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BY Nomatemba Tambo, South Africa’s High Commissioner to the UK 2018-2022

HE Nomatemba Tambo, daughter of apartheid activist and former ANC President, O.R. Tambo, is a prominent South African diplomat and politician who served as South Africa’s High Commissioner to the UK between 2018-2022.

The first two months of Donald Trump’s presidency have caused tumult on the pages of international broadsheets, as commentators struggle to comprehend the structural transformation taking place in the global political order.

But in truth, the new rules of the game have been clear for many years now. We live in transactional world order, where developed nations seek economic and strategic self- interest in their dealings with the developing world.

Africa urgently needs partners that take a long-term view to the continent’s economic development. Over the last five years, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has come to fill this role more than any other nation.

It was strangely underreported in African media, but in December of last year the UK’s Guardian newspaper revealed that the UAE had become the largest investor in Africa.

Emirati companies announced $110 billion of projects between 2019 and 2023, outstripping traditional partners China, the United States and European Union. It’s not the volume of investment that’s remarkable, but rather the sectors targeted.

As the United States returns to oil and gas and China remains reticent to contributions to a global climate fund, the UAE has emerged as Africa’s most steadfast partner in financing the continent’s transition to the green energy future, with 65% of the $110 billion dollars pledged set to be invested in renewables.

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As China scales back the Belt and Road Initiative on the continent amid its slowing economic growth and deepening debt crises in Africa, the UAE has forged forward with investment in critical infrastructure, currently operating or constructing 12 container ports across the continent through Emirati companies like DP World and Abu Dhabi Ports.

As uncertainty prevails over the liquidity of European financial markets, Dubai has emerged as the centre for African firms seeking business and financing. Meanwhile the number of African companies choosing to register in Dubai has grown significantly in recent years.

The UAE’s role is not just limited to economic development. The country has taken an active role in the continent’s diplomacy in recent years, convening the fifth meeting of the Somalia Quint in Abu Dhabi in February last year and jointly hosting a High-Level Humanitarian Conference on Sudan in Addis Ababa in February.

The SAF’s seizure of Khartoum’s presidential palace last week underscores the importance of facilitating negotiations between the two parties in Sudan’s destructive conflict, which is already approaching its third year. And when negotiations are finally able to begin in earnest, Emirati financial muscle will be vital to Sudan’s reconstruction.

Africa’s pivot towards the UAE has been evident for years now, but many commentators are yet to catch up. And the structural pressures of current international politics are only likely to incentivise the disengagement of Africa’s historic economic partners from our continent.

Donald Trump has all but committed to an isolationist path, which threatens to undermine the continent’s economic and development ties with the United States. The 90-day freeze on foreign aid and current tensions with South Africa are being cautiously observed by African leaders looking to understand the future of US engagement.

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Concerns too remain over China’s economic slowdown and stubbornly persistent deflation. Political attention in Beijing is, regardless, being diverted to prospects of a fully blown trade war with the United States, leaving little room for China’s leaders to reignite its Africa policy.

The political debate in Europe is already dominated by confrontation with Russia, relegating the importance of engaging in Africa’s economic development to the bottom of the agenda. And the United Kingdom’s decision to axe its foreign aid budget in favour of defence spending is indicative of the calculations being made across European capitals.

Our transactional times will demand forward-thinking policymaking to safeguard our continent’s strategic interests.

Africa’s priorities must remain those that have occupied its leaders for many a decade: reducing structures of economic dependency on foreign powers and laying the foundations for sustainable growth in the long-term by stimulating domestic production and investing in the continent’s infrastructure.

But the realities of geopolitics mean the nations that will partner with Africa towards this goal are not those that have long been familiar to us.

The UAE is now Africa’s primary development partner, and so it’s time our political debate reflected this.