China is not the only one courting Africa

Turkey is making big strides in building relations with Africa. The Jamestown Foundation reports that:

Turkish interest in Africa is underwritten by soaring bilateral trade: while Turkey's trade volume with the entire African continent was $5 billion in 2003, Gul noted that with government encouragement, Turkish-African trade had been increasing annually by double digit figures since 2004 and exceeded $12 billion last year, a figure that his government hoped to increase to $30 billion by 2010.

The article also reports that Turkey brings a lot of agricultural expertise to bear. Perhaps this kind of partnership will bring more development benefits than the results reported by UNCTAD in Economic Development in Africa: 2008.