The Institute for Strategic Studies (ISS) estimates that Africa will only achieve the ambitions inscribed in the African Union's Agenda 2063 for development if the increasingly threatened "Sustainable World" scenario prevails in the coming years.

The South African analytical institute launched the public discussion of a paper in which it envisages four scenarios - a Sustainable World, a Divided World, a Warring World, and a Growing World - in which the first one "is the most difficult to achieve," depending on the international community's ability to balance "growth and distribution by reducing global consumption and limiting greenhouse gas emissions."

The project, launched by ISS' African Futures and Innovation program, looks at recent geo-strategic developments, notably the war in Ukraine and rising tensions between China and the United States over Taiwan, and finds that "Africa is rapidly emerging as a battleground" between Beijing, Washington and the European Union (EU), while "the impact of climate change accelerates year by year" and has isolated the four scenarios mentioned.

Over the past 15 years, ISS maintains, the covid-19 pandemic hit the world as it was recovering from the 2008/9 financial crisis, and as the pandemic began to slow, Russia invaded Ukraine and increased energy insecurity in Europe and food insecurity in Africa, which now faces a famine and fertilizer emergency on top of the debt crisis.

"The result is widespread instability and a general decline in democracy, including a wave of coups d'état in West and Central Africa" - Mali, Chad, Guinea-Conakry and Burkina Faso - in just over a year, the South African analytical institute points out.

Against this background, ISS considers, the Divided World scenario "seems the most likely." This scenario would see a more fragmented global order and the rollback of the current rules-based system over time.

On the other hand, in a world where Washington and Brussels do not act as one, China could surpass the EU's potential power by 2027 and that of the United States by 2031, ISS estimates.

"On this trajectory, the United Nations' steady loss of legitimacy, influence, and ascendancy advances apace, and Africa suffers. Peacekeeping and support for peacemaking in Africa decline," the institute added.

Garth Shelton, associate professor in the Department of International Relations at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa, an expert on Africa-Asia relations, who participated in Wednesday's discussion of the project, considered the first of the three scenarios too optimistic and the next two too pessimistic.

For Shelton, after the pause caused by covid-19 and contained that looks like the war in Europe, the world will continue its growth trajectory and China will maintain the ascendancy achieved in Africa, a continent it "needs" to achieve the world hegemony it pursues.

The continent, on the other hand, faces as its main challenges the ability to set the global agenda and to "influence the world's main external actors."

The specialist not only considered that the African continent is very dependent on China, but also questioned Africa's capacity, as a single entity, to influence the main world players, primarily Beijing, but also the United States, the European Union, and other major powers.

As an example, he questioned the continent's expectations of success at the Africa-United States summit scheduled for the end of the year: "Will Africa be able to go to the summit well prepared, with a clear idea of what it wants from the United States, and put its claims on the table and get some answers" from Washington, Garth Shelton wondered.

Or, he added, "Will you go to the summit without preparing any goals or plans and get from the United States whatever Washington wants to offer, leaving there with nothing very worthwhile?"

"I don't think we have the capacity to work together. The African Union doesn't have an African perspective on these issues. If it did, I think our agency would increase dramatically," he further considered.

"Of course we have all the raw materials that the industrialized countries are looking for. But we don't cooperate. We don't use them as an instrument in our relationship with external actors. We need to," he stressed.

Jakkie Cilliers, ISS project coordinator, also considered that "Africa's ability to speak with one voice is very limited.

The African Union has 55 member states, he recalled, noting, "We would like to say that Africa needs to speak with one voice, but I don't think it ever will."

"Maybe, in time, Africa will have a common market and can achieve some progress in that direction, but I don't believe that will happen in the next 50 years," he stressed.

"By 2033, with any luck, we will have the free trade agreement in place, so I don't think we should get too excited about the ability to influence the world agenda," the ISS researcher warned.