Late final yr, over 50 African leaders gathered in Riyadh for the first ever Saudi-Africa summit. Convened by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, it introduced collectively a mélange of democrats and dictators, reformers and kleptocrats, younger go-getters and long-ruling dinosaurs. Their goal? To wangle a slice of the $40 billion Saudi Arabia plans to spend money on Africa.
For the African leaders in attendance, the summit was a golden alternative to acquire beneficiant assist and cheap loans from one of many world’s richest international locations. However to these tuned into geopolitics, the gathering spoke to a a lot larger development: the recent expansion of financial and political hyperlinks between the Gulf petro-states and their African counterparts.
Anxious about rising Chinese and Russian influence in Africa, U.S. officers have began encouraging the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia to play a much bigger position in continental affairs. Expanded commerce and funding ties between Africa and the Gulf states may deliver some win-win prosperity and improvement. However there’s additionally a darker dimension to Gulf states’ deepening involvement in Africa that Washington ignores at its peril—one which undercuts its said dedication to advertise democracy and good governance there.
A brand new scramble? Not fairly
The exponential improve in Africa-Gulf connections is simple. In 2023 alone, Gulf states made funding pledges worth over $53 billion—nearly 4 instances more than the United States. A couple of many years in the past, Gulf states started leveraging cultural and spiritual ties throughout North, East, and West Africa. At present, their presence is continent-wide. As buyers, they create their petro-dollars to bear in sectors like mining, business agriculture, and infrastructure.
Even after COVID-19 decimated air links between Africa and the remainder of the world, the nationwide airways of a number of Gulf states keep a dense community of routes all throughout the continent. This implies African political and enterprise elites nonetheless take pleasure in quick access to the Gulf’s monetary and business hubs.
In some methods the oft-repeated Scramble-for-Africa metaphor doesn’t match the brand new Gulf-Africa relations. Not like through the colonial onslaught that happened within the late nineteenth century, African governments train loads of company as they forge worldwide relationships. As a substitute of sending troopers and laying declare to pure sources, exterior powers are investing enormous sums throughout Africa.
Likewise, Gulf international locations are largely tired of interfering in African international locations’ inside political affairs. Many African leaders favor this strategy to Western democracies’ finger wagging on democracy, human rights, and fascinating with China and Russia. They typically welcome the strictly transactional nature of their dealings with Gulf states, whose banks and dealmakers are extra prepared to do enterprise in conflict- and corruption-prone areas than their Western friends.
The stability sheet of Gulf-Africa relations is a posh one. On the upside, Gulf states present African international locations with funding flows—particularly in key areas like vitality and infrastructure—that may assist modernize their economies. Its monetary facilities have change into an indispensable platform to service African corporations in addition to main international buyers. Dubai, deemed “the New York for Africans now,” is a major gateway for international buyers who wish to do enterprise on the continent.
The downsides of the Gulf-Africa relationship, nevertheless, proceed to negate a lot of its advantages. For instance, highly effective smuggling networks—especially in gold—are a significant supply of interregional monetary flows. A lot of this under-the-radar financial exercise is centered on Dubai, which has change into a major destination for illicit financial flows that sap the economies of nations all throughout Africa. The checklist of African oligarchs and politicians who’ve discovered protected haven in Dubai is a veritable rogues gallery of the continent.
Described as a “a free cannon that arms warlords and spreads chaos,” the UAE has additionally fueled instability and humanitarian disaster on the continent by backing armed teams in Libya and Sudan. Qatar and UAE have additionally helped bankroll South Sudan’s ultra-corrupt regime. Saudi Arabia has likewise showered loans on the Central African Republic’s Kremlin-backed regime.
Counterweight or millstone?
Washington’s specific assist for Gulf international locations’ involvement in Africa reveals how a lot its Africa coverage has modified because the finish of the Obama Administration. Bruised by a collection of coups in Mali, Niger, Chad, and Gabon—all longtime U.S. army companions within the Sahel area—Washington not appears in a position to articulate why African international locations ought to companion with democracies over dictatorships.
Worse, U.S. officers have begun smooth pedaling the nice governance, human rights, and humanitarian considerations that after anchored their Africa coverage. By overlooking how these priorities underpin African international locations’ stability and prosperity, Washington has as a substitute picked a struggle with China and Russia over who has extra affect on the continent this week, this month, this yr. As a part of this pseudo-realpolitik strategy, Washington has begun nudging Gulf states to invest in Africa—significantly its strategically-important mining sector. In doing so, it has chosen to prioritize nice energy competitors above all else.
Whereas Washington’s myopic concentrate on undercutting its adversaries could yield quick time period positive factors, it is not going to essentially profit the U.S. or African international locations over the long run. As a substitute of greenlighting a no-holds-barred scramble for the continent’s pure sources, the U.S. ought to leverage its deep ties to the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and different Gulf international locations to make sure that their actions deliver progress and improvement—not corruption, smuggling, and warlordism—to Africa. Doing so would present that Washington understands that, in relation to worldwide companions, high quality issues greater than amount.