Since invading Ukraine, Russia has sought to increase the region’s share of its total global trade above the current 3.7%, with specific attention to increasing African primary commodity exports to Russia. However, African exports to Russia still make up a tiny 0.4% of the region’s total exports. In addition, Russian foreign direct investments in Africa amount to about 1% of the total flow. These numbers are not what one would expect from an alleged geopolitical heavyweight that is supposedly about to remake the region’s alliance terrain.
While Moscow is a leading arms supplier to a number of African states — a fact that is often cited a multiplier of its influence in the region — the actual numbers are inarguably underwhelming. Earlier this year SIPRI, a Swedish tracker of conflicts and trade in arms, noted that Russia had increased its share of weapons supply to Africa to 26% of the regional market share. The report was greeted with the usual willfully ignorant shock and alarm. Yet the figure quickly loses its punch once one realizes that it represents less than $115m in flows to a region of 54 sovereign states. Arms sales in Africa simply aren’t what they used to be (see below).
Here is more from Ken Opalo.
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