Burkina Faso’s military rulers are seeking to diversify its international allies following a coup last year.
Russia has in recent months discussed greater military cooperation with Burkina Faso, as well as pledging deliveries of free grain to one of the world’s poorest countries. The agreement was signed at the Russian Energy Week in Moscow, which was attended by Burkina Faso’s energy minister Simon-Pierre Boussim and Nikolay Spassky, the deputy director-general of Russia’s state atomic energy agency, Rosatom.
It said the agreement laid the foundations for cooperation in areas including the use of nuclear energy in industry, agriculture, and medicine. “Our challenge is to double our electricity production by 2030, which will allow us to boost the industrialisation of Africa,” he added. “There’s a competition between China and Russia on the continent” in terms of nuclear power plant investment, Usman, from Johannesburg’s University of Witwatersrand, said.