Syndrome" and a professor of
international relations at American University who participated in
the conference.
India's second summit with Africa in Addis Ababa last month shows
the possibilities of partnering Africa in its ongoing resurgence.
At the summit, India unveiled a $5.7 billion package for setting
up over 80 training institutions, putting the spotlight on the
development of Africa's most precious resource - its over one
billion people, with nearly half of them young and restless to
make it in a globalised world.
(Manish Chand
can be contacted at manish.c@ians.in)
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