A woman walk away with her children suffering from mpox after treatment at a clinic in Munigi, eastern Congo, on Aug. 19. In a visit to a vaccination co-ordination centre in Ivory Coast, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly announced that Canada will provide an additional $1-million to the World Health Organization to help its response to the mpox outbreak.Moses Sawasawa/The Associated Press
After years of largely ignoring Africa in its foreign policy, Ottawa is finally turning its attention to the continent this week, sending Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly on a four-day African tour and launching a public consultation on its priorities for the region.
Ms. Joly is visiting two of Africa’s economic powerhouses, Ivory Coast and South Africa, in a tour that will focus on security, development and environmental issues, her office said in a statement. She is in Ivory Coast for two days and then arrives in South Africa on Wednesday.
It will be the first time a Canadian foreign minister has visited South Africa since the beginning of the Trudeau government in 2015, despite the country’s strategic importance as a G20 member and its historical significance to Canada during the fight against apartheid.
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Canada has been falling behind other countries, including Russia and China, in its relations with Africa. Its rivals have strongly boosted their presence on the continent, while Canada has been relatively low profile, despite adding diplomats to its missions in Rwanda and Ethiopia.
Nearly three years ago, the federal government began internal discussions on an “Africa strategy” to accompany its similar blueprints for other regions. In 2022, it announced an ambitious Indo-Pacific strategy, but its Africa plans soon lost momentum. A strategy never materialized, and it later described its goal as merely a “framework.”
In a statement earlier this month, Global Affairs Canada said it is working on an “approach to partnerships” in Africa, with no mention of any grander strategy or policy.
Canadian foreign policy in recent years has focused on Ukraine and the Middle East. In a major speech on Canadian foreign policy last November, Ms. Joly made almost no mention of Africa, despite Canada’s traditional role as a key supporter of foreign aid and development in the continent.
Ms. Joly’s visit to South Africa and Ivory Coast this week is a signal that Canada might be getting close to unveiling an updated policy for Africa.
The Globe and Mail has learned that federal bureaucrats have recently drafted a 45-page “Framework for Partnerships in Africa,” although the document remains in the draft stage.
Last week, in another signal of a revived plan, the federal government announced that it was launching a “final round of consultations” to seek the views of Canadians on a proposed approach to Africa.
The government set a Sept. 15 deadline for the online consultations. It acknowledged that two Canadian parliamentary committees have already been holding hearings on Canada-Africa relations since last year.
The government said Canada is “reviewing its approach to engaging with African institutions and countries” to work toward a “stronger, expanded and more visible partnership.”
It described Africa in vague terms, calling it “a continent of change, aspiration and renewal that is of growing geopolitical and economic importance on the global stage.”
Nicholas Coghlan, a former Canadian ambassador to Sudan and South Sudan, said the Africa tour by Ms. Joly is welcome but overdue. He noted that a devastating war has been raging in Sudan for more than 16 months, with little attention from Canada.
“A specific and urgent priority should be Canadian re-engagement on Sudan – the continent’s gravest political, security and humanitarian crisis, which is deepening by the week,” he told The Globe.
Canada has traditionally forged strong relations with West African countries such as Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, which have received billions of dollars in Canadian foreign aid, but all three countries have endured military coups in recent years, making them effectively off-limits to Ms. Joly. Instead her West Africa focus will be on Ivory Coast, a relatively stable country where Canada has extensive mining investments.
On Monday, in a visit to a vaccination co-ordination centre in Ivory Coast, Ms. Joly announced that Canada will provide an additional $1-million to the World Health Organization to help its response to the mpox outbreak.
In South Africa, Ms. Joly will be arriving during the glow of optimism from a newly formed coalition government. The long-ruling African National Congress has ceded several key cabinet posts to opposition parties, sparking hopes of an economic turnaround and new investment.
Carleton University professor David Hornsby, a specialist in Canada-Africa relations, said Ms. Joly’s visit to South Africa is an important signal. “After a number of years of neglect, indifference and even significant disagreement on big multilateral issues, it is good to see Canada make the effort to reinforce bilateral ties and develop more mutual understanding,” he told The Globe. “South Africa and other African states are getting fed up with Canadian prevarication and narrow focus to relations.”
In the late 1980s, Canada built links to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, pushing hard for global sanctions against the apartheid regime. This placed Canada in a strong diplomatic position when apartheid ended in 1994. But those historic links have faded as Canada became increasingly low profile.
The ANC government has provoked Western concern in the past two years by maintaining close relations with Russia and Iran. Those concerns are likely to be discussed when Ms. Joly meets the South African Foreign Minister, Ronald Lamola, this week.
They might also discuss the mpox outbreak and the Canadian stockpile of mpox vaccines, which could be of great value to African countries. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada was widely accused of hoarding vaccines. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who heads an African Union initiative on pandemic prevention, is urging the international community to ensure “equitable access” to mpox vaccines and treatments this time.
Canada is estimated to have a stockpile of at least two million mpox vaccine doses, as a result of a US$470-million supply contract that it signed with a manufacturer in 2022.