Understanding the Emerging Powers Footprint in Africa: A Civil Society Perspective and Guideline

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Administered by: The Emerging Powers Programme

Based at: Fahamu

The Emerging Powers Programme based in Fahamu is offering a one-week 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:

To be able to define, discuss and compare the relationship between the various Emerging Powers and African governments in respective sub-regional settings;
To distinguish the political, economic social and economic footprint of the Emerging Powers in Africa’s landscape.
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

To understand how civil society actors and social justice movements can apply the knowledge on the Emerging powers to their specific needs towards movement building.
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

To strengthen a track two Civil Society platform on the emerging powers in Africa;
To advance 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:

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?
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?

How to Apply:

your e-mail subject line should read ‘Application for Fahamu’s Emerging Powers CSO perspective course – …’ followed by your name.

Applicants should send an up-to-date CV of not more than 3 pages and a motivation letter outlining their interest in this programme and the Emerging Powers in Africa discourse and the benefit their being part of this programme will add to your organization.

Applications should be sent to [email protected]

Deadline: 15 January 2015

For further information please contact

Sanusha Naidu: [email protected]

Edwin Rwigi: [email protected]

* Fahamu (www.fahamu.org) is committed to serving the needs of organisations and social movements that aspire to progressive social change and that promote and protect human rights. Fahamu has extensive experience in distance learning for human rights organisations.