Tatyana Dovgalenko has been Director of the Department for Partnership with Africa at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs since January 2025. She graduated from MGIMO University in 1996. She speaks English, Italian, and French. She has been working in diplomacy since 1996. From 2016 to 2023, she was Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to UNESCO in Paris. In 2023–2024, she was Deputy Director of the Department for Multilateral Humanitarian Cooperation and Cultural Relations, concurrently acting as Executive Secretary of the Russian Federation Commission for UNESCO. From October 2024 to January 2025, she was Ambassador-at-Large of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In February 2025 a new department was created within the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs: the Department for Partnership with Africa. Prior to that, there were two departments, which continue to function today. These are the Department for the Middle East and North Africa and the Department for Africa. What is special about the new department, what are its goals and objectives, and what aspects do you, as its head, focus on the most?

Indeed, the Department for Partnership with Africa was created at the beginning of this year, and its creation reflects the importance that the leadership of the Russian Federation attaches to Africa in its foreign policy. Our colleagues are engaged in bilateral relations with countries on the continent. The Department for Partnership with Africa, so to speak, grew out of the secretariat of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum.

As you know, the first Russia-Africa summit was held in 2019, and the second in 2023. Last year, the first ministerial conference took place. The increase in tasks, volume and connections dictated the need to provide human resources, including in the field of foreign policy.

In particular, at the summit in St. Petersburg in 2023, our joint action plan was approved together with the Africans. It is quite extensive and includes many projects in various areas: economic, investment, trade, political, security, and so on, which must be implemented by 2026, that is, before the next, third summit.

Therefore, the secretariat of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum has been incorporated into a new structure, the Department for Partnership with Africa. In addition, as powerful integration processes are gaining momentum on the African continent, our other task is to develop relations with regional and subregional integration structures, primarily with the African Union.

We are working to improve relations with the continent as a whole, including, for example, strengthening cooperation through parliamentary channels. There is the Pan-African Parliament, the African Parliamentary Union, inter-party ties, and so on. This is what distinguishes our department from others.

The Partnership Department strives to develop relations with integration associations. Apart from the African Union, what other associations are there and what specific tasks are set for the Partnership Department in the context of increasing ties and cooperation between Russia and African countries?

You are absolutely right in noting that the main well-known continental organisation is the African Union. However, there are many other subregional structures on the continent. These include international development organisations such as the Southern African Development Community, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the Economic Community of West African States, the Economic Community of Central African States, and so on.

There are also pan-African economic structures, such as the largest continental project, the African Free Trade Area. Then there are banks, such as the African Development Bank.

Relations with all these structures, i.e. everything related to multilateral formats, are the responsibility of our department, including the emergence of new alliances.

If you have been following the agenda, you probably know that in April, the first meeting between the foreign ministers of the Russian Federation and the Sahel Confederation took place in Moscow. This is a young integration association that emerged about a year ago, uniting Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. And developing relations with such structures is the task of our department.

Countries on the continent, and indeed throughout the Global South, are increasingly thinking about switching to green energy and combating the effects of climate change. How do you plan to structure your work on the climate agenda?

The climate agenda is not directly the responsibility of our department; we have specialists, and there are other agencies in the Russian Federation that are responsible for this.

But you are absolutely right that Africans pay a lot of attention to the issue of climate change, because the continent has many protected areas, pristine nature, national parks, and world-famous natural heritage sites.

The task is to preserve all this for future generations. For our part, we are, of course, committed to complying with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and are determined to deepen our ties with African countries, both within its mechanisms and on a bilateral basis.

What could be the problem here? The fact is that almost half of the population of the African continent does not even have access to electricity. The continent, which accounts for 60 per cent of solar energy, is rich in opportunities for the development of renewable sources. But this task of protecting the environment and combating climate change must be combined with the tasks of industrialising Africa and ensuring the energy security of countries.

For our part, as a country with extensive experience in environmentally friendly energy sources such as natural gas and nuclear energy, we are ready to provide assistance, naturally on the basis of requests from the relevant national authorities. We are ready for joint projects in this area, including the construction of energy facilities, personnel training and geological exploration.

Trade between Russia and Africa is currently growing rapidly. In 2024, it amounted to US$25 billion, but, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted, these figures do not yet reflect the existing potential. Does the new department have any strategy for developing cooperation, for taking trade to a new level? What is the potential?

You are absolutely right that trade is growing, growing at a rapid pace. Last year, it grew by 13 per cent and amounted to slightly more than US$27.7 billion, but it is still far from its potential and cannot be compared with the figures shown by other non-regional players. Moreover, very little of this figure – just over three per cent – accounts for our imports from African countries.

And here we still have a lot to do to balance our trade balance. About 70 per cent of this trade is with the north of the continent, while the potential of sub-Saharan African countries is also great.

There is interest from Russian economic operators, and there is also interest from African companies. A great many projects are currently being developed. I don’t want to list them all, but I can say, for example, that the creation of a Russian industrial zone in Egypt should become one of the landmark projects. The relevant documents were signed in May, and we expect to move on to practical issues in the near future.

Continuing the discussion on the economic front, how might the African continent be of interest to Russian investors?

The African continent has a population of 1.5 billion people. It is a very young population that is growing at a very rapid pace. According to experts’ estimates, if Africa currently accounts for 20 per cent of the world’s population, it will soon account for 25 per cent, and by the middle of the century it could account for almost 40 per cent.

Therefore, it is a large and capacious consumer market. Accordingly, this demographic explosion should ultimately translate into economic growth, because everyone will be in demand in the labour market in one way or another, which will give a powerful impetus to the development of the African continent’s economy.

Among the 20 fastest-growing economies in the world, 12 are African countries. Moreover, they are growing at rates of up to 9 per cent per year, which is a lot. This is happening dynamically, and broad prospects for business development are opening up in almost all areas.

This includes infrastructure construction, geological exploration, mineral extraction, and training personnel for this economy, because the continent, of course, needs to keep up with the times. We need to think about modern information and communication technologies and digitalisation.

That is why Africans are interested in nuclear energy, the space industry, and satellite launches. The spectrum is very broad.

Watch the full version of the interview here.

African Times published this article in partnership with International Media Network TV BRICS