BRAZIL-AFRICA FORUM A Partnership Renewed

The Brazil-Africa Forum, held in late November 2022 in Brazil, was an opportunity to renew an old and valued partnership. Stephen Williams reports from Sao Paulo

Having won a very tight 2022 election, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (known universally and affectionately as 'Lula'), assumed the Brazilian presidency on the first day of 2023.

He was first elected president of Brazil 20 years ago (2003–10), and proved a firm friend of Africa, reviving Brazil's interest in Africa and set it on a surer footing, as part of a larger goal of expanding Brazil's global profile.

For example, President Lula da Silva visited Africa during his tenure 12 times, taking in 21 countries, something unprecedented among Brazil's past leaders.

In 2022, with Lula beating the right-wing incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro in a ‘run-offʼ, all the signs suggest that Africa will, once again, be near the top of Brazil's foreign affairs' agenda.

For Lula, who only three years ago was released from prison (his conviction for corruption – which he described as politically motivated – was quashed), said that winning the elections was the easy part. He will preside over a bitterly divided country and Bolsonaro's party will be the biggest in Congress and have

President Lula da Silva visited Africa during his tenure 12 times, taking in 21 countries, something unprecedented among Brazil's past leaders the ability to block or delay the president's policies.

Nevertheless, there is a genuine optimism that there will be a renewed partnership between South America's economic giant and sub-Saharan Africa. And that optimism was evident at the BrazilAfrica Forum, held at the World Trade Center in Brazil's economic capital Sao Paulo last November.

This was despite the anticipated attendance of the president being cancelled. Lula had undergone surgery and was not able to speak He had previously successfully battled throat cancer

The event did however attract a galaxy of African participants who all made the journey across the Atlantic to take part in the forum. And joining them was a host of Brazilian speakers and observers.

Brazil's trade with Africa increased between 2000 and 2010 from US$4bn to $20bn, creating a positive environment for the Brazilian National Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES) to underwrite loans furthering trade between the two regions.

Two thirds of the Brazilean Cooperation Agency's development spending was allocated to African countries.

But under Bolsanoro's government, trade slumped and major investments were scaled back

Petronas, Brazil's state-owned major oil and gas company, sold its hydrocarbon interests in Nigeria for about $1.5bn; and Brazil's giant mining corporation, Vale, withdrew from the Moatize coal mine in Mozambique (then Brazil's biggest investment in Africa) .

The forum is organised by the Brazil Africa Institute and has been held annually for the last 10 years. Each year, there is a theme. In 2022, the forum focused on 'Sustainable Cities; Global Challenges and Local Solutions', and there were lively discussions at various panel sessions.

One senior contributor was Patrick Khulekani Dlamini, the Chief Executive and Managing Director, of the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA).

Although headquartered in Midrand South Africa and financed by the Tshwane (Pretoria) government, its mandate is broader than simply the Republic of South Africa. It extends to the whole subregion of Southern Africa, and indeed has cooperation agreements with partner organisations such as the Banque Ouest Africain de Developpent (BOAD, West Africa's development institution), signed at COP27 in 2022 at Sharm el Sheik

As BOAD's President Serge Ekue said at the signing ceremony: "BOAD is more than ever aware that the challenges facing Africa require a coordinated and multifaceted approach, involving all public and private development players.

“Consequently, we are convinced that the new partnership established between BOAD and DBSA, through this Memorandum of Understanding, will help promote sustainable economic growth in the region and improve the living conditions of our communities”

Dlamini added: “Building Africa's prosperity requires all developing nations to work together to promote regional integration.”

Dlamini sat on the Brazil-Africa Forum's panel dealing with infrastructure, one of the DBSA's most crucial activities. He began his address by expressing his appreciation for Brazil's renewed attention to African issues.

Although too diplomatic to mention the fact, the reality is that Lula's predecessor, Jair Bolsanaro, despite all of Brazil's historical links, had virtually ignored Africa, not even setting foot on the continent.

But Dlamini was clear in emphasising Brazil's importance to Africa in terms of the expertise that it can offer such as its experience in hydroelectric generation, other renewable energy systems as well as crop cultivation.

“You are well known for your hydropower expertise,” Dlamini told the forum, “ and the launch of a US$132m fund for ESG at the Glasgow COP16 means that we can better partner Brazilian companies for renewable, sustainable energy projects.”

Renewable energy was the subject of another panel discussion that had the added advantage of including the participation of Frannie Léautier, partner and chief executive of SouthBridge Investments – one of Africa's most important and progressive investment companies.

The observations of Léautier were particularly relevant as it was accepted by representatives of the public institutions like Dlamini of the DBSA that the role of private institutions in Africa's development dynamics was especially important.

And Léautier was especially well placed to comment on this, being a former vice-president of the World Bank and her current position at the helm of SouthBridge. Her experience meant that she had, as it were, two feet in the game. That gave her first hand knowledge of the way that both public and private institutions operate, not least how both parties find comfort that the other has 'skin in the game'.

Renewable energy has been, and is, an important sector for investment as the world turns away from fossil fuel energy in the interest of reducing global warming emissions.

Léautier's outlined three reasons that renewable energy systems are such an attractive investment proposition for developing and emerging economies.

“The first and most obvious is that as its name says, it is renewable and virtually inexhaustible – it does not get depleted: she explained.

But Léautier also pointed out another reason for the adoption of renewable energy in that it is essentially modular

“A schoolchild can carry a backpack to school with an integrated solar charging panel to power a laptop,” she commented. “That means that on reaching school, the laptop is powered and ready to download data relevant to the school curriculum.

“Similarly, the laptop can be recharged on the walk home from school, ready to complete homework at home. It means that whether or not the school or home has grid electricity, the schoolchild can study on line. And we can leapfrog.”

Her analysis is that Africa has an opportunity with renewable energy to structure the transition to a zero carbon economy

The third reason, Léautier suggests is that the very nature of renewable energy, in that it is modular, is a clear advantage. For most cities in Africa, their income is also modular. That means that it is easier to make a case for investment in renewable energy in urban areas.

Meanwhile, as Léautier explained to the forum, COP 27, held in Sharm el Sheik Egypt just two weeks earlier, had reached an agreement that those countries that had not contributed to the problem of global warming with carbon emissions will receive a US$2 billion fund for the loss and damage they have experienced.

Africa has agreed to replant 128m hectares in what is already the largest contiguous forest area in the world. In short, Africa's forests provide 'lungs' for the continent's rapidly growing cities.

And this fund means that a smallholder with just a few trees on his or her land can benefit from carbon trading.

Responding to a question from the floor, Léautier also addressed the problem of water stress; how certain regions such as East Africa are suffering severe drought while other regions like Nigeria, Mozambique and even Sao Paulo experience an excess of rainfall and flooding.

It is a problem that has to be confronted, Léautier believes. The scientific evidence indicates that global warming is causing ocean temperatures to rise, the consequence of which is greater energy in storms and dramatically erratic changes in rainfall patterns.

Drought and flooding both present severe problems to the provision of potable water,, as well as sanitary and hygiene services.vem Sanitary and hygiene concerns are being addressed by the United Nations that established a new, dedicated fund, in November 2021: the Sanitation and Hygiene Fund (SHF) in November 2021.

Dominic O'Neill, the SHF's executive director, led a breakout session at the forum that addressed the issues surrounding the fund's work, essentially meeting the objectives of the SDG 6 .

An estimated four billion people worldwide do not have access to safely managed sanitation services, and until they do, the world cannot meet the goals of inclusive and sustainable development by 2030.

SHF aims to raise US$2 billion over the next five years.

Dominic O'Neill put a question to the forum's infrastructure session, pointing out that in Nigeria alone, it is estimated, sanitation and water has an investment opportunity of some US$8 billion.

He asked how it would be possible to attract investment in off-grid sanitation in the same way as, for example, off-grid energy?

It is a question that engages both O'Neill and Léautier – Léautier also sits on the SHF board.

However, Léaurier's SouthBridge Investments was not the only investment company attending the Brazil-Africa Forum. So too was Orango Investment Corporation's chairman, Paulo Gomes who sat on the forum's PPP session (or private-public partnerships: an agreement in which a private company commits skills or capital to a public-sector project for a financial return).

Gomes, a former World Bank Executive Director, argued that many financial institutions (including the World Bank) still had much to learn regarding PPPs, and in particular the issue of African risk

He called for African governments to develop an entrepreneurial spirit, and a spirit that would persist over electoral cycles.

One of Gomes' fellow panelists was Sergio Gusmão Suchodolski, the CEO of the Development Bank of Minas Gerais (a state in south-east Brazil) and the Brazilian Development Association.

Suchodolski's contribution was to state that we need to mobilise funding in a sustainable manner, and funding consisting of a basket of the local currencies of lesser developed countries.

He went on to say that there is already a network of DFIs on the regional, national and even subnational level that know the challenges of the various countries and are best placed to channel development funding to them,

In 2001, an analyst at Goldman Sachs devised the BRIC label to refer to the four growing economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, and the label stuck (Goldman Sachs 2001, 2003), later to be joined by South Africa to create the BRICS.

On the political front, the India-Brazil-South

Africa (IBSA) Dialogue Forum was established in Brazil in mid-2003 as a space for these three multi-ethnic and democratic global players to exchange knowledge and pursue common interests.

These alternative arrangements were strategically aligned with the world vision elaborated by Lula, Brazil's president from 2003 to 2010, and his minister of foreign affairs, Celso Amorim, who aimed to find new spheres of political articulation for an intermediate power such as Brazil.

These alternative arrangements were strategically aligned with the world vision elaborated by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil's president from 2003 to 2010, and his minister of foreign affairs, Celso Amorim, who aimed to find new spheres of political articulation for an intermediate power such as Brazil.

Amorim is quoted as saying in 2010: “Building these informal groups [or South-South arrangements] will help bring change to formal institutions.”

It was highly appropriate that with the unfortunate absence of President-elect Lula, Amorim provided a closing statement to the 2022 forum.

“Brazil is part of Africa,” Amorim told the delegates. “Although it might have been said that 'for every African problem there is a Brazilian solution' Africa is developing so fast that the reverse may soon be true. 'For every Brazilean problem, there is an African solution'.“