Discussion among representatives of government, business, universities, and scientific and public organizations on ways to intensify scientific and economic cooperation in the efficient use of the resources of Africa and Russia will take place at Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University from October 29 to November 1, 2025.
The article “African Passions Around Natural Resources” was published by the country’s leading news agency, RIA Novosti. The authors—Vladimir Litvinenko, Rector of Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University, and Alexander Yakovenko, Head of the Committee on Global Issues and International Security of the Scientific and Expert Council of the Security Council of the Russian Federation and Deputy Director General of Rossiya Segodnya—draw attention to Africa’s growing role in global development and conclude that the opportunities opening up in the interests of the peoples of the continent can be realized only under conditions of strengthened state sovereignty of its countries:
«Over the past decade, the Africa agenda has moved to the forefront both in global development and in global politics. Within the expert community, there is no doubt that Africa is the last major reserve for global economic growth, which encompasses not only the continent’s natural wealth but also its significance as a most important market in the future, including a consumer market. By 2050 the continent’s population will increase from the current 1.55 billion people to 2.5 billion; out of every one hundred inhabitants of our planet, twenty-eight will be Africans (in 1960 it was one in ten). This potential of African countries can be fully unlocked only through the genuine sovereignization of their natural resources, without which their full and fair monetization in the interests of their own development is impossible».
Read the full text of the article on RIA Novosti
More about the upcoming forum
The event is a development of the initiatives on Russian–African cooperation declared by the President of Russia Vladimir Putin and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov within the framework of the Second Russia–Africa Summit (2023).
The main objectives of the dialogue will be the development of consolidated approaches to ensuring the sustainable development of the national economies of African countries, taking into account Russian experience and support; the strengthening of cooperation in the mineral resources sector and in the training of engineering personnel; and the development of network cooperation between Russian and African universities. Representatives of more than 40 African countries will take part in the forum. These include 8 sectoral ministers, 17 ambassadors and chargés d’affaires, rectors of leading universities, and heads of the continent’s sectoral companies.
On the Russian side, leading scholars of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University, top managers of Russian resource holdings, and representatives of ministries and agencies will participate in the discussions and in working out concrete steps for joint cooperation in the field of mineral extraction, which in most countries is monopolized by EU and US companies.