Re-Think Russian Investment in Southern Africa

Gerasimchuk, Ivetta (2009): Re-Think Russian Investment in Southern Africa.

Abstract

Russia’s direct investment of about USD 3 billon in Southern Africa over the past decade has placed before the country’s government and corporate sector two choices in the accelerating race among foreign investors into Africa. The first choice is to follow the established path of direct investment from developed economies that has, in the words of a famous African leader Walter Rodney, ‘underdeveloped Africa’ and involved a serious negative environmental impact. The second choice is one that corresponds with the former Soviet Union’s policy of mutually advantageous cooperation with Africa. In the current context, this will prove possible only through joint cooperation to achieve environmental sustainability and economic diversification requiring long-term planning and innovation.

The purpose of this interdisciplinary empirical research paper is to investigate the current and future state of environmental practices in joint ventures between Russia and Southern Africa as compared with other patterns of cooperation among emerging market economies.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Russia, FDI, investment, Southern Africa, SADC, sustainable development, leapfrogging development, natural resources
• Subjects: Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q3 - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation > Q32 - Exhaustible Resources and Economic Development; P - Economic Systems > P3 - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions > P33 - International Trade, Finance, Investment, Relations, and Aid; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O5 - Economywide Country Studies > O55 - Africa; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q5 - Environmental Economics > Q56 - Environment and Development ; Environment and Trade ; Sustainability ; Environmental Accounts and Accounting ; Environmental Equity ; Population Growth

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