An Opportunity That Can’t Be Missed

On the 27th to 28th days of July, the Russia-Africa Forum will be held in St. Petersburg, opening the doors to a new world.

Time flies unevenly, in certain periods it seems to accelerate, and sometimes more events happen in a year than in a whole decade. Even now the world is undergoing large qualitative changes, which we have not seen for several decades. The international system that existed for years, led by Western countries can be figuratively called the “Golden Billion”, no longer suits the rest of the world.

In the conditions of modern advancement in technology, economy and means of communication, the entire universe is trying to reach a new developmental level. Boundaries between developing and developed countries are blurring. This also affects the international political arena, where other states also want their voices to be heard as well. One of such platforms is the new world order, which will be the Russia-Africa Forum.

Obviously, the country that has now dared to challenge the “golden billion” and the entire West has become Russia. Moscow pays a high price for this: casualties and economic losses. But it is obvious that the leadership of the Russian Federation considered that in the future the damage from the domination of the “golden billion” would be even higher.

In fact, every day Russia again and again proves its viability. As it suddenly turned out, many more countries refused to join the economic sanctions against Russia than the West thought. 85% of the world’s population live in countries that have not joined the anti-Russian economic war. In fact, only the “golden billion” supported the sanctions, and even then not all of them.

Nigeria and other African countries also did not support the anti-Russian restrictions imposed by the West. With a significant part of the African population suffering from hunger, it is simply suicidal to oppose the world’s largest exporter of wheat and food in general. Although the countries of the West probably counted on this, because they continue, in fact, to adhere to colonial thinking. African countries should, according to their ideas, follow in the wake of their “white masters”.

But we need to take the next step more decisively – to take a more active part in creating an alternative to the “golden billion”. In fact, its main contours are already visible; over the past year and a half, the collective South has outlined its position much more clearly, and they immediately began to reckon with it. It can be said that the countries of Africa during the fighting in Ukraine have already come a long way to ensure a decent life for their citizens. The peacekeeping initiatives of African leaders were listened to by both opposing sides, Zelensky and Putin.

The Russia-Africa International Forum, which will be held at the end of July in St. Petersburg, will be another opportunity for developing economic ties, building a mutually beneficial dialogue in the political, cultural and social fields. Interestingly, the first Russia-Africa Forum was held back in 2019 in Sochi. It was an important step in building a coordinated position on many important international issues and demonstrated that Russia was ready to look at African countries as equal partners even before.

The work of this year’s summit will last only 2 days, during this time 4 thematic blocks are planned, which will reflect all areas of cooperation between Russia and the countries of the African continent:

● New World Economy,

● Integrated Security and Sovereign Development,

● Cooperation in Science and Technology

● “Humanitarian and social sphere:

All these will spell out a new quality of life.

The session panel testifies that Russia does not only understand its own problems but also that of other African countries, especially the developmental aspect. As already said above, together we really need to build a new world, because the old one doesn’t accept us, in the old we were on the distant wing, forgotten and doomed.

As for the field of science and technology, even the USSR has always openly shared modern advanced technologies with African countries, unlike the former metropolises, which would like to keep this prerogative for themselves in order to continue to base their superiority on the technological gap. Russia is also open to us, we can see and receive all the achievements of modern Russian science and raise our technological level to its level.

The development of most countries, be it Russia or any African country, will not be possible without a qualitative transition of the majority of citizens to a new standard of living. It is necessary to strive for this opportunity within our countries, and not somewhere, beyond the sea, where for centuries numerous emigrants have been striving in the hope of finding a better life. We ourselves must build worthy conditions for ourselves, and together with Russia, China and the countries of the global South, this task is quite up to us!