Summits in the east (Beijing, and Vladivostok) occurring in early September 2024 featured participants planning how to meet their developmental needs as opposed to recent ones in the west, (Washington, and Rome), which featured participants ignoring their needs to try to rule the world despite being a minority.

Both the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) and Eastern Economic Forum of September 2024 featured participants discussing ways of developing infrastructural and trade in their countries, while the recent US-Africa Summit 2022, and G7-2024 featured attendants expressing their perceived right to rule the rest of the world, while using Africans as cheerleaders. This article investigates which between western and eastern summits give adequate attention to Africa’s developmental needs, while proposing practical steps to meet such needs. It also compares the summits’ conveners to find out which between them offers practical partnership for Africa’s development journey.

Summits in the West; US-Africa Summit 2022, and G7-Italia 2024

The US–Africa 2022 summit featured President Joe Biden stating how his country needed to partner with Africans to fight pandemics, lower food prices, and tackle climate change. Therefore, Washington invited Africans to ignore their long-term challenges of underdevelopment in infrastructure, manufacturing, healthcare, and education, and instead concentrate on its vague vision. The pandemic that Biden referred to had already ended, revealing deliberate efforts to distract Africans with trivia. Still, Biden did not outline practical steps for lowering food prices. Furthermore, his inviting Africa’s partnership to fight climate change displays a desire to sidetrack Africa’s development, since the continent has contributed minimally in creating the challenge, and has equally limited ability to address it. Generally, Biden displayed Washington’s predisposition for enabling its huge multinational corporations to sign potentially unequal trade deals with African states. He gleefully mentioned the presence........

© New Eastern Outlook