Seminar: The BRICS and the “New Scramble for Africa"

The BRICS group’s members are, according to the International Monetary Fund, projected to account for around 60% of global growth by 2014. How and why the BRICS interact with Africa is likely to be a major aspect of the continent’s international relations for the foreseeable future. Whilst this has thus far seen accelerated growth within some African countries, major challenges exist that need to be addressed. Some African elites and academics have heralded the rise of emerging powers and their interest in Africa as providing new opportunities for the continent and particularly, freeing Africa from its post-colonial relationships with Europe and the United States. However, credible development policies need to be implemented within the continent, otherwise there is a danger that we may just see the diversification of dependency, rather than any qualitative improvement in Africa’s place in the world. This is particularly so with regard to the economic realm where Africa’s dependent relationship on the global economy is being reproduced, with an intensification of economic activities in primary commodities and a resultant jobless growth scenario. Whilst this is uneven across the continent, it remains the fact that Africa’s impressive growth figures have been based on a 73 percent export growth between 1995-2008 being driven by mining whilst there is evidence of deindustrialization in all other sectors.