As China released its 13th Five Year Plan last week, there are key ingredients of China’s model of development, which African countries can definitely learn from.

While Russia's interest in sub-Saharan Africa is nothing new, Russian authorities have realized that it’s time to move back primarily to reclaim its economic footprints and to find old Soviet-era allies, but that step comes with new challenges especially from other foreign players and the changing internal political and economic conditions in Africa.

As trade and investment relations of African countries with China grow, African officials must step up negotiations to secure benefits for their people and promote African businesses and investments in China to counter one-sided patterns. The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) is great platform for this.

India-Africa cooperation that promotes economic and technological exchange and the indigenous transformation of Africa’s natural resources could help move the continent up the global value chain.

Africa’s comprador ruling classes and educated middle class are so compromised by imperialism that they are incapable of providing the revolutionary leadership required for the continent’s true liberation. The only possible alternative is that of the working people. They need an ideology, organisation and leadership to constitute an alternative political bloc.