Our Common Strategic Interests: Africaʼs Role in the Post-G8 World

Tom Cargill

African countries, both individually and collectively, have an important and growing role in international affairs. Ahead of the June G8 and G20 Summits, co-hosted by Canada and South Korea, this report argues that Western governments must engage with Africa in more than humanitarian terms if they do not want to lose global influence and trade advantage. New global players such as China, Turkey, South Korea and Brazil understand this and are boosting their diplomatic and trade relations with African states. The emerging economic powers of the G20 see Africa in terms of opportunities to invest, to gain market share and to gain access to resources, while Western policy-makers still consider engagement with Africa as essentially soft and non-strategic. The report further argues that only private-sector-led growth will ultimately deliver the development Africa needs.

Publication date: June 2010 ISBN 978 1 86203 224 8 £10.00

Available from: www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications