Investment or Foreign Policy?
Brazil’s forays into Africa are similar to the ambitions of other rising powers, like Turkey, which has established its sway in the Arab world, and India’s promotion of its culture across Asia.
Shift from aid recipient to provider? Business in Africa?
Africa now accounts for about 55 percent of the disbursements by the
Brazilian Cooperation Agency, which oversees aid projects abroad,
according to Marco Farani, the agency’s director.
Brazil still trails other nations, notably China
and the United States, which have far more expansive aid programs and
trade in Africa. Elsewhere in Latin America, Venezuela and Cuba have
offered different ways of enhancing African ties.
Oderbrecht and Vale's Share:
Some of Brazil’s biggest inroads, predictably, are in
Portuguese-speaking countries like Angola, where the Brazilian
construction company Odebrecht ranks among the largest employers, and Mozambique, where the mining giant Vale has begun a $6 billion coal expansion project.
Racial democracy?
African students studying in Brazil have filed numerous complaints
describing slurs and aggression, complicating the myth of “racial
democracy” that once prevailed here, in which scholars contended that
Brazil had largely escaped the discrimination common in other societies.
African ties - an economic necessity or a historic debt?
Then economic necessity and a quest to build autonomy from the United
States laid the foundations in the 1970s for today’s diplomatic buildup
in Africa. Seeking to offset spending on oil imports, including cargoes
from Nigeria, military rulers set about opening new markets in Africa
for Brazilian companies. They found some success, notably in newly
independent Angola.
Brazil’s former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, built on those
inroads in trips to Africa from 2003 to 2010, referring to the “historic debt” Brazil had to Africa in its formation as nation.
No comments:
Post a Comment