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

change will shape the global economic development (and, in fact,
the international relations) for al least the next 50 to 70 years.
It is important to emphasize that by this statement we are not referring
to individual commodity markets – in which case – the
‘buyer-seller’ contraposition is volatile and varies in short– to medium-term
periods. We are speaking about a higher level of theoretical
abstraction – about a unified category of the world market
of raw materials as an element of the system that is called “Global
Economy’.
It is the deepening shortage of natural resources, which is one of
the true and fundamental reasons for the worsening and latent local,
regional and global crises in the new millennium. The presence or
absence of natural resources have direct effects on people's living
standards, prospects of social and economic development of states,
stability of the world economy and international security.
The resources issue will dominate not only the international
agenda but also the domestic one. It will remain a true underlying
cause of international tensions and even wars, as well as social upheavals
and revolutions within national borders.
Despite all the dissimilarity and belonging to different subgroups
in terms of socioeconomic development, Russia and Africa
are akin for being among the few remaining world regions with
plentiful and not completely depleted resources (in company, perhaps,
with Brazil and some regions in Asia). This fact, to a significant
extent, determines their present position in the world economy
and politics and makes them targets of expansion and international
pressures, which will have the tendency to increase during the next
decade.
In these conditions the new partnerships are vital for each of
them, since such partnership represent alternative pillars for their
sustained development and progress. Co-operation with new emerging
economic centers, within the BRICS and South-South frameworks
are equally important.
Unfortunately, Russia's expanding economic cooperation with
the developing countries, and particularly with Africa, is often interpreted
as a threat by the West. The actual underlying reason for such
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