Engage Africa policy: Can China help Pakistan?

A few years back, Pakistan drafted “Engage Africa Policy” with high hopes and goals. The policy was aimed to capitalise on Africa’s growing markets by forging economic partnerships, trade linkages, joint ventures and enhanced connectivity. The policy was launched with a pump-and-show. Pakistan also organised a few events on the African continent to explore the potential for partnerships.

“Engage Africa Policy” was indeed ambitious, but it had, and has a sound rationale. The policy was based on understanding that certain African countries were importing Pakistani products, but through a third country. For instance, South Africa imports sports goods and surgical instruments from Pakistan via Germany.

This arrangement is disadvantageous for both Pakistan and South Africa, leading to lower selling prices for Pakistan and higher buying prices for South Africa. This is one example. The “Engage Africa Policy” was aimed to rectify such problems and others, potentially leading to mutual benefits for both countries.

Africa is an emerging market. It is rich in resources and a big consumer market. It is wise to enter the market and secure maximum benefits for Pakistan.

The policy, however, could not yield perceived benefits for different reasons. Pakistan did not take the practical steps required to benefit from the market. The most prominent example has been discussed above. Pakistan and South Africa still have to sign a comprehensive trade agreement to facilitate direct trade.

Pakistan did not analyse the African market, challenges, opportunities and diplomatic relations of African countries. It neither developed a matrix of opportunities, challenges, risks, and strengths nor mapped the market players. Understanding the current state of the play and players in the African market was necessary to make “Engage Africa Policy” a success story.

Pakistan must analyse the market and players. It will help Pakistan draw up a better policy and action framework. In this context, we try to analyse Africa, its market dynamics and the players in the market. The analysis identified shortcomings and highlighted a few important lessons for Pakistan.

First, many players are trying to strengthen their position in the market by launching initiatives such as Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Asia-Africa Growth Corridor (AFGC) by Japan and India as alternatives to BRI. The US and EU have also launched programmes to benefit from African market and create an alternative to BRI, such as Build Back Better World (which has been rebranded as Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment).

Second, Pakistan did not analyse India’s role in Africa. It is imperative because it is an open secret India is actively running anti-Pakistan campaigns across the world, and Africa is no exception.

The analysis indicates India has deep roots in Africa due to its historic linkages and continuous engagement. A vast Indian diaspora is present in Africa. The business community has also developed deep linkages and presence. It ranges from entrepreneurship to industries.

Indian industry is also a beneficiary of concessionary investment packages in Africa. It has been running multiple training and educational programmes for decades. It has targeted professionals from government, private and civil society. Indian Technical Economic Cooperation is one such programme for economy-related actors. It also invites medical and paramedical staff and energy and agriculture professionals to benefit from Indian expertise. India has embassies in 47 (established and planned) countries in Africa.

Moreover, Japan and India joined hands to launch Asia-Africa Growth Corridor (AFGC) as an alternative to BRI. Therefore, AFGC is of special significance to Pakistan, as Pakistan is home to CPEC, a flagship project of BRI.

How should Pakistan proceed? There are two options to make “Engage Africa Policy” a success. Pakistan must overcome its rhetoric and try to sign economic and trade agreements with African countries. It is suggested Pakistan should prioritise agreements with BRI-affiliated countries. It can also explore options to sign a trade or cooperation agreement with African Union under the initiative of African Continental Free Trade Area (a 1.2 billion people market with more than $3 trillion GDP).

Moreover, Pakistan should try to map the commodities or products it exports to a particular country via a third country. After mapping, it should contact the importing countries to explore options for signing direct agreements.

Pakistan should work closely with China and find ways to partner with it in different initiatives. In recent times, China has expanded its footprint with quite impressive speed. It has a broader network of embassies and has established 53 embassies in Africa. Moreover, from 2000 to 2022, Chinese institutions extended $134.1 billion in loans and development assistance to African countries.

It is important to mention assistance was without any lectures or strings. The development assistance helped Africa with its development agenda. China is also the continent’s biggest trade partner, with a total trade value of $282.1 billion in 2023. On the other hand, Africa has shown great interest in joining Belt & Road Initiative. According to latest data, 52 countries and African Union have signed cooperation agreements with BRI.

China is further enhancing its comprehensive partnership with Africa. President Xi proposed ten partnership action plans to strengthen bilateral linkages while delivering a speech at China-Africa Cooperation Cooperation Summit 2024. The action plans cover areas of mutual learning among civilisations, trade prosperity, industrial chain cooperation, connectivity, development cooperation, health, agriculture and livelihoods, people-to-people and cultural exchanges, green development and common security.

President Xi announced China will allocate 360 billion yuan (almost $50 billion) to implement ten partnership actions. However, China will work closely with African countries to finalise these actions. This will be done to ensure all programmes under these actions follow the country’s specific interventions.

In this context, Pakistan should build joint programmes with China for African countries. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) provides us with an opportunity to pursue this. The process can be started by establishing a trilateral special economic zone, “The China-Paksitan-Africa Special Economic Zone at Gwadar”. On similar lines, Pakistan can explore establishing a trilateral special economic zone in Africa.

Pakistan, Africa and China can explore options to declare trilateral sister cities under BRI. It will assist in enhancing cooperation at the lower levels. It will also give a push to people-people exchanges and tourism, especially to youth exchange programmes.

Pakistan can also work with China and Africa under Global Development Initiative to formulate trilateral forums like Agriculture and Heritage, Food Security, Climate Change and Poverty alleviation. Pakistan can also work for creating a “trilateral digital economy” platform under the BRI.

These are a few examples of how Pakistan can explore more options to enhance cooperation further. Pakistan must avoid rhetoric and come up with some concrete proposals and actions like establishing missions in Rwanda (March 2021), Ivory Coast (February 2022), Uganda (April 2022), Djibouti (May 2022) and Ghana (June 2022).