The Eighth Iberian Conference on African Studies (CIEA8) was held in Madrid on June 14-16, 2012. Like previous conferences, it was a forum for research centers and individual researchers of African problems from Spain and Portugal, as well as for a wide range of specialists on African problems from Europe, Africa and other countries, in particular Brazil.

The theme of the conference was African realities and the nature of their transformations, as well as national, regional and global processes taking place on the African continent. To analyze all the variety of phenomena and processes occurring in the world.

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In order to cover as wide a range of African issues as possible, the conference organized 43 thematic sections, including more than 360 different reports.

Former Director of CODERSIA (Council for the Development of Social Scientific Research - CODERSIA) and current Director of the UN Institute for Economic Development and Planning, as well as Director of the Institute of African Governance of Nigeria Adebayo Olukoshi addressed the opening plenary session of the conference. The topic of his presentation was African studies in the XXI century.

During the second plenary session, a round table was held, where participants heard a speech by Catherine Mwajaki Dahou, representative of the Department of Political Science and International Relations of the University of Oxford, as well as Ramon Sarro, representative of the Lisbon Institute of Social Sciences and the University of Oxford. Finally, at the end of the conference, Shiba N. Grovogi, a representative of the Department of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University, spoke about the attitude of African countries to such complex and contradictory concepts as sovereignty and humanitarian intervention.

Russia was represented at this conference by scientists from the Institute of Africa of the Russian Academy of Sciences. They proposed the theme" BRICS Countries: Image and Prospects in Africa", which was adopted by the organizers of the conference and gave the name of the 14th section, moderated by Deputy Ministers of Foreign Affairs. Director of the Institute for African studies D. M. Bondarenko and head. Department of International Relations of the Institute of Africa of the Russian Academy of Sciences A. A. Arkhangelskaya.

The section meetings were attended by 20 participants: in addition to Russian scientists, researchers from Portugal, Great Britain, Mozambique, and students of the Autonomous University of Madrid.

It should be noted that the BRICS issue has attracted growing attention of politicians, scientists and mass media around the world in recent years. At the same time, interest in this issue intensified after the group's abbreviation was expanded: in 2011, an African state, the Republic of South Africa, was admitted to its membership. The BRICS presence is noticeably growing on the African continent, which has become a kind of experimental field for implementing the political and economic plans of the group's member States.

The task of the section participants was to contribute to the discussion concerning the specific policy features, goals of each BRICS member country in Africa, as well as the image of these countries in African states in the past and present. The discussion focused on Africa's perception of the new grouping and the ability of the BRICS countries to act as key partners of African countries.

The session was opened by a report by the representative of the Center for African Studies (CEA) of the Institute of the University of Lisbon (ISCTE - Institute Universitario de Lisboa), G. Seibert, on Brazil, which the speaker described as "an ambitious player that has reappeared on the African continent". By the way, if in recent years the term "emerging powers" has been used in science and journalism, which in our opinion does not accurately reflect the essence of the phenomenon, since China, India and Brazil are by no means new to Africa, today this term is often used with the prefix "re" - "reemerging", or" newly emerged " states, which is more in line with reality.

According to Seibert, former Brazilian President Lula da Silva, who came to power in 2003, called strengthening relations with Africa a priority of Brazil's global foreign policy, which claims to play a more prominent role in the new multipolar world order. The President's frequent visits to the continent and the growing importance of Brazilian embassies in Africa during da Silva's two terms as president have demonstrated Brazil's growing role as a prominent player in Africa. The speaker drew attention to the growth of Brazil's trade with Africa, the investment of Brazilian companies in the mining industry, energy, construction, and agricultural sectors of African countries, as well as the intensification of Brazilian-African cultural, scientific, and technical cooperation, which have become important tools of the country's African policy. At the same time, the speaker drew attention to the growing rivalry of Brazil on the continent with traditional players and other BRICS member countries.

D. M. Bondarenko's report "Russia's Image in Africa" was based on data collected in Africa by a group of researchers led by the speaker in 2006-2010. At the same time, an assessment was given to the positive and negative aspects of the impact that the project had on the formation of the image.

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Russia in Africa, the Soviet Union. On the one hand, the image of post-Soviet Russia in Africa has not yet been formed, primarily due to Russia's weak informational and political presence on the continent. However, on the other hand, post-Soviet Russia partly inherited the image of the USSR, which many Africans associated with supporting their struggle against colonialism, neo-colonialism, apartheid and economic backwardness. According to the speaker, the image of modern Russia in Africa is simply absent rather than negative, and this creates an opportunity for forming a positive image if you give African politics a more active, mutually beneficial character and take into account the specific features of African culture, including politics and business.

Two reports in the section were devoted to China's activities in Africa as a leading player in the BRICS group. Carlos Oya of the University of London focused on China's role as an emerging donor and its impact on the international aid system for Africa. China, like other BRICS members, has become an important source of aid for a number of African countries. Therefore, the Buzan Aid Summit adopted a declaration stating that a foundation has been laid for cooperation between traditional donors, South-South partners, BRICS and private donors. While traditional donors remain the main source of official development assistance, they may face serious obstacles, especially in the case of China, whose activities differ in many aspects from traditional aid practices. As an important positive effect of the BRICS, and especially China's involvement in Africa, the speaker considers the transfer of aid resources to economic infrastructure, or rather, to large-scale infrastructure, which is particularly needed by African countries.

T. N. Deitch (Institute of Africa, Russian Academy of Sciences) 'BRICS in Africa: the Role of China and Russia' stated that the BRICS countries, having become new players on the African continent, created new opportunities for African economies, contributing, in particular, to their growth in 2011. Africa's leading BRICS partner is China. This is confirmed by data on the volume of China-Africa trade ($166.3 billion in 2011), Chinese aid to African countries ($1-2 billion annually) and estimates of the activities of more than 2 thousand Chinese companies in Africa. China is a leader among the BRICS countries in the field of infrastructure financing: today it is the main player in this area.

As for Russian-African relations, their scale is much more modest. Russia is hampered by the lack of a global strategy for Africa, which is especially noticeable in comparison with China, which holds China-Africa summits every three years, where new commitments to help Africa are made. At the same time, the speaker believes, there are signs that Russia is returning to Africa. This is supported by such facts as visits to the continent by Russian officials, the Moscow parliamentary conference "Russia Africa" in 2010, the activities of Russian companies in Africa, etc.

The report of the Head of the Department was devoted to Russian policy in Africa. Center for Russian-African Relations and Foreign Policy of the E. N. Korendyasov Institute of Africa. In recent years, the dynamics of Russian-African relations have noticeably increased. Investment activity has revived, and foreign trade turnover has slightly increased. Russia's write-off of $ 20 billion The debt burden of African countries on Soviet loans has virtually eliminated the debt problem from the agenda of Russian-African relations. The volume of Russian ODA in 2004-2010 amounted to $ 2 billion, of which approximately $ 300 million was allocated to African countries. At the same time, the potential of Russian-African relations remains largely untapped. Russian diplomacy had to make considerable efforts to minimize the damage to Russian-African relations associated with the replacement of those principles, forms and conditions of cooperation that were based on the logic of bipolar confrontation of the Cold War. In general, we managed to maintain a friendly climate in relations between Russia and Africa. However, in order to improve the effectiveness of Russia's African foreign policy, it is necessary to make timely adjustments, taking into account the rapidly changing realities in the international arena.

The final report "BRICS Images and Prospects in Africa" was delivered by A. A. Arkhangelskaya. She noted the growing rivalry between States for access to raw materials from extremely resource-rich Africa, which has become one of the important aspects of modern international relations. The Russian economy is not critically dependent on African resources, which distinguishes Russia from other actors on the continent. However, the Russian Federation-

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The country is experiencing a shortage of certain minerals (manganese, bauxite, chromium), which it can fill by importing from Africa. For the analysis and prospects of BRICS on the African continent, the role of each of the participating countries is important; it is necessary to assess the experience of both bilateral relations of BRICS members with Africa and multilateral interaction. At the same time, the BRICS success factor in Africa is the image of each of the group's countries in the eyes of Africans. This image is based on historical, cultural and other ties: none of the group's countries is a new actor on the continent, but each has traditional socio-cultural and political ties with Africa. BRICS, as a growing political force, emphasizes its difference from Western countries and, while advocating the creation of a South-South axis, positions itself as an alternative to the dominance of developed countries in international relations. This discourse finds support in Africa.

The report "India in Africa: Image Evolution" was presented by V. A. Usov (Institute of Africa), who was unable to attend the conference. The theses of his report were included in the collection "Libro del Congreso. CIEA8. Madrid, 14-16 de junio, 2012", presented to all participants.

Many questions were asked, and the section had an extensive discussion on issues related to the BRICS group and its individual members ' activities in Africa.

The conference featured an exhibition of African art, including outstanding works from the Jimenez de Arellano Foundation collection. The documentary " Robert Mugabe... What happened?", which won an award in 2011 at the Cape Town South African Documentary Film Festival.

The conference made it possible to establish new and strengthen old links between research centers and scientists from European and African countries engaged in the study of the present, past and future of African countries.

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