Stanislav Mezentsev
MINSK, 19 May (BelTA) – Belarus’ authority in Africa will keep growing, Stanislav Mezentsev, a senior researcher at the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said in an interview to Belarus 1 TV Channel, BelTA has learned.
According to the expert, Africa is the last and only continent in the global world with a large mineral base, a variety of resources from oil and gas to gold, diamonds, and rare earth metals. “It is not even fully explored, which opens up excellent prospects,” Stanislav Mezentsev stressed.
Africa has the fastest growing population. “Today, there are already one and a half billion people living on the African continent. The average growth in 2024 was estimated at 105,000 people per day. This means it is a huge growing market for any goods and services,” the senior researcher noted.
“It's a huge growing young labor market. It is an easily trainable labor market, interested in getting jobs. Therefore, today is the right time to move to Africa,” he is convinced.
The senior researcher pointed out that Belarus launched active interaction with Zimbabwe in 2017. “When the global situation changed, you happened to be ready for these changes, ready for these sanctions. Because there is a third force, there are partners who are interested, despite all the sanctions, despite all the ploys that the West is using to slow down the development of Africa's cooperation with Belarus, Russia and other partners. A well-thought-out political strategy, designed for the long term, has borne fruit,” he said.
According to Stanislav Mezentsev, agriculture has been identified as a strategic priority of bilateral relations between Belarus and Zimbabwe. “The Republic of Belarus is an expert from the times of the Soviet Union to the present day in how to build farms in the right technological, modern way. It knows well how to fertilize the land in order to produce good harvests, despite difficult climatic conditions. You have passed on your know-how to Zimbabweans who unfortunately did not have the expertise at the time when the cooperation was launched. It was a very difficult situation for the Republic of Zimbabwe. It was practically on the verge of a serious economic crisis. The result we are celebrating today is the country, which was dependent on imports of all foodstuffs, today, thanks to cooperation, thanks to technological interaction at the level of agriculture, sells grain to its neighbors for the first time. This is a huge success,” the expert said.
He also noted another factor that is extremely important for the mentality of Africans. “The state visit [of the president of Zimbabwe] to the Republic of Belarus is over. The president of Belarus saw off the president of Zimbabwe at the airport. Western partners, other countries often underestimate the personal factor of relations. The fact that Aleksandr Lukashenko has chosen such a format of communication with African leaders means a lot, it will pay off a hundredfold. You will see the growing authority of Belarus in Africa. It is also due to the fact that the work is carried out at the level of top officials, at the level of ministers. We are not afraid to go to Africa, we are not afraid to invite presidents to visit us, we are not afraid of equal relations with them. Showing it, demonstrating it, emphasizing it is very important for Africans, for their mentality,” Stanislav Mezentsev said.
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