Understanding the Emerging Powers Footprint in Africa: A Civil
Society Perspective and Guideline
Online Course
Administered by: The Emerging Powers Programme
Based at: Fahamu
The Emerging Powers Programme based in Fahamu is offering a ten-day online
course analyzing the footprint of Africa’s engagements with emerging powers
from the Global South. The course provides a unique opportunity for civil society
practitioners (in particular activists, community based leaders, undergraduate
and postgraduate students, commentators, journalists and trade unionists) to
unpack and debate the nature of the relationship between Africa’s regional
economic communities and key actors from the Global South. The course is
designed to provide insights into the linkages and influences these emerging
powers have had on the “Africa Rising” narrative and the continent’s integration
into the international system.
Undoubtedly, the rise of Southern actors (such as Brazil, China, India, the Gulf
States, South Korea, and Turkey) have unleashed a new wave of research and
media inquiries into the impact that these actors are having on continental
processes, especially on intra-regional trade, natural resource governance, social
development, nepotism and corruption, environmental concerns related to
infrastructure projects and extractive industries as well as the pending effect on
Africa’s development prospects, and public diplomacy. While African
governments have enjoyed a more than robust and warm engagement with some
of the actors, African civil society groups have found themselves at the margins
of trying to shape the debate and actually play a monitoring role. This has led to
differentiated responses and reactions by civil society actors in trying to serve
the interests of their constituencies in formulating a sustained response in
holding these actors and respective African governments accountable and
transparent about the nature of the footprint of the emerging powers in the
continent’s external engagements. As a contribution to empowering civil society
actors in gaining the appropriate knowledge and developing the necessary tools
to articulate an informed perspective on the emerging powers in Africa and the
corresponding impact, this ten-day course is aimed at building the following
competencies:
Knowledge and Understanding:
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To be able to define, discuss and compare the relationship between the
various Emerging Powers and African governments in respective subregional settings;
To distinguish the political, economic social and economic footprint of the
Emerging Powers in Africa’s landscape.
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To gauge the strengths and weaknesses of Africa’s relationship with the
Emerging Powers.
To understand what factors and issues shape Africa’s engagement with
the emerging powers and vice versa?
To assess the impact the emerging powers have for Africa’s broader
external engagements with traditional actors and global processes?
To evaluate whether African states can formulate a regional or
continental response to their engagement with the Emerging Powers?
To critically evaluate the impact of the Emerging Powers on Africa’s
identity in global politics.
Skills and Abilities
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To understand how civil society actors and social justice movements can
apply the knowledge on the Emerging powers to their specific needs.
To develop monitoring and evaluation strategies on the engagement
between African governments and the Emerging Powers.
To formulate a critical knowledge base on the behaviour of the emerging
Powers in Africa.
Judgment and Approach
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To strengthen a track two Civil Society platform on the emerging powers
in Africa;
To advance online debates, advocacy campaigns, and developing
coalitions and partnerships across the spectrum based on collaborative
research projects, joint programmes of action and lobbying interventions.
To host and develop more people focused forums as alternative platforms
to the BRICS Summit, the Forum on China-Africa Forum, World Economic
Forum, and the India-Africa Forum Summit.
To garner the necessary knowledge tools to engage with regional
economic communities and the African Union around a CSO policy
response to Africa’s interactions with the Emerging Powers.
The course is built around the following set of core issues and questions:
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Who is benefiting from the engagement with these new actors and how?
Is it enough to talk about 'African countries' as if they comprised a
homogeneous population with the same material interests?
How are the interests of Africa’s ruling classes being strengthened by
their relationships with these actors from the South?
To what extent are the interests of the new actors being enhanced? And
what are the consequences for the rest of us?
How do we define the 'national interests' of these new actors? Is it in the
same way as for African states? And do the national interests of African
governments intersect with the national interests of African people? Is it
enough to identify only the national interests of the actors as a central
feature of the engagement?
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What is the impact of the engagement of the new actors on class
formation, capital accumulation, inequalities, and so forth?
What opportunities does engagement with the new actors from the South
provide to social movements and other citizen organizations to advance
their interests and those of the oppressed by playing one imperial power
against another?
What will the consequences be of rapid capital accumulation by a class of
African traders that has positioned itself to trade vigorously to and from
these new markets in the South?
To what extent is the antipathy and xenophobia towards emerging
powers and potentially vis-à-vis other actors a reflection of competition
among the petty bourgeoisie?
How sustainable is the role of the emerging powers in Africa?
The course is divided into four parts, which are described below. While the
course aims to provide an overview of the emerging powers in Africa, it must be
emphasized that not all the emerging powers from the Global South can be
studied. Therefore the course will identify the main actors, namely the BRICS and
IBSA and formations like MINT, as well as those like South Korea and to a lesser
extent the actors from the Gulf region.
Part 1:
This section will focus on two issues over two days:
1) An Introduction on the Emerging Powers from the Global South, which will
examine the following set of issues:
 From colonialism to independence;
 Historical linkages and common experiences with Africa;
 Foreign Policy trajectories during the Cold War
2) An understanding of the domestic affairs that influences and shapes the
Emerging Powers current global footprint. The section will try and debunk the
assumption that the Emerging Powers are domestically and internally
homogenous. The issues underlining this section are:
 Factors that have led to their rise;
 The Identity of these actors in the Post-cold War period and a changing
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Global Order;
Their role in regional and international institutions;
Competition with traditional development partners;
Defining Identity in International Institutions; Regional Organizations in
Global;
Shaping a new international architecture on development cooperation
and aid effectiveness;
Part 2
This section of the course will involve a regional scoping analysis on the
footprint of those main emerging powers in Southern, Eastern, West and North
Africa. It will provide insight into what informs the Emerging Powers’
engagement with Africa. The main emphasis in this regard will be to capture the
following aspects:
1. Who are the current Emerging Powers actors in Africa’s regional settings?
2. What factors drive their engagement in the respective regions?
3. How can the relationship be defined in terms of the engagement, and
impact?
This section, which is informed by the above three points will seek to answer the
following questions:
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Are the actors engaging in similar and consistent terms across the
continent?
Which sectors appeal the most to these actors?
What are their focal points of entry and for regional influence and
engagement?
Which are their strategic investment hubs and how does their
engagement in respective regions serve the emerging powers’ national
interests?
What is Africa’s response to these actors?
Discussions in this section will be broken down into two days and include
the following topics:
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The Scramble for resources
Resource based conflicts
Environmental Impact and sustainability
Trade Investment and Aid
Competition with African traditional development partners
Part 3
This section will explore two aspects of Africa’s engagement with the emerging
powers. The first will be to assess how continental and regional institutions as
well as national governments are responding to the emerging powers and the
second is to understand the African Civil Society reactions. This section will
discuss the following issues:
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The formal African response – Local, regional and continental
engagement and the political, economic and social impacts on democratic
spaces, local livelihoods, migration, culture, human security and cross
border linkages;
Analysis from the ground – What can Civil Society engagement and
Interventions do in terms of Strategy, Lobbying and Mobilization for
Action Dissemination and Communication?
Part 4
This is the practical section of the course, which will be undertaken in the last
three days of the programme. In this section participants will work in groups and
identify a particular issue that is of concern and related to the Emerging Powers’
presence across the local, regional and continental spheres. The activity is geared
towards the process of implementing the knowledge of the first two sections into
practical activities. Participants will be required to develop and cultivate
accountability and lobby mechanisms either on their own or through strategic
partnerships with like-minded institutions. The aim of the task is to come up
with interventions and possible frameworks around a programme of action on
the Emerging Powers by developing coherent engagements and policy actions
when dealing with the Emerging Powers. In developing such practical
components, participants will work in groups to articulate action plans for how
they would like to advance their programmes on Emerging Powers and to
engage with the African Union and national governments in this regard. At this
stage participants will be encouraged to identify particular issues that are
relevant to the nature of their work and to engage with experts/networks in the
field around the topic. The end product should entail a course of action that the
participants will advance by demonstrating how they seek to do so whether
through campaign, advocacy or lobby; who the target audience is and what is the
desired outcome. The assignments will serve as the basis for evaluating
participants on the course.
Note:
The course will be conducted online via Google + Hangouts. <Kindly look through
this pdf guide on how to use Google +Hangouts.> The discussions will be
undertaken in the format of 2 two-hour tutorials per day. In preparation for the
tutorials participants will be given readings for the relevant parts in advance.