We are at a critical juncture in world history. Some seven decades ago, much of Africa started the march to independence. That independence was achieved in a world with an established order and administrations already deeply rooted compared with the nascent African leadership.

Africa had to play a catch-up role. However, with the leadership change in Washington and a focus on ‘America first”, the United States is pulling back some of its operations on the continent.

USAID, the agency through which America contributed to social development in Africa, is being shut down. The same applies to the Voice of America, the broadcasting network through which American voices and opinions were projected to the rest of the world.

This is triggering a flurry of activities elsewhere in the world. Europe has been on the back foot for some time and now has stopped to take notice. They did not have a choice.

Since the end of the Second World War, which established NATO, Europe has remained secure in the knowledge that US nuclear power guarantees its peace.

Now that the US is rethinking this, European governments, with their operations centred in Brussels, must rethink their security and possibly their place in the world.

The support that the US and Europe provided to Africa may have encouraged the development of bad habits on the continent. Rather than invest in their social services, African governments stayed secure, knowing that the global North would pick up the tab.

These partners were left to provide water in villages, healthcare services in towns, and antiretrovirals in urban areas in some countries. That will no longer be the case. We knew that we could appeal to the North to rein in the rogue political class, who would be denied visas, as a strategy to get them to get their governance act together.

Now, the dollars and euros will not be flowing in. While the US is cutting back because it wishes to, Europe must cut back its support to the South out of necessity and priority. Europe is building its defences. Money will go towards stocking its armoury and building armies. It is a dangerous thing to imagine: all these spatially small countries of Europe, each building factories of one type of ammunition or the other and possibly soon daring each other.

Europe has a history of wars.Technically, Africa is being left to its devices.

Get your act together by providing social services, securing your borders, and maintaining amicable neighbourhood relationships without the hope that you can play one power against the other, as was the case before the collapse of the Berlin Wall thirty-some years ago.

It is time for Africa to rise and occupy the space vacated by these powers. Power abhors a vacuum. If Africa does not rise quickly, other powers will lurk on the sidelines.

China has long perfected its international presence through people-to-people diplomacy with a win-win philosophy. It has the resources to move quickly and define the continent’s future, and it is imaginable that many African countries will be open to this.

Study after study, the findings point towards an improved view of China in Africa. There is an increasing admiration for Chinese philosophy, leadership, and goods, and even greater interaction with Chinese people, some of whom now dot African villages.

And not yet. China’s move to provide internet access services to rival those of Elon Musk at a fraction of the cost will increase Africa’s interaction with the Asian giant. Think of the other platforms that China can use: BRICS, the Belt and Road Initiative, and FOCAC, among others.

China is not the only admirer. Russia is also waiting in the wings and is already making moves in West Africa. Studies indicate that Russia is indeed the leading country with disinformation on Africa.

Africa must move and engage with the rest of the world during this moment of global power reorganisation by defining its agenda and using the Chinese phrase to seek a win-win collaboration. America’s introspective focus is an opportunity.

— The writer is the Dean of Daystar University’s School of Communication