Egypt takes back the lead in Africa politics

Egypt's renewed interest in nurturing its relationships in Africa follows decades of prioritising relations with Arab states, Europe and the US

Sebastien Thibault

Egypt is wooing states in the Nile Basin and Horn of Africa using its defence industry and security expertise to counter geopolitical worries over the Red Sea and the Suez Canal

Egypt takes back the lead in Africa politics

Amr Emam

last update on 16 Mar 2024

Egypt’s geopolitical ambition to deepen its military influence in the Horn of Africa has been on display to the continent and the world with a series of high-level visits to Cairo.

Kenya’s defence secretary, Aden Duale, arrived in the Egyptian capital earlier this month for talks on deeper military cooperation between the two countries.

He met Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi after meeting with various defence industry officials and the Egyptian defence minister.

During the visit, Duale told a Kenyan newspaper that he viewed Egypt's well-established defence engineering industry as an opportunity for Kenya to enhance its own defence infrastructure.

"The exchange of knowledge and expertise can pave the way for growth and development in the defence sector," he said.

And two weeks before Duale landed in Cairo, an Egyptian military delegation visited the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, for talks on defence and security cooperation.

That came almost four months after Egypt’s Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly met Kenya’s President William Samuel Ruto in Nairobi to discuss cooperation and joint projects, including rainwater collection dams, groundwater wells, and modern irrigation programmes.

Politics of water

Egypt's move for greater cooperation in the region reflects Cairo's perceptions of emerging challenges to its national security – alongside wider geopolitical developments in the region – which have included direct threats to the country.

Conditions in the Nile Basin and the Horn of Africa have a direct bearing on two vital lifelines for Egypt: the Nile, which supplies Egypt with almost 90% of its freshwater, and the Suez Canal, which generates much of its national income.

Egypt's water supply from the Nile has come under intense pressure in recent years. A multi-billion-dollar construction project in Ethiopia to build a hydroelectric dam upstream in the Blue Nile will reduce water flow into Egypt.

Boys swim in the Nile River amid a heatwave in El Qanater El Khairiyah, Al Qalyubia Governorate, Egypt, August 4, 2023.

Millions of acres of Egyptian farmland could be affected or even destroyed, worsening food shortages in Egypt and devastating its economy.

Almost a decade of negotiations with Ethiopia over the dam's operation and the filling of its reservoir produced nothing. Egypt walked away from the talks and now deals with the dam as a threat to national security.

Threats to Egypt’s economy are also emerging in the Red Sea, where the Houthi militia in Yemen has stepped up attacks against ships crossing the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait—a crucial passageway to the Suez Canal.

The desire of rival states – including Ethiopia – to gain a strategic foothold in the Red Sea also adds to Cairo’s concerns, making it necessary for it to take measures to safeguard the flow of traffic in the southern entrance of the Red Sea to and from the Suez.

And so, Egypt is keen to work with other countries in the Nile Basin and the Horn of Africa to boost its wider security position in the context of its unease with Ethiopia.

Egypt is helping states construct rainwater collection dams and is offering them modern irrigation technologies and professional personnel training. This includes teaching techniques on mitigating the effects of climate change on water resources.

By doing so, Cairo aims to dissuade these states from building river dams on the Nile, convincing them there are alternative ways to secure water resources, produce food and generate electricity.

Egypt is working with countries in the Nile Basin and the Horn of Africa to boost its wider security position amid its growing rift with Ethiopia.

Gun show diplomacy

Egypt has also been using its military influence to build its position in the region, including via the arms trade, in which it has reduced its reliance on imports to produce weapons itself.

Gen. Mohamed Abdel Wahid, an expert in Egyptian national security and international relations, told Al Majalla that this move was part of the country's moves to use "fields where it has a marked advantage" to "benefit fellow African states."

"Egypt has started selling some locally produced arms to other African countries, and there can be more deals in the future when demand rises," he added.

The Egyptian army paraded a wide range of such weapons late last year at EDEX, its most important defence exhibition.

The exhibition included frigates, armoured vehicles, anti-jamming devices, concrete-piercing bombs, mobile command centres, missile launchers and radiation detectors.

AFP — An Egyptian officer tests a pistol during the opening of the EDEX defence exhibition on December 23, 2023.

It highlighted how Egypt's military—the most powerful in the Arab and African regions, with a distinguished record in counter-terrorism operations and traditional warfare—is in a good position to help other states on the continent.

That gives Egypt more political leverage in a continent where terrorism is a real threat from groups including the Islamic State (IS), Boko Haram and al-Shabaab, which are taking root and posing a growing threat.

Defence deals

Egypt has signed several defence and security cooperation deals with fellow African states in the past few years, especially in the Nile Basin and the Horn of Africa.

In 2021 alone, it signed four deals in this regard, including a technical deal on defence cooperation with Kenya and another on defence and security cooperation with South Sudan. There was also a third on military intelligence-sharing with Uganda and a fourth on training and joint exercises with Burundi.

Egypt's renewed interest in building such relations follows decades of deterioration in ties on its home continent, particularly during the years of Hosni Mubarak's rule as president, when he nurtured ties with fellow Arab states, Europe and the US.

Mubarak's frosty relations with African nations – especially after he narrowly escaped an attempt on his life in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1995 – stood in stark contrast with Egyptian policies towards the continent after the overthrow of the monarchy in Egypt in 1952.

Egypt's renewed interest in nurturing its relationships in Africa follows decades of prioritising relations with Arab states, Europe and the US.

Independence and development

Until the early 1980s, its foreign policy focused on helping fellow African states gain independence and develop economically. Its current policies are more about defending its own interests.

Egypt's absence from the continent's diplomacy in the last 15 years of Mubarak's rule cost it dearly. It gave rival regional and international powers a chance to fill the vacuum it left, meaning the country lost out on significant political and economic opportunities.

According to regional observers, it also puts Egypt's national security at risk, especially over matters related to the Nile.

African affairs expert Rodina Yassen told Al Majalla: "This absence affected Egypt's relations with fellow African states on all fronts."

"However, Egypt is now working hard to make a comeback on the continent, using all available tools to bring relations back on track".

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