It seems you're not really familar with what's happening in Africa right now and I can't fault you for that because Western media has been terrible about reporting about what we're doing to Africa. (Please excuse me if I'm completely off here, I can only go with what you provided thus far.)

According to my research a lot of countries on the African continent are actively working towards dedollarization by building independent central bank transfer infrastructure to finally get rid of the shackles of Western neo-colonial soft power and China/Russia/BRICS are a god-sent for them.

And thinking that Putin doesn't have influence (and thus, he has to pretend otherwise) is kinda... ignorant?

[–] BrikoX@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 year ago

While there has been a lot of talk in Africa about dedollarisation to my knowledge only Zimbabwe went though with it as of now and to mixed results at best. BRICS been stuck since it's inception as they can't even agree on what currency they want to use.

While they do look at China and Russia positively as it's very beneficial for them at the moment they also try to avoid going all in with either side as to not alienate the west.

Well if you look around, all the Russia's allies are mad at them. They refused to help Armenia with Azerbaijan so they turned to Iran and India, Turkey who were always neutral to Russia shifted more to EU/NATO, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are both looking for different military partners as Russia refused to back either side, Kazakhstan is looking to Turkey instead of Russia, and many more examples. So, no I'm not ignorant. He's loosing the influence he used to have and focusing on Africa who like you said are eager to take the money is just him trying to pretent he's still in control.

[–] Selmafudd@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Without looking I'd guess trade deals

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

North America and Europe stopped supporting African countries, they decided to turn to other rich countries instead.

[–] Imhotep@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

I was just looking it up for South Africa

The EU is South Africa’s most important development partner. Its €281 million bilateral cooperation programme is reinforced by grants for thematic focal areas. Further, the European Investment Bank makes available €462 million in long-term loans.

source

(I don't know much about the subject, this is from a quick Google search)

[–] tabular@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Did they do that for money or disagreements (e.g. treatment of LGBT people)?

[–] zephyrvs@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's more like we made promises we didn't keep (like transferring financial aid, investments in infrastructure projects, etc) and instead Western countries still bleed part of Africa's economy dry and I can understand that they're fed up with it. I only hope that China and Russia won't just be a wolf in sheep's disguise, since they're also imperialist and it'd be naive to expect them to help Africa become a strong contender to their economies.

[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

New boss, same as the old boss.

African nations would be better off to continue pushing for an African Union and bring collective bargaining power when dealing with the new and old colonists.

[–] zephyrvs@lemmy.ml -1 points 1 year ago

Well, there are plans to create a SWIFT alternative (?)/digital currency for African nations to trade between themselves. They're not simply relying on BRICS, it would seem.