Australia needs to boost its engagement with Africa, but not for the reasons advocates say we should

Africa’s demographic story won’t necessarily translate to economic opportunities for Australia. But the geopolitical tale matters more.

This article by Dr Kate O’Shaughnessy was originally published in The Interpreter by The Lowy Institute on 3 September 2024.

Australia’s foreign policy focus is – appropriately – the Indo-Pacific. But opportunities and threats can also emerge from regions at the periphery of our focus, like Africa. It’s not a part of the world Australian policy makers think about deeply now, but in the coming years we might need to.

The distractions

Advocates for more Australian engagement with Africa often home in on four points: Africa’s population growth (1 in 4 people will be African by 2050), Africa’s rising middle class (predicted to hit 1.1 billion by 2060), our two-way trading relationship (worth A$9.6 billion), and Australia’s investment into Africa’s mining sector (often estimated at around A$40-60 billion).

But these arguments on “why” we need more engagement, are precisely the reasons policymakers decide “why not.”

Australia’s trade and investment with Africa constitute just 1 per cent of our total pie. We trade more with Vietnam and invest more into the Netherlands than we do with all 54 countries of Africa combined.

And Africa’s demographic story won’t necessarily translate to economic opportunities for Australia – because we lack there the kinds of deep relationships, free trade agreements and strategic partnerships we’ve built up over decades across the Indo-Pacific, which is closer to home and on an equally strong demographic and economic growth trajectory.

And the trends we should consider

In fact, there are strong geopolitical reasons which should compel Australia to strengthen its understanding of and engagement with African countries: the rising influence of China and Russia, the sustainability of the rules-based order, and the global energy transition.

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Chinese and Russian influence in Africa has been fuelled in recent times by African governments’ frustrations with an international community they believe neither respects nor supports them.

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China’s entry point – as elsewhere in the world – has been via infrastructure (principally the Belt and Road initiative) and patient relationship building. In tandem, China has constructed an Indian Ocean-facing military base in Djibouti, invested in port infrastructure (some with potential dual-use capabilities) all over the continent, and, according to US Department of Defence analysis, has at least considered establishing military bases in Kenya, Seychelles, Tanzania, Angola and Equatorial Guinea.

Russia’s engagement has been often through the paramilitary Wagner Group, now well established in Africa’s fragile states: Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Libya, Central African Republic, and Sudan. Wagner’s also been accused of funding disinformation cells in Ghana and Nigeria, co-opting Pan-Africanist voices (a legitimate political movement) to promote anti-Western messages, and exploiting weak governments to enable access to critical minerals. They reportedly sought to buy a 300 kilogram uranium stockpile in Niger. And in 2023, the BBC reported that Wagner was behind the Malian junta’s decision to ban raw lithium exports, forcing Australian miner Leo Lithium to suspend trading and later sell to China’s Ganfeng Lithium.

These developments might seem mostly beyond the scope of Australian interests. But Chinese and Russian behaviour in Africa does have global implications and adds to the risks of long-term global instability.

And this influence is also a part of (although not the only reason behind) the second big trend in Africa that affects Australia: declining support for multilateralism and the rules-based order.

African countries make up one quarter of the international community (and one quarter of the votes in multilateral institutions), but are fed up with a system that Ghanaian President Nana Akufo Addo told the UN General Assembly in 2023 is “helping to perpetuate an unfair world order.” So, African states are voting accordingly. Of the 35 countries that abstained from a UN vote to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, 17 were African, and one – Eritrea – voted with Russia against the motion.

Australia has been a long-standing supporter of Africa in advocating for UN reform (the United Nations Security Council has no permanent African representation). But such is the scale of African disillusionment with the system, that business as usual won’t cut it anymore.

The third trend in Africa that will affect us is the global energy transition, colliding with resource nationalism and geopolitics.

On the simple measure of need, Africa will be an essential part of the energy transition. The International Energy Agency estimates that global supplies of critical minerals must quadruple by 2050 to meet climate targets. That makes Australian mining companies operating in Africa – that 1 per cent slice of our overseas investment pie – also essential.

But China, and sometimes Russia, will again be blockers. China already dominates in Africa’s copper belt (Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia), cobalt (DRC again, 70 per cent of global supplies), and is investing heavily in lithium (Namibia, Mali and Zimbabwe). And China is responding to African demands for more in-country processing in ways that other partners – such as junior Australian mining companies – cannot. In 2023, Chinese company Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt opened a $300 million lithium processing plant, after Zimbabwe’s government banned the export of raw lithium ore.

Chinese involvement in Africa’s critical minerals sector matters not only for Australian mining companies. It matters for global efforts to break China’s monopoly on the processing of the critical minerals needed for everything from smartphones to solar panels to guided weapons systems. (Chinese investment in nickel processing in Indonesia shows the impact for us, with a flooded market and low prices forcing BHP to close its West Australian nickel smelter).

So what should Australia do?

Australia’s not solely responsible for solving these thorny problems. But if we want a stable Indo-Pacific, committed to the rules-of-the-road, we cannot avoid working with and understanding Africa better.

For now, that might mean including some Africa capability in our intelligence assessment agencies, looking for new ways to consult African countries in multilateral settings (and considering them in our strategic communications), or reinvigorating mining support (along the lines of the Gillard-era International Mining for Development Centre, IM4DC).

These sorts of incremental changes to policy aren’t easy to make, because they aren’t urgent. But before it’s urgent is precisely the time to start.