L. Fituni, I. Abramova Resource Potential of Africa and Russia's ...

number of other African states that were interested in it, for example,
with Nigeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Libya.
Closer to the demise of the Soviet Union, new trends have
emerged in the development of the USSR's economic cooperation
with African countries. For one, stable economic ties were taking
shape with several African countries planned for even longer than
usual periods, which enhanced trade and the efficiency of production
at macroeconomic levels – something in which both the USSR
and African states were interested. Such an approach allowed
overcoming the shortcomings of ‘single-project efficiency” approach.
Sometimes the African partner would sacrifice a possibility
to receive immediate profits from a completed project in order
to guarantee a stable inflow of revenues on a later stage from a
broader complex project or to provide stable permanent employment
for large masses of population. Such an approach was mutually
beneficial. So called compensation deals allowed African
countries to acquire industrial enterprises, which produced required
goods and had an opportunity of guaranteed sales of part of
their goods to the USSR thus ensuring timely repayment of Soviet
credits. In turn, the USSR received goods it needed for its national
economy (see pp.100–101).
Cooperation with the USSR in some cases introduced the young
states to the latest achievements in science and technology. Soviet
organizations in general supplied them with the most up-to-date (at
least by Soviet standards) machinery and equipment, technologies,
licenses and other technical documents, while Soviet specialists
shared their expertise with them. It was universally recognized that
the overwhelming majority of the Soviet engineers, technicians,
doctors and teachers working in African, just as in all other, developing
countries, not only conscientiously fulfilled all terms of their
contracts, but also shared their knowledge and experience with all
local citizens working next to them. Thanks to the cooperation with
the USSR the developing countries of Africa consolidated their economic
and political positions, create foundations of modern industries
and reduced their dependence on the imported goods and world
markets.
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