The Relationship Between Africa and Brazil

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After the slavery abolition in 1888 and throughout the 20th century, Africa figured relatively low in Brazil’s foreign policy agenda, which have mostly focused in the relations with the global powers such as the United States and European countries. This configuration started to change significantly in the early 2000s, when the improved macroeconomic situation of Brazil coincided with Africa’s economic revival. The turning point was, with no doubt, under former President Lula’s mandate (2003-2010).

Revoking historical ties and cultural similarities, Lula’s discourse was frequently based in frames such as: “paying back the solidarity debt with the African continent, due to centuries of slavery relied on the sweat and blood of millions of Africans” and the necessity to stop focusing in developed powers, in order to “unite the voices of the global south” (Veja, 2012).

Since Lula came into power, in 2003, the number of Brazilian embassies in Africa has doubled, jumping from 18 to 37, while African embassies in Brasilia have increased from 16 to 34. Furthermore, Lula made in total 28 presidential visits to the African continent, covering 21 countries and reaching record levels (Alves, 2013).

Although most of the Brazilian cooperation goes to Central and South America due to peacekeeping operations, in technical cooperation the focus in the African continent is visible, accounting for 57% of the total (ABC, 2011):

Source: ABC, 2011

As reported by the latest official information in 2011, there were technical cooperation projects either in the design or implementation phases in 38 out of 54 African countries (ABC, 2011). Regarding the top beneficiaries of the Brazilian cooperation in Africa, Portuguese-speaking African countri...

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...urplus with most of the African countries, with the exception of Nigeria, explained by the heavy oil imports (Alves, 2013).

At the same time, investment funds seek to raise funds to enable increased Brazilian investment in Africa. In this sense, the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV Projects) aims to raise funds of approximately $ 1 billion for the development of agricultural projects. DWS Investments, manager owned by the German Deutsche Bank, coordinate the fund. Moreover, in June 2012, BTG Pactual, the largest investment bank in Brazil, also announced plans to raise $ 1 billion and create a ’world’ investment fund to Africa, for areas such as infrastructure, energy and agriculture.

It is clear that economic ties between Brazil and Africa were also strengthened by the several presidential visits to the continent, resulting in creating business opportunities.

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