Embassies
Lorem, ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Nemo voluptatibus, quos vel, excepturi ut dolores fugiat eos fugit consequatur magnam quo blanditiis quaerat quibusdam id quia dolorem culpa aliquam inventore.
China has embassies in all 53 countries with which it has diplomatic relations.
EU Delegations are present in 50 countries and US embassies in 49.
Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Senegal and Tunisia stand out as crowded diplomatic arenas, with 15 of these external actors maintaining an embassy in each country.
High-level visits
Beyond the presence of diplomatic missions, frequent high-level visits also reflect the nature of relations between countries. High-level visits are strongly concentrated in North Africa, which accounted for 45.7% of all visits.
The EU was the most active actor, with 75 visits across 25 African countries. Its leading destinations included Egypt (15 visits), Ethiopia (7), and Kenya, Rwanda and South Africa (5 each).
Türkiye recorded 54 visits across 24 countries, but half were to North Africa – particularly Egypt (13), Algeria (7) and Libya (5) – while another 15 were to West Africa.
China made 43 visits across 29 countries, giving it the widest and most geographically balanced coverage: 11 visits were to Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean, 10 each to West and East Africa, seven to North Africa and five to Central Africa.
India, Japan and South Korea showed a stronger focus on Southern Africa, directing 13 of 27, 12 of 30 and four of 10 visits respectively to Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean, especially South Africa and Mauritius.
Partnership hierarchy
Stronger bilateral relations are also reflected in how external actors describe their partnerships with regional actors.
China stands out for the breadth of its formalised partnerships, although these vary in depth.
Other actors formalise partnerships more selectively: the EU has 11, the US and the UAE seven each, India five, and Russia and Türkiye four each. Egypt, South Africa, Morocco, Nigeria and the DRC have the highest concentration of partnerships.
Summit diplomacy
Summit diplomacy around Africa is becoming increasingly crowded.
Established frameworks with the EU, China and Japan have proved relatively reliable and recurrent.
Newer initiatives by Russia, Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and South Korea have been more intermittent.
Iran has focused mainly on economic diplomacy since 2023, while Israel’s proposed Africa summit in 2017 was postponed and never held.
UN voting patterns
The intensity and depth of diplomatic relations are also often reflected in voting patterns at the UN General Assembly. Abstention is by far the predominant position among African states, reflecting a general tendency towards non-alignment.
However, African states align more frequently with the EU than with Russia on Ukraine. Countries aligning with the EU more than 50% of the time include Liberia, Cabo Verde, Seychelles, Malawi, Sierra Leone and Comoros. Those aligning more frequently with Russia include Eritrea, Sudan, Burundi, Zimbabwe and Mali.
On UN decolonisation resolutions, African voting patterns align most closely with those of China, India and Türkiye, with Russia forming a somewhat less consistent second tier.
Africa’s demand for reform of international financial governance revealed a divide when the agenda shifted to international taxation in 2023. African states, China, India and Russia generally support a stronger UN role, while the EU, Japan and South Korea have moved from opposition towards abstention.
text missing?
The distance between African and Western or Western-aligned actors is highly topic-dependent: the EU, Japan and South Korea broadly share African positions on Palestinian self-determination but diverge sharply on institutional implementation, while the United States remains consistently opposed to the predominant African voting position.
Türkiye and the UAE maintain consistently cautious positions. The United States and Israel remain consistently opposed to tax-related resolutions.