Sochi, (New Ziana) – Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov said on Sunday cooperation between Moscow and Africa was expanding in multiple areas, particularly in the economic sphere.
Speaking at the Russia-Africa Foreign Minsters’ Partnership Forum here, he said Moscow was keen to cooperate with Africa genuinely with no strings attached.
He offered Russia’s helping hand in a broad range of areas, including economic, social and security, and said this would have no masked neo-colonial intentions as assistance from the West.
Lavrov said Russia and Africa shared a similar quest to break free from the West’s centuries-old geopolitical stranglehold on the world, particularly on their economies.
In this regard, he said Russia could offer Africa investment and trade terms with win-win terms to ensure the development of the continent.
But Lavrov said, in today’s global geo-political set-up in which the West was fighting fiercely to retain its economic overlordship of the world, it was imperative for Russia and Africa to first establish economic links and mechanisms that were outside the control of western nations to ensure and secure sustainability of their growing ties.
He was referring to the West’s rampant misuse of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, global trade payment systems, and reserve currencies – which western nations dominate and control – as instruments of hegemony which Russia and Africa must avoid.
“Our countries and people are united by not only longstanding friendly relations, but also by a shared desire to make the world we live in safer, more predictable and to ensure reliable conditions for sustainable development,” Lavrov said.
“We see this common aspiration as the ideological and psychological foundation for our work within the framework of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum,” he added.
At the forum, attended by 40 African foreign ministers and over 1500 delegates, eliminating the West’s control of the levers of the world’s economy dominated debate.
This comes against the background of the West’s weaponisation of such trade and economic levers as the US dollar, and the Swift global payment system, both indispensable in the global economy.
Russia was cut off from Swift by the West at the start of its conflict with Ukraine in 2022, and USD300 billion of its reserves stashed in western banks were also seized, sowing panic around the world.
“There is need to get rid of the financial and economic mechanisms that are controlled by the West for us to cooperate effectively and sustainably,” Lavrov said.
Monique Nsanzabaganwa, deputy chairperson of the African Union Commission, echoed similar sentiments, and said the continent was working towards a common currency, and establishment of an independent trade payment system.
“We are looking at this issue strategically; the establishment of the Pan-African Settlement System,” she said.
New Ziana
