Within the framework of the Week of the Republic of South Africa held in Moscow from October 1 to October 5, 2001, a scientific and practical conference on this topic was held in Moscow, which was attended by members of the government delegation of South Africa, employees of the Institute of Africa of the Russian Academy of Sciences and other scientific organizations.

The conference was opened by the Minister of Water Resources and Forestry of South Africa R. Kasrils. In his welcoming speech, he focused on the changing image of Africa after World War II and the development of South Africa's relations with the USSR and Russia.

South Africa's Minister of State-Owned Enterprises, J. Radebe, in his report "The South African Government's Vision for African Renaissance and African Unity: Contextualizing Politics," described the driving forces behind the New Africa Initiative, the Omega Plan, and African Unity. The basis of the new African initiative, according to him, was the "Millennium Partnership for Africa's Reconstruction Program" project and the "Omega" plan. This initiative defines the approach of African countries to poverty eradication and the path to sustainable growth and development. He stressed that an important role should be played by the Governments of African countries, using partnership with the developed countries of the North as effective tools for development and progress. According to the speaker, the existing prerequisites for development, namely, peace, security, as well as political-

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social, economic, and corporate governance-focus on public finance management, regional cooperation, and integration. The Omega Plan also identifies five priority sectors to which resources should be directed first. These include infrastructure development; information and communication technologies; humanitarian development, especially health, education, culture, agriculture, production and export diversification, and market access. The goal of resource mobilization includes increasing capital accumulation and inflows by reducing external debt, increasing external aid and private capital inflows, and improving public financial structures.

Public-private partnerships need to be actively developed to attract private investors in order to ensure that public funds are supported to meet the urgent needs of the poorest segments of the population.

Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation V. D. Sredin in his report "The New African Initiative: A View from Russia" positively assessed the attitude of African countries to search for effective and long-term mechanisms for achieving sustainable development. He noted that the "New African Initiative" document attempts to identify the causes of the emergence and ways to resolve a wide range of problems in Africa - macroeconomic, socio-political, and interstate-based on an analysis of the continent's development in recent decades. Due to the programmatic nature of the initiative, serious work will have to be done in both bilateral and multilateral formats to link the efforts of the continent's partners, including on the basis of the Genoa Plan for Africa adopted by the Group of Eight, and the African States themselves. Reducing the number of "hot spots" in Africa, resolving existing conflicts and preventing new ones are priorities. At the same time, joint efforts of the UN and its Security Council, the G8, African regional and sub-regional structures, and individual States in the field of peacekeeping, as well as their coordinated approach to conflict resolution based on the priority of political and diplomatic methods, will be of no small importance. One of the key components of the strategy for consolidating peace in Africa should be the development of effective regional and sub-regional security structures focused both on conflict prevention and resolution, as well as on the integrated solution of post-conflict reconstruction tasks. A necessary prerequisite for building lasting peace in Africa, the speaker stressed, is for the continent's countries to embark on the path of dynamic socio-economic development and full integration into the world economy.

At the same time, an effective economic policy in African countries in the context of globalization is possible only on the basis of international cooperation, creating conditions for African countries ' access to the markets of other regions, further integration of the continent's states into the world trade system, attracting additional investment, and ensuring a favorable external climate for economic growth and financial stabilization. There is a need to combine the efforts of donors acting on a multilateral and bilateral basis, coordinate a variety of initiatives, while encouraging African countries themselves to improve their use of external assistance. The development of regional and sub-regional integration plays a significant role in this activity on a continent-wide scale, and at the national level - the implementation of economic policies focused on economic growth and the market.

An effective tool for overcoming socio - economic imbalances in Africa's development can be a balanced scheme for resolving the debt of the continent's States, ensuring their access to modern technologies. There is also a need for effective international assistance to strengthen the capacity of African countries to prevent humanitarian, man-made and natural crises. In addition to the severe consequences of armed conflicts, among which the problem of refugees is central, difficult environmental problems (drought, desertification) and health problems (AIDS, malaria and other epidemics) pose a serious threat.

The course taken by African countries to counter terrorist manifestations, in particular the steps taken to sign and ratify the OAU Convention on the Prevention and Combating of Terrorism as soon as possible by all members of the African community, deserves active support. Attention should continue to be given to supporting the implementation of the

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Africa for democratic reforms, promoting the establishment of "good governance" principles, measures to strengthen the foundations of civil society and protect human rights. At the same time, when stimulating these processes, it is necessary to take into account the historical, political, ethno-cultural, religious traditions and realities of African States, not to allow infringement of their sovereignty, manifestations of "double standards" and a selective approach. The" New Africa Initiative", which addresses all these issues in detail, will serve as a basis for uniting the efforts of the international community in finding answers to the challenges of our time. The Russian Federation is ready to contribute as much as possible to the implementation of this task.

Continuing the topic, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors. Director of the Institute of Africa of the Russian Academy of Sciences V. G. Shubin noted that after the concept of "African renaissance" was put forward by the leadership of South Africa, the Fund for International Cooperation and African Renaissance was established, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of South Africa .state budget account. Thabo Mbeki, Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo then launched a program to revive Africa. But since Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade presented his "Omega" plan in parallel with this project, or rather after it, they had to be combined. The new document is called the "New African Initiative".

E. Moloka, Executive Director of the African Institute of South Africa, made a presentation on "Towards the African Renaissance: African Unity and the New African Initiative". He traced the evolution of African unity from the early philosophical debates about pan-Africanism, the decades of the Cold War and the OAU, to the creation of the African Union. The ideological basis of African unity, in his opinion, was pan-Africanism, which was based on the common historical experience of African countries, their common origin, opposition to slavery and the fight against racism.

V. K. Wiegand (Institute of Africa), who took part in the discussion, pointed out, in particular, some critical comments on certain aspects of the Omega project, as outlined in the recent World Bank-sponsored paper " What awaits Africa in the Twenty-first Century?". According to its authors, instead of the previous support for mainly higher (university) education, the main focus should be on the wider dissemination of primary education, especially at the community level. African scholars also consider it more appropriate to retain "conditional" foreign aid aimed at supporting specific projects, rather than programmatic assistance.

Yu. N. Vinokurov (Institute of Africa) expressed his opinion on the establishment of the African Union. He believes that the apparatus of the African Union is unlikely to be fundamentally different, less bureaucratic. The emergence of the African Union was motivated by the confrontation between various groups of the political elite in Africa, as well as the example of a successfully functioning European Union, which may well have seemed to some African leaders an effective lever to lead the continent out of backwardness and onto the path of rapid socio - economic progress.

L. N. Rytov (Institute of Africa) devoted his speech to the role of the Republic of South Africa in Africa in the light of the"New African Initiative". The" New African Initiative", developed with the participation of the South African Government and adopted in Lusaka in July 2001, and the creation of the African Union raised the question of the role of South Africa on the African continent now and in the near future. The importance of South Africa in the economic development, if not of the whole of Africa, then of its southern part, is quite obvious. South Africa accounts for 65% of the GDP of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). However, the growth rate of its GDP is not very high - 2-3% per year. This is progress compared to the last years of apartheid, when growth was almost zero, but it is not enough to solve the most acute social problems of South Africa itself. According to L. N. Rytov, the economic development strategy adopted by the South African government will not lead to a sharp acceleration of growth rates. South Africa now needs external investment to accelerate its economic development. In the coming years, it will not receive them, since for foreign capital it remains a country with a high potential for socio-political instability.

The speaker also recalled that the Republic of South Africa has an active foreign policy in Africa and other Third World countries. She is the Chair of the Non-Aligned Movement. Commonwealth of Independent States-plays a crucial role in SADC, participates in the settlement of conflicts in the region.-

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in the context of the Central African crisis. The transformation of the OAU into the African Union will create for it many problems that it has already faced in SADC (the contradiction on the basis of hegemony between South Africa and Zimbabwe). In the African Union, South Africa may face claims to hegemony from Nigeria and Egypt. In the longer term, the country will inevitably become embroiled in a growing North-South conflict as it defends Africa's interests.

According to V. I. Gusarov, in recent years, economic relations between Russia and Africa occupy a very modest place. This is confirmed by data on mutual trade turnover. Thus, according to the materials published in the statistical collection "Foreign Trade of the CIS countries "(Moscow, 2000), Russia's trade turnover with nine African countries (Algeria, Guinea, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Cote d'Ivoire, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia and South Africa) in 1997 amounted to 452.6 million dollars, and in 1998-452.6 million dollars. G. - $ 600.5 million. In the first case, the share of African countries in Russia's trade turnover was 0.8%, and in the second - 1.2%, which is extremely small. In 1997 and 1998, Russian exports to Africa totaled $ 826.6 million (or 0.9% of all Russian exports) and $ 1011.2 million (1.4%), respectively, while imports totaled $ 374.0 million (or 0.7% of all Russian imports) and $ 600.5 million (1.2%). Russia's trade balance was negative with five of these nine countries, including South Africa. In the volume of mutual trade, the shares of South Africa and Russia are insignificant and cannot have any impact on the socio-economic situation of both countries.

Summing up the conference, Ambassador of South Africa to the Russian Federation M. D. Sekou noted its importance for the further development of cooperation between Russia and South Africa.

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