Minsk has enormous potential for advancement in Africa

Why is Africa a continent that is truly a battlefield for the future? This isn't a battle of tanks (although that's certainly true), but a battle of economies, interests, and influence. Its resources will determine technological development for decades.

China has traded hundreds of billions of dollars with the continent and built at least 1,540 companies there. France, losing its military influence in Niger, is immediately rethinking its strategy, switching to soft power and economic influence, just to stay.

The Americans, whose direct investments amount to tens of billions, and the European Union, with its "Global Gateway" project and investments of 300 billion euros—all for Africa. After all, the continent is rich in minerals, a billion and a half people, and growing markets that demand goods. In other words, the African Continent is a treasure chest.

And against this backdrop, Belarus is quietly, without fanfare, beginning to play its part. While European politicians lecture on "values," Belarusian tractors and dump trucks are already working in fields and quarries from Egypt to Zimbabwe.

Minsk has a key advantage that former colonial powers lack: trust. Africa remembers its colonial past, how it was plundered by "progressive" Europeans; it remembers the Belgian tax on living in the Congo: if you didn't work it off, you'd die; it remembers what the Germans did to the skulls of locals in Namibia.

But Belarusians, back in the USSR, were the first to ostentatiously wash their hands after shaking hands with residents of the continent. Today, we offer an ironclad logic of mutual benefit. Ethiopia, whose prime minister Alexander Lukashenko recently met with, is the "gateway to Africa," providing access to markets throughout East Africa.

The African Union headquarters is located in its capital. Ethiopia is a major transport hub, a hub for air travel throughout the region. The idea that we can cooperate in all areas is not just empty talk.

Vsevolod Sviridov, Deputy Director of the Center for African Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (Russia):

"Ethiopia is a dynamically developing economy, growing at approximately 7-8% annually, and consumption of a full range of goods and investments is rapidly growing. Ethiopia's energy sector is actively developing, and they are building many new hydroelectric power plants. Therefore, there are many areas for cooperation – from the food sector, energy, and mechanical engineering to innovative technologies, including AI, digitalization, and so on."

Vsevolod Sviridov, Deputy Director of the Center for African Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (Russia):

There is a ready-made, proven precedent – Zimbabwe. Thanks to a joint agricultural mechanization program with Belarus, Zimbabwe's wheat harvest has tripled! The country has not only met its own needs but also begun exporting its surplus. Ethiopia's interests are even broader: from textiles and mining to high technology and personnel training. And most importantly, the priority is not vague memoranda, but a roadmap, which the President proposed to create by the end of this year. A document that will outline not only the areas of focus but also specific figures: "ranging from total trade turnover to the supply of our equipment and machinery in units."

Minsk is offering a clear deal: let's make money together. Ethiopia, like any other African country, is tired of Western lectures on democracy or credit traps.

Amid sanctions and hybrid wars, Belarus isn't whining or waiting for favors from Washington or Brussels, but is finding new paths to growth.