Guided by the African Union, governments will work to obtain a new suspension of debt service. A file in which Paris intends to get involved.

The year 2021 in Africa will, as elsewhere, be dominated by the management of the consequences of Covid. The epidemic has certainly, for the moment, relatively spared it, making it possible to display data much lower than in other parts of the globe. But this exception seems to be marking time. South Africa, the most affected country on the continent, exceeded one million cases at the end of December, while North Africa is affected by a second severe wave. It also affects states that have been preserved until now, such as Mali and Niger, but also certain countries in East Africa. Health systems, already weak, could very quickly find themselves under pressure, even if the arrival of vaccines – in particular those from China which are easier to transport – offers gently optimistic prospects.

The African economy will continue to suffer, but unevenly. After a catastrophic year 2020 due to the pandemic, marked by a 3% recession according to the IMF, the first for a quarter of a century in sub-Saharan Africa, the projections for 2021 are more dynamic. Thanks to the rapid recovery of China, the continent's leading investor, the IMF expects growth of 3.1% south of the Sahara, which is also very unevenly distributed between countries.

The oil states, and those exporting mining products, should thus still suffer a strong impact. Guided by the African Union, the governments will therefore endeavor to obtain a new suspension of debt service - for the moment recorded until June 2021 - and to find new resources. The election of Joe Biden to the US presidency offers options in this area that the Trump administration had blocked.

A conference in May in Paris

France should get involved in these negotiations, and this will be the main axis of its diplomacy for the year. While the France-Africa summit scheduled for last year in Bordeaux had to be canceled, it will not be convened this year either. Instead of this high mass, with which Macron did not feel comfortable, a conference, essentially economic, will be organized in Paris in May and extended to China, the United States and undoubtedly to certain European states. . “It is a question of avoiding a cycle of re-indebtedness”, explains one at the Élysée. Then, a second conference will be held in July in Montpellier. "It will be without heads of state but with young political, economic, cultural or civil society actors", adds the French presidency. The commitments made by the French president during his speech in Ouagadougou in 2018 should be discussed there, in particular the return of works of art.

Above all, Paris will always have to concentrate on Mali where 5,100 French soldiers from Operation Barkhane are still deployed. The number of employees could drop slightly, in particular thanks to the commitment of European countries. But managing the aftermath of the coup that toppled power in Mali in August could complicate matters. Especially since the situation in the arc of crisis, which starts from Mali and goes towards Burkina Faso, northern Nigeria and as far as the Central African Republic, is not calming down.

The disputed presidential election in the Central African Republic, the results of which are expected in early January, should only confirm this. With the exception of Niger, for which the verdict of the ballot box is also awaited, the electoral processes in 2020 have been marked by strong protests, particularly in Côte d'Ivoire and Guinea. "We are seeing a drop in electoral standards", deplores Roland Marchal, researcher at Sciences Po. 2021 should not deny it with the elections, as often almost played in advance, in Chad, the Republic of Congo, Djibouti or Uganda. , where Yoweri Museveni also stands as president for life. Attention will also be focused on Ethiopia. In the grip of a war with a secessionist province, this country of 100 million inhabitants must also vote.