Africa is already the frontier – Botswana president

The continent should set its own terms for foreign investors while expanding cooperation with Russia, Duma Boko has told RT Botswana President Duma Boko has challenged the characterization of Africa as the world’s next major economic frontier, arguing that the continent has already reached that position and should deal with foreign partners accordingly.

African nations should approach investors from a position of strength rather than as supplicants, Boko told RT in an exclusive interview.

He said governments must set their own conditions for access to resources, including local processing, technology deployment and skills transfers.

“Africa is actually the ‘now’ frontier,” Boko said.

The president said Botswana is also seeking deeper ties with Russia and is planning to open an embassy in Moscow.

He noted that Russia is the only permanent member of the UN Security Council in which Botswana does not have a mission, describing the absence as an “anomaly” that needed to be corrected.

Read more Can Africa and Russia rewrite global rules, together? Botswana has never maintained a resident embassy in Moscow, despite diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union dating back to 1970.

Russia can provide the expertise and technology needed to survey Botswana’s largely unexplored mineral resources, he added.

“We need these collaborations to explore the rest of the country, about 70% which remains largely unexplored,” the leader said.

Boko sees cooperation with Russia as important for Botswana’s diamond industry.

He said the two countries need to work together to protect the market from oversupply.

He also argued that African economies have historically been geared toward extraction and the export of unprocessed resources, with insufficient emphasis on developing local industrial capabilities and skills.

“We now must focus on not being big on extraction, but take it all the way to actually producing finished goods, which the world needs,” he said.

READ MORE: Botswana seeking partnership with Russia in industrialization drive – foreign minister Boko also backed the African Union’s push for reparative justice, saying developed economies benefited historically from African resources and should acknowledge the consequences of colonial exploitation.