From power generation and agriculture to infrastructure development, Africa is a continent of immense potential for external economic engagement. Now, the very character of Russia’s trade and investment on the continent is undergoing change as African economies mature and develop. Denis Degterev, Professor at the Higher School of Economics, explores the hopeful prospects for economic cooperation between Russia and the countries of the continent.
The Russian Federation is entering a new cycle of economic cooperation with African countries. In October 2026, the Third Russia-Africa Summit will take place, and a new Action Plan for the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum for the following three years will be adopted. This provides an excellent opportunity to both look back and assess future plans, particularly since each Russia-Africa Summit has elevated cooperation with the continent to a qualitatively new level.
Since the first Russia-Africa Summit in 2019, trade volume with the continent has grown from US$13.9 billion to more than US$27 billion in 2025—despite Western sanctions, evolving settlement mechanisms, and complex logistical challenges.
The principal qualitative shift expected over the next three years is the transition from trade transactions—particularly high-volume trade flows, such as agricultural exports and mineral fertiliser supplies—to industrial cooperation; from individual projects to the creation of ecosystems bringing together multiple Russian enterprises in Africa across industry, energy, logistics, payment systems, and education.
Over recent years, not only Russia, but Africa itself has changed. A healthy form of African protectionism is developing—“Made in Africa for Africans”. Influenced by developments in the Sahel, the sovereign control of mineral extraction is gaining momentum, along with a desire to move from neo-colonial arrangements towards genuine partnerships in the mining sector. High on the agenda are the extension of production chains across the continent, the localisation of mineral and agricultural processing, and the utilisation of new models of regional integration.
This requires new technological solutions, new expertise, and a new generation of specialists—many of whom are now being trained in Russia. The number of African students studying at Russian universities has reached 37,000, surpassing Soviet-era figures. However, it is not only the scale of innovation that matters, but also the creation of demand for innovation within African countries themselves, alongside the generation of new high-productivity jobs.
Targeted training programmes have proven to be an effective mechanism for aligning national economic development priorities with workforce requirements. In this area, a number of successful examples have already emerged. Among them are Rosatom’s corporate training programmes, through which more than 300 Africans have been educated at Russian universities and are now being integrated into national nuclear projects in Egypt, Rwanda, Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa. It is becoming increasingly common for the African counterpart to act as the client commissioning such training. In this regard, one may cite the example of the Ghanaian corporation Jospong, which commissioned the targeted training of 121 agronomists and environmental specialists at RUDN University, as well as projects implemented by the Centre for Public Diplomacy aimed, for example, at training transport-sector personnel for Togo and Namibia on behalf of national ministries.
Transport is another important area of Russian–African economic cooperation. Africa is the continent of the future, where by 2100 up to 40% of the world’s population will reside and which will account for more than half of global labour force growth. Moreover, this is a young population that readily adopts new technologies, often leading to technological leapfrogging. This occurred with mobile communications and is currently happening with blockchain and financial technologies, which are developing at a remarkable pace across the continent. Attempts are being made to exclude Russia from these promising markets, including through proxies that create obstacles for maritime logistics.
Incidentally, Africans themselves often view maritime logistics with a degree of scepticism. After all, it was through coastal trading posts that the slave trade operated for centuries, and later that colonial—and subsequently neo-colonial—mechanisms for exporting unprocessed natural and agricultural resources were established. Port cities attracted the majority of labour migrating from rural areas and swelling the ranks of the financially unstable precariat within extractivist models that, in some respects, persist to this day. It is through ports that unequal—or, as Africans themselves often describe them, vertical—relationships between Africa and developed countries have been structured.
Today, the decolonisation of the continent’s spatial development—internal economic development of wide territorial scope—is on the agenda, alongside the accelerated expansion of intra-African railways and roads, dry ports, oil and gas pipelines, and cross-border electricity grids. In essence, this involves modernising the pre-colonial routes that existed before the arrival of colonial powers and before the continent was redirected towards what has been described as the “development of underdevelopment” model. Russian economic actors are well aware of this reality, as the further expansion of their economic presence on the continent is increasingly constrained by underdeveloped intra-African logistics.
The prioritisation of continental logistics over maritime transport is becoming ever more relevant as risks associated with sea routes continue to grow, as vividly demonstrated by developments in the Strait of Hormuz. In Russia, too, the need for internal spatial economic development has gained increasing prominence, including within the framework of the concept of Siberianisation. Operating one of the world’s largest networks of overland transport corridors, energy grids, and pipelines linking Eurasia together, Russia possesses genuinely valuable expertise in this field. Land-based transportation should become the backbone of spatial development in both Eurasia and Africa.
Genuine industrial development in Africa is impossible without energy infrastructure—otherwise a vicious cycle of “energy deficit, poverty, and logistical collapse” emerges. Yet the continent remains the unfortunate global leader in the proportion of people lacking access to electricity—more than half of the population. Under the ostensibly noble banner of promoting “green energy”, Western partners have in practice constrained the development of power generation on the continent. Russia is challenging this taboo by prioritising cooperation in nuclear energy with African countries, offering clean and safe electricity generation. The first project, with many more to come, is the construction of the El Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant in Egypt, where memories of the Soviet Union’s contribution to the Aswan High Dam remain alive. Egypt will be followed by other African countries, where a variety of available technological solutions can support the development of electric power systems. The continent’s Western partners have been compelled to respond reactively by developing alternative strategies for cooperation in the nuclear sector.
Will the commissioning of the El Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant influence Egypt’s socio-economic development? Undoubtedly—and clearly for the better. Will a substantial increase in the number of engineers and medical professionals contribute to the development of individual countries in Tropical Africa? Certainly—and once again, positively. The beneficial impact of individual Russian project solutions on Africa’s development represents a prototype of those theories—still at a middle level of development—which, as additional elements are added to these emerging ecosystems, may eventually coalesce into an alternative and superior development model for the continent. Such a model would be based on strengthening the sovereignty of African states, including in the economic sphere, and on raising their levels of prosperity.
In this context, it is important that Russia’s industrial cooperation programmes with African countries are aligned with those countries’ national priorities and development agendas, as articulated in sectoral and economy-wide development strategies. Russia possesses extensive experience in such alignment. Soviet programmes of technical and economic assistance played a decisive role in supporting the sovereign industrialisation of many African states, even though these achievements were partially eroded during the 1990s through the implementation of structural adjustment programmes promoted by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Today, the dynamic taking centre stage is the new phase of industrial cooperation between Russia and African countries, one that is unfolding at the next stage of technological development.
