Morocco’s head of government, Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri, landed in Moscow on Wednesday to represent King Mohammed VI at the opening of the third Russia-Africa Summit, a high-profile diplomatic gathering that has drawn leaders and senior officials from across the African continent.
She was joined by Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita and Morocco’s ambassador to Russia, Lotfi Bouchaara, forming a compact but weighty delegation. The choice to send the head of government herself, rather than a lower-ranking envoy, signals how seriously Rabat treats this particular stage of African-Russian diplomacy.
Held under the banner « For Peace, Security and Development, » the summit brings together representatives from every African nation that holds a seat at the United Nations. It is the third edition of a format that began in Sochi in 2019 and continued in Saint Petersburg in 2023, each time giving Moscow a platform to deepen economic and security ties with African capitals.
The published agenda spans trade, investment, energy, agriculture and technology. Underneath those broad categories lies a sharper contest: Russia, China and Western powers are all jostling for durable footholds in African economies that are reshaping their alliances and supply chains. For Morocco, long positioned as one of the continent’s most active economic diplomats, showing up in Moscow is not a symbolic afterthought. It keeps a channel open with a country that remains a significant energy and grain supplier to several African states, while Rabat continues to balance that relationship against its ties with Western partners and Gulf allies alike.
Bourita’s presence at the ministerial sessions that preceded Wednesday’s formal opening fits a pattern that has defined Moroccan diplomacy in recent years: showing up, and staying visible, at every major multilateral forum touching Africa, whether hosted in Beijing, Washington or, this week, Moscow.
The summit’s working sessions are expected to continue over the coming days, with a dense economic track and a string of bilateral meetings on the sidelines whose outcomes African foreign ministries will be watching closely, not least for any signal about how the bigger powers plan to court the continent next.