There was no agreement, strictly speaking, between Russians and Africans. But, at a minimum, the Senegalese president brought back a lot of promises from his meeting with Vladimir Putin. Macky Sall, President-in-Office of the African Union (AU), went on Friday, June 3, to Sochi, a seaside resort on the shores of a Black Sea partly subject to the belligerent blockade of the Russian Navy, to ask Vladimir Poutine “to realize that the countries [africains] are victims of this economic crisis”.
One hundred days after the start of the war launched against Ukraine, after a three-hour meeting with the Russian leader, Macky Sall, accompanied by the chairman of the AU commission, the Chadian Moussa Faki Mahamat, is officially gone “reassured and very happy with the exchanges”. He found the Russian president “committed and aware that the crisis and the sanctions create serious problems for weak economies, such as African economies”. ” Punishments “ are those applied against the Russian aggressor by the European Union and the United States – essentially – and whose opportunity divides the 55 member countries of the African Union.
Most of them, however, bear the brunt of the consequences of this distant war. And there is urgency. Between 2018 and 2020, the African continent imported nearly half of its wheat consumption from Russia and Ukraine. According to figures from the African Development Bank, prices for this cereal have risen by around 45% since the start of the year.
To this increase linked to the disruption of supply due to the conflict is added, as a collateral effect of the war, the surge in the price of energy. It increases the transport costs of any imported good. The height of misfortune for the countries of the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, an unprecedented drought for twenty years is hitting them, slimming livestock to death and reducing harvests to nothing in certain regions.
“Hurricane of Famine”
In mid-March, just three weeks after the start of the Russian offensive, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, sounded the alarm. He said he feared a “hurricane of famine” in the most vulnerable countries, mostly located in Africa. He then feared “the collapse of the global food system”.
Since then, the situation has hardly improved. On May 21, in Geneva, Jens Larkey, spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), estimated that 7.7 million children under the age of 5 were at risk of suffering from malnutrition in the Sahel. . In total, in this vast sub-Saharan region running from west to east, from Senegal to Somalia, some 18 million people are in a state of acute food insecurity. However, according to the Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, around 25 million tonnes of Ukrainian cereals are stored and blocked. Another 25 million tonnes could be harvested in June.
Shortly before his meeting with Vladimir Putin, Macky Sall had seen fit to remind the Russian leader that “the majority of African countries have avoided condemning Russia” in two recent votes at the United Nations. He added that with “Asia, the Middle East as well as Latin America, a good part of humanity” preferred to stay away from the Ukrainian conflict. And pointed out that because of Western sanctions “we no longer have access to cereals from Russia or fertilizers”.
“A Countdown”
On Friday, Vladimir Putin would therefore have “reassured” his African interlocutors. “There is no problem exporting cereals from Ukraine”, he argued after the meeting. He mentioned ways to transport them from Ukrainian ports, such as Odessa, currently blocked, or others under Russian control, or via central and eastern Europe by river. “We are ready to offer safe passage to boats using these ports, including Ukrainian boats”, did he declare. Provided, however, that these ports are “demined” by Ukraine and for some of the Western sanctions to be lifted. kyiv says it is ready to accept security corridors, but has expressed concern that Russia could use them to attack the port city of Odessa. As for Western sanctions, far from weakening, they are going crescendo.
Africa is thus caught in this vice, a player considered secondary in a global crisis. In Paris, it is considered that the visit of the President of the African Union is “a warning mission on the crisis with drawers which is preparing in Africa”. But that there is not the sign of a continental alignment behind a Russian partner who is certainly noisy, but who remains an economic dwarf in Africa. “A countdown is on, adds this source to the French presidency. If Ukrainian cereals are not released, a food crisis will occur this year and if future seeds remain blocked, it could be even worse the following year. »
Has Moscow, engaged in a policy of seduction towards the African continent, heard Macky Sall’s plea? “For the time being, we have no indication of a Russian inflection, observes our French source, but it will be difficult for Moscow to maintain its narrative on the blocking of Ukrainian wheat exports through the fault of European sanctions. We had a work of consultation with the African leaders upstream, they are not fooled. » Not fooled, and aware of the risks of social explosions that this European war poses in their countries.