Summit diplomacy and African agency — Folashadé Soulé

In Pursuit of Development

Several countries are vying for the African continent’s attention. While there has been considerable attention on China’s and India’s motives and interests, Russia, Germany, France, the UK, Turkey, Japan, South Korea and Middle Eastern countries are all trying to increase their footprint on the continent.

An important first step for many of these countries is to organize a summit – a major gathering of leaders and other high-level officials to discuss how African countries can further strengthen trade and diplomatic relations with this one country hosting the summit. The goal of these events is basically to promote the idea of achieving win-win outcomes for all involved parties.

This growth in so-called Africa plus 1 summit diplomacy has generated renewed interest in better understanding the growing competition among major world powers on the continent. But in trying to explain this growing interest in strengthening relations with African countries, there is often a tendency to downplay the role and influence of African countries in setting the agenda of these high-profile events, and how African leaders articulate their needs and interests.

My guest this week argues that we really need to better understand the motives behind the increased engagement in ‘Africa + 1’ summitry by African politicians and bureaucrats.Indeed, rather than viewing these individuals as passive participants, we must recognize the numerous ways in which such summits and other high-level platforms that involve the continent, offer opportunities for African leaders to express and exert agency in both symbolic and substantial ways.

Dr Folashadé Soulé is a Senior Research Associate at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. She studies agency in Africa’s international relations and the politics of South-South cooperation. She is also the initiator of the Africa-China negotiation workshop series, which brings together African negotiators and senior policymakers to exchange and build better negotiation practices when dealing with China.

• '"Africa+1" summit diplomacy and the ‘new scramble’ narrative: Recentering African agency', African Affairs, volume 119, Issue 477, October 2020, pp. 633–646
• 'How popular is China in Africa? New survey sheds light on what ordinary people think', The Conversation, November 2020
• 'Tips for African Negotiators Doing Deals with China: Rebalancing Asymmetries', Natural Resource Governance Initiative (NRGI) blog post, February 2020
• Folashadé Soulé on Twitter
• Dan Banik and In Pursuit of Development on Twitter

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