One of the most damaging features of Western engagement with African states has been instruction disguised as partnership
By the end of this week, African foreign ministers will gather in Cairo for the Second Ministerial Conference of the Russia–Africa Partnership Forum. Officially, it is a diplomatic meeting. Unofficially, however, it carries a far heavier meaning.
For many of us who think seriously about Africa’s place in the world, this gathering is less about protocol and more about something we have been denied for a long time: the space to choose, to negotiate, and to define development on our own terms without being punished for it.
Africa has spent decades inside a narrow corridor of “acceptable” relationships. Our foreign policy options were quietly limited. Our economic decisions were audited. Our political experiments were tolerated only when they did not disrupt Western interests. And that history still shapes how Africa moves today. This is why the Russia–Africa partnership matters, not because Russia is “flawless,” but because this relationship emerges from a different historical experience, one that does not begin with the colonization of African land and people.
We do not come to this moment without memory. Africa remembers who colonized it, who drew borders with rulers and maps, who extracted labor and minerals while preaching civilization. We remember the era of European empires, and we remember how, after independence, those empires were replaced by financial institutions, military commands, and development agencies that continued to discipline African sovereignty.
Russia does not belong to that particular history in Africa. It never ruled African societies, never ran settler colonies here, never organized our economies around a racial hierarchy. That does not make Russia virtuous, but it does make the relationship structurally different, and in international politics, structure matters.
It also explains why so many African liberation movements once looked to Moscow when Western capitals saw them as threats. From Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana to Amílcar Cabral’s struggle in Guinea-Bissau, from Angola’s MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) to the African National Congress in South Africa during apartheid, there was an understanding that colonialism was not something to be managed more gently, but something to be dismantled.
That legacy still echoes today, even though the world has changed and Russia itself is no longer the Soviet Union.
One of the most damaging features of Western engagement with Africa has always been instruction disguised as partnership. Aid arrived with political conditions, loans came tied to austerity, development plans were written elsewhere and imposed here, and security cooperation often left behind more instability than safety. Africa was treated less as a partner and more as a project to be supervised.
Russia does not approach Africa through the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank. It does not freeze African assets when governments pursue policies it dislikes; it neither weaponizes development assistance nor claims moral authority over African political systems. This does not mean Russian interests are absent, but it does mean the relationship is less paternalistic, and less obsessed with disciplining African sovereignty. When African ministers sit with their Russian counterparts in Cairo, they are not being summoned – they are negotiating. This distinction matters.
For Africa, the talk of a multipolar world is not theoretical. It is practical and urgent, because a unipolar world has always been dangerous for us. When power is concentrated in one center, Africa becomes a periphery, useful mainly as a supplier of raw materials and a consumer of finished goods. Engaging Russia widens Africa’s room to maneuver, and it creates alternatives. It restores a measure of bargaining power and allows African states to engage Europe and the United States from a position that is slightly less vulnerable. This is what Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere meant when he spoke of non-alignment, not as passivity, but as independence of judgement.
The Cairo meeting is not about choosing Russia over the West. It is about refusing to be locked into a single orbit, a single model, a single set of rules written elsewhere. Choice itself is a form of power.
Economically, Africa’s tragedy has never been scarcity. It has been structure. We export raw materials and import finished goods; we sell cheap and buy dear. Colonialism built this system, and post-colonial dependency preserved it. Western partnerships rarely challenged this structure because they benefited from it. Africa’s minerals powered foreign industries, Africa’s markets absorbed foreign products, and Africa’s debt kept the system in place.
Russia–Africa cooperation offers not a guarantee, but an opportunity to renegotiate that pattern. Energy partnerships can be structured to include local processing. Mining agreements can be negotiated to include African ownership and technology transfer. Agricultural cooperation can strengthen food sovereignty instead of deepening import dependence. Russia is not engaging Africa out of charity, it is seeking markets, influence, and long-term partnerships. That reality gives Africa leverage, if it chooses to use it collectively and intelligently.
Finance is another area where the difference becomes clear. Western finance has shaped Africa more through discipline than development. Structural adjustment hollowed out states, while debt conditionalities undermined planning and credit ratings punished independence. Russia does not dominate global finance, and paradoxically, that is precisely why partnership with Russia matters. It opens space for alternative arrangements, for trade in national currencies, for development strategies not subordinated to Western financial institutions. This is not about abandoning responsibility or transparency. It is about restoring policy space, the ability of African governments to plan, invest, and protect strategic sectors without external vetoes.
On the other hand, for security, Africa must always proceed with caution. We know too well how a foreign military presence can turn into permanent guardianship. Western security frameworks have often meant permanent bases, proxy conflicts, and endless counter-terrorism operations without development. Russia’s approach, whatever one thinks of it, is not framed as a civilizing mission. It does not come wrapped in humanitarian language that later justifies bombing campaigns or sanctions. It is transactional, and requested rather than imposed. Still, Africa must insist that security remains African-led, anchored in the African Union and regional mechanisms. Partnerships can assist, but sovereignty cannot be outsourced.
Throughout all this, Africa would do well to remember its own intellectual and political traditions. When Kwame Nkrumah warned against neo-colonialism, he was warning against a world where independence is symbolic and power remains external. When Amílcar Cabral spoke of liberation as a cultural and economic process, he understood that dependency reproduces itself daily. When Nelson Mandela insisted on an independent foreign policy, he knew that dignity begins with choice.
The Russia–Africa Partnership Forum belongs to that unfinished struggle. It is a reminder that Africa does not have to accept a single path to development, a single definition of partnership, or a single hierarchy of power.
Africa must approach Cairo without illusions. Russia is pursuing its interests, as all states do. The responsibility lies with African leaders to negotiate collectively, transparently, and firmly. Unity remains our greatest leverage. But the very fact that Africa can engage Russia openly, without apology and without fear of punishment, already signals a shift.
When African ministers gather in Cairo, they will not just be discussing action plans and trade figures. They will be testing whether Africa can finally exercise something it has long been denied: the right to choose its place in the world. History will not judge Africa for engaging Russia. It will judge us for failing to turn this opening into sovereign development, fair trade, industrial capacity, and real independence. And that responsibility, at last, rests with us.