Africa ready for second Russia-Africa Summit

African nations, including Namibia, are getting ready for the second Russia-Africa Summit and the Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum set for 27 to 28 July in St Petersburg.

According to the summit organising agency, Roscongress Foundation, the forthcoming summit will contribute to the strengthening of comprehensive and equal cooperation between Russia and African countries in all dimensions, including politics, security, economy, science, technology, culture and humanitarian practice.

Other fields, such as agriculture, education, energy resources and digitalisation of the economy, are also part of the focus areas over the two days.

The published programme of the forum includes more than 30 panel discussions and thematic events on the most important issues of interaction between Russia and African states.

Last year, more than 6 000 participants and media representatives from Russia and 104 foreign countries and territories attended the forum.

Among the participants were 1 100 representatives of international business, around 1 400 representatives of Russian business, 1 900 members of official foreign delegations and over 300 Russian delegation members.

There are also events that are targeted to the development of trade and economic relations, existing and potential joint projects in the oil and gas sector and agribusiness, the creation of transport infrastructure, construction and nuclear energy.

The organising agency said these events are focused on the comprehensive strengthening of Russian-African cooperation and are intended to determine the trajectory of the development of Russia’s long-term relations with African countries.

“The Russia-Africa Summit is an event that plays a key role in the development of Russian-African relations.

It is thanks to this format of interaction that we will be able to achieve a qualitatively new level of mutually beneficial partnership as soon as possible which is capable of meeting the challenges of the 21st century,” said Evgeny Terekhin, the ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of Russia to Ethiopia.

Terekhin, chairperson of the coordinating committee for economic cooperation with African countries Igor Morozov and the head of the foreign relations department of the chamber of commerce and industry of the Russian Federation, Ilya Nesterov, were at the roundtable.

NJ Ayuk, the executive chairperson of the African Energy Chamber; Ekaterina Kiseleva, the deputy general director for Development of Kundalinik; and Alexander Makarov, the general director of TraceCORE LLC also joined the roundtable discussions.

At last year’s summit, a final declaration was adopted by the participants.

The document outlined a set of goals and objectives for the further development of Russian-African cooperation in politics, security, the economy, science, technology, culture and humanitarian fields.