Crossroads Asia | Diplomacy | East Asia

Mongolia and Africa: Time to Reignite a Forgotten Partnership

During the Cold War, Mongolia forged surprisingly warm relationships with African countries. It’s time to resume those ties.

President of Mozambique Samora Moisés Machel visiting Mongolia in 1978.

During the Cold War, Mongolia forged an unlikely but surprisingly warm set of relationships with African countries. Driven by communist solidarity rather than geography or commerce, Ulaanbaatar hosted African liberation leaders, sent veterinary experts to Ethiopia and Mozambique, and interacted with both Somalia and Ethiopia during the Ogaden War. Ulaanbaatar opened its first African embassy in Guinea before Mongolia had even joined the United Nations. The continent, in turn, helped secure Mongolia’s seat at the U.N. It was, by any measure, a more substantial relationship than the physical distance suggested.

Then the Cold War ended, and so did most of that engagement. For three decades, Mongolia and Africa occupied separate lanes. That is now worth revisiting, because the strategic case for re-engagement is considerably stronger today than it was the first time around.

Africa’s growing weight in the world is difficult to overstate. The continent’s population is projected to approach 2.5 billion by 2050, accounting for over one-quarter of humanity. Africa is supplying most of the net growth in the global working-age population at a time when Europe, China, and parts of Asia face demographic stagnation. Sub-Saharan Africa is forecast to sustain GDP growth rates of 4-5 percent annually through mid-century, faster than any other region, with consumer and business spending projected to reach $16 trillion by 2050. 

Africa also holds approximately 30 percent of the world’s critical mineral reserves, including 55 percent of global cobalt, 47 percent of manganese, and 80 percent of platinum group metals. As demand for these materials surges alongside the global energy transition, the continent’s strategic value is rising rapidly. 

Countries around the world are adjusting their diplomatic strategies to account for Africa’s importance. Mongolia should be among them.

The most immediate case for re-engagement is minerals. Mongolia and many African countries occupy structurally similar positions: resource-intensive economies dependent on a narrow range of commodity exports, with limited processing capacity and constrained access to Western markets. Mongolia’s giant Oyu Tolgoi copper mine exports almost entirely to China. African cobalt, copper, and manganese flow mostly to China as well. Both sides face the same vulnerability: dependence on Chinese demand and Chinese-controlled processing leaves them exposed to price pressure and political leverage.

One solution worth examining seriously is third-party commodity swap arrangements. Under such a mechanism, a Mongolian copper producer could fulfil a delivery obligation to a Chinese buyer by arranging for an African producer, closer to Chinese port infrastructure, to make the physical delivery. Mongolia could then ship its output to a Western buyer, completing the swap without either party incurring the full cost of redirecting supply chains. 

This instrument is........

© The Diplomat