Turkiye and its outreach in Africa

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan once stated: “Turkiye wants to walk alongside Africa as a new world order is being established.” This statement clearly reflects Ankara’s policy on Africa amid the geopolitical shifts that have implications for the continent.
Africa, a continent increasingly known for rivalries among global powers, is going through a period of change in power dynamics. France’s recent military withdrawals from the Sahel and West Africa have created a power vacuum that several actors, such as the US, China, and Russia, seek to fill.
Turkiye is carefully reading this regional zeitgeist in an attempt to secure economic and diplomatic dominance. Although a power play in Africa gives Turkiye limited room for maneuvering, its position as a middle power offers some advantages over global powers that have been affected by recent geopolitical shifts in the Middle East and beyond.
The regime change in the Syrian Arab Republic, for example, has jeopardized Russia’s use of the country for its Mediterranean and African outreach. Both Syria and Ukraine have forced Russia to revise its strategy in Africa at a time when Western powers are gradually withdrawing from the continent.
While this Western withdrawal should play into the hands of the Kremlin, it has also opened the door for other actors, such as Turkiye, to enter the game. Thus, the growing Turkish geopolitical influence in Africa is challenged not only by the Russian presence but also by that of the Chinese, who view the continent as a “base” from which a rising China might best extend its global power.
In 2017, Turkiye established a military base in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, at a cost of $50 million. Like American and Chinese military sites in Djibouti, the Turkish base offers proximity to the Indian Ocean. Turkiye is also looking to fill the void left by the US across the Horn of Africa and into the Sahel.
It is important to understand Turkiye’s motives for all of this, especially as some African countries have ordered Western powers, including the US, to withdraw military personnel from their countries.
Diplomatic leverage, economic gains, security commitments, status-seeking, and global power competition are five major drivers behind Ankara’s policy on Africa. As a G20 member, Turkiye evidently feels the need to engage with the continent, as have many other G20 powers.
By building closer relations with African states, Turkiye seeks their potential support within international platforms, including the UN General Assembly. In line with this aim, Ankara has increased the number of its embassies on the continent from 12 to 44 in two decades. It also holds an annual Turkiye-Africa Summit, at which it gradually institutionalizes its Africa policy.

Turkiye has been applying a combination of soft and hard power to expand its role in the Sahel and West Africa. 

Dr. Sinem Cengiz

Through bilateral trade and investment, Turkiye also seeks to build South-South cooperation. The total volume of trade between Turkiye and African nations increased substantially between 2003 and 2023, from $1.35 billion to $12.4 billion.
African partners are actively seeking further Turkish engagement. For instance, Tanzanian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Thabit Kombo recently asked Turkiye to support a project that aims to provide electricity to 300 million people across the continent by 2030. Uganda has invited Turkish firms to invest in shipbuilding and port development to help boost tourism activities.
While the economy and trade are the primary motivating factors behind Turkiye’s outreach to Africa, along with its historical and cultural ties to the region, in recent years the engagement has also taken on a military aspect. Maintaining economic gains is not easy, as it requires security commitments.
The transformation of the Turkish defense industry, with a clear shift from arms procurement to manufacturing and sales, plays a key role in Turkiye’s Africa policy. For example, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Chad have acquired Turkish drones, while other Sahelian countries have acquired a variety of other Turkish military equipment.
Turkiye has signed security cooperation agreements with most countries on the continent. It has also reportedly deployed military advisers and drones at the Abeche base in Chad, following the departure in late January of the French garrison that had been stationed there.
However, Turkiye wants to avoid being viewed predominantly as an actor that engages with the continent through military or security activity. Therefore, it adopts a more holistic approach to its relations with Africa, encompassing more than only military projects, including investments in education, such as scholarships for Africans to study in Turkiye.
As Joseph Nye, the political scientist who coined the term “soft power” in the early 1990s, pointed out, there is no difference between hard power and soft power in terms of the intended goals. Aware of this, Turkiye has been applying a combination of soft and hard power to expand its role in the Sahel and West Africa, in order to widen its sphere of influence.
This is paying off; African ambassadors and students who work or study in Turkiye have found that their time there can serve as a springboard that helps them rise to the level of ministers, as seen in Somalia, or even presidents, as in Ethiopia.
Mediation is another soft power tool that Turkiye aims to employ while pursuing its economic goals and maintaining its security commitments. After brokering a deal between Ethiopia and Somalia, Ankara now seeks a role in efforts to end the civil war in Sudan as well. It has also declared its intention to help resolve the dispute between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, if both sides desire the assistance.
Turkiye’s African outreach is considered, in diplomatic terms, an “overstretch,” which means it brings with it both challenges and opportunities. Given the country’s military and economic capabilities, and the disquieting risks the continent poses, Turkiye must therefore navigate its African policy carefully to ensure its strategy is sustainable.
The African continent, and in particular the Sahel and West Africa regions, are theaters for both global and regional powers, which offers Ankara incentives to get involved but also limits its room for maneuver.

• Dr. Sinem Cengiz is a Turkish political analyst who specializes in Turkiye’s relations with the Middle East. X: @SinemCngz