Africa-South America ties & a summit put off

It was largely unexpected, at least by the African side, I gather. South America has just requested a postponement of the 3^rd Africa-South America (ASA) summit. It is unclear just yet why South America called off the meeting at this late hour.

The summit was initially scheduled to take place from May 13 to 16, 2012 in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea (for Obiang Nguema to flaunt his stuff again after January’s Africa Cup of Nations). No new date has been agreed upon by the two sides. The postponement is not expected to damage the growing ties between Africa and South America.

The 2^nd ASA summit was held in Venezuela on the theme ‘Closing Gaps, Opening Up Opportunities’. Sixty one (61) heads of state from 61 countries, 49 from Africa and 12 South America attended the summit in Venezuela. Hugo Chavez, who is now ill, loomed large over the 2009 meeting.

Different countries and regions have sought to court the friendship of Africa as a region in recent years even as growth prospects of the continent’s 54 countries continue to improve. Many of these courtships have culminated in glitzy fora and summits and grand announcements, of course with next to no input from citizens and local business owners.

So we now have the China-Africa Forum, Africa-Japan conference (TICAD), Africa-India Cooperation Summit, Africa-Turkey Cooperation Summit and the Africa-European Union Summit. There are many others. The China-Africa Forum seems to have received most attention in the last few years for reasons that aren’t far-fetched.

These meetings have soared in number and profile as global economic power makes a gradual but steady and unambiguous shift to the East, away from the traditional West.

Opinions over the value of these summits are varied in Africa and elsewhere. In Africa, at least, many have expressed worry that these meetings do not build people-to-people relations neither do they deliver tangible results that improve the quality of life of the population. 

Brazil's Lula and Nigeria's Jonathan

Besides that, these summits also appear to be nothing more than polished schemes to perpetuate the milking of Africa’s rich natural resources as some others have done over the last 500 years.

The question really is not whether these allegations are true or not but whether Africa can use these relations to transform itself into an economically vibrant and politically stable place for the benefit of its one billion people.

One thing is clear, given the near irreversible global shifts in economic power, Africa will need some or all of these relationships in different permutations and at different stages of its transformational agenda in the coming decades to thrive.