RUDN University will on February 26 organize a major Russian conference on Africa, as Moscow makes inroads into the continent.
Dubbed Africa and the Formation of the New International System of International Relations (AFNSIR) will bring together the scientific community, IR and political science scholars, history and culture researchers, diplomats, businessmen and students.
“Our goal is to study international relations in Africa as a multifaceted interdisciplinary sphere. By combining methods, we are expanding our knowledge of Africa. This year we are also increasing the number of foreign experts in our team to transform the national conference into an open international event,” Prof Nigussie KassaE Michael of RUDN University and conference founder says.
The conference team comprises more than 20 experts from Botswana, Ethiopia, Japan, Kenya, Nigeria, Russia and many other countries.
“Over the past years, our conference has achieved notable progress with the support of Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences,” he says on the conference website.
For 60 years, RUDN University, originally named after Patrice Lumumba [Patrice Lumumba Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia], has been the center of African studies, and hundreds of students from all over Africa have studied at the institution.
In February 2024, for instance, RUDN University signed a five-year agreement to offer scholarships to hundreds of students from Ghana. The scheme was signed between RUDN and the Asian African Consortium (AAC), a subsidiary of the Jospong Group of Companies.
Under the agreement, 120 beneficiaries were to attend RUDN each year beginning from 2024 to pursue degrees in various fields such as agriculture, information technology, waste management, and climate change, until 2029.
In November 2022, Moscow increased the scholarship quota for Ghanaian students to study medicine and engineering at Russian universities from 75 to 110.
The move fulfilled a commitment made at the first Russia-Africa Summit in Sochi in 2019 to strengthen scientific and educational cooperation between Russia and African nations, including Ghana.
According to the conference schedule, there will be panel discussions on 140 Years of the Berlin Conference 1884-1885: Colonialism: Lessons of the Past and Threats to the Present; 80 Years of Victory over Fascism in the Second World War 1939-1945; 65th anniversary of the Year of Africa: the growing role of Africa in world politics; methodological workshop on “Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia named after Patrice Lumumba in training highly qualified specialists for the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America” and a youth session.
