DURBAN, Aug 17, 2026: The Southern African Development Community and Russia are moving to turn a seven-year-old cooperation framework into a more structured partnership, with the two sides reviewing a draft action plan as Moscow prepares for a new round of engagement with African countries.
The development came on the margins of the 46th SADC Summit in Durban, where SADC Deputy Executive Secretary for Regional Integration Angele Makombo N’Tumba met Tatiana Dovgalenko, Director of the Department for Partnership with Africa at Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
#𝗦𝗔𝗗𝗖 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗥𝘂𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗮 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗴𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗙𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗠𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗕𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝗼𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
— SADC Secretariat (@SADC_News) August 16, 2026
SADC Deputy Executive Secretary for Regional Integration, Ms Angele Makombo N’Tumba @AngeleMakombo, met with Ms Tatiana Dovgalenko, Director… pic.twitter.com/QlgLI5JQDa
The discussions focused on the status of the Draft Action Plan under the 2018 Memorandum of Understanding on the Basic Principles of Relations and Cooperation between SADC and Russia. SADC said the framework covers political affairs, industrial development, trade and economic relations, humanitarian cooperation, science and technology and cultural initiatives, with newer areas including digital infrastructure, ICT and agriculture being considered.
The timing of the engagement comes as Russia prepares for the third Russia–Africa Summit and Russia–Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum in Moscow in October 2026. The official summit organisers say the event is intended to advance comprehensive cooperation between Russia and African countries, with the economic forum focusing on trade, investment, peaceful nuclear energy, payment systems, digitalisation and food security.
The relationship is not new. SADC and Russia established a formal cooperation framework in 2018 through a memorandum on the basic principles of relations and cooperation. SADC has subsequently pursued political dialogue and cooperation with Moscow in several areas.
The latest effort to develop a formal action plan comes as SADC itself places industrialisation, infrastructure, agricultural transformation and critical minerals at the centre of its regional agenda. The official theme of the 46th SADC Summit is “Resilient, sustainable and inclusive industrialisation through Infrastructure Development, Agricultural and Critical Minerals Transformation in Pursuit of a Just World.”
That focus gives wider economic context to the growing interest in Africa from major powers.
The International Energy Agency says critical minerals have become increasingly important because they are essential to energy technologies and the broader economy. Lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and graphite are important for batteries, while rare earth elements are used in permanent magnets for wind turbines and electric-vehicle motors; copper and aluminium are essential to electricity networks.
The IEA's latest analysis also points to a supply-chain problem: refining of key energy minerals remains highly concentrated. In 2025, the average share held by the largest refined supplier reached about 70 percent, while the IEA says concentration-related risks to energy and economic security became a reality during 2025.
This has made Africa's mineral resources more strategically important. The African Development Bank said in July that Africa holds about 30 percent of the world's most critical mineral deposits, including cobalt, lithium, graphite, rare earths, platinum-group metals, copper, manganese and nickel. The bank said African countries need to develop regional value chains and local processing capacity instead of primarily exporting raw materials.
Hanan Morsy, Deputy Executive Secretary and Chief Economist of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, made a similar point at a critical-minerals ministerial forum in Abidjan in July. She said Africa possesses roughly 30 percent of global critical-mineral reserves but captures less than five percent of the associated value added, highlighting the gap between the continent's mineral wealth and the economic value generated from it.
The issue is particularly relevant to SADC, whose member states include major producers and holders of minerals such as platinum-group metals, manganese, copper, cobalt and lithium. South Africa's Critical Minerals and Metals Strategy, for example, identifies beneficiation, advanced manufacturing and cross-border mineral value chains as priorities for turning mineral wealth into industrial development.
For Russia, the wider engagement with Africa extends beyond minerals. The organisers of the 2026 Russia–Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum list trade, investment, nuclear energy, payment systems, digitalisation and food security among the principal areas for discussion. The forum is scheduled for October 28–29 in Moscow alongside the third Russia–Africa Summit.
The Russia–Africa relationship has developed through a series of high-level summits. The first Russia–Africa Summit was held in Sochi in October 2019, while the second took place in St Petersburg in July 2023. The official summit organisers describe the process as an effort to strengthen cooperation between Russia and African countries across political, economic, scientific, technological, cultural and humanitarian fields.
Against that background, the SADC–Russia draft action plan represents an attempt to give greater structure to an existing relationship. Its eventual value will depend on whether the framework produces concrete programmes in the areas identified by the two sides, including trade, investment, technology, agriculture and digital cooperation.
The development also places SADC within the wider contest among external partners for deeper economic relationships with African countries as governments seek investment, technology, infrastructure and more value from their natural resources.
For African countries, the growing international interest in critical minerals comes with an opportunity to attract investment while developing processing, manufacturing and regional supply chains. The African Development Bank has called for exactly such a shift, arguing that greater value addition and regional value chains can turn mineral resources into drivers of industrialisation and job creation.
