Foreign Affairs committee  That's a great question. If we look at the numbers, Chinese investment in Africa less than 20 years ago was less than $70 million U.S. In 2021, it amounted to more than $5 billion U.S. We see that China, as my colleague Professor Gazibo mentioned correctly earlier, is looking at economic development as the tip of the spear of its foreign policy in Africa.

Foreign Affairs committee  One last thing is that, essentially, it resonated well with the global south and multilateral development, especially with BRICS, which we are seeing now in Africa. The issue is that the economic side needs security. This is something China is not able to provide as we speak, and we can see the difference with the Russian approach.

Foreign Affairs committee  That's a great question. First, in the area where the Wagner Group is present—and we are seeing that it has an expanding footprint, which started with Mali and Mozambique and is moving faster to Burkina Faso, to Niger and, probably soon enough, to Chad—there is no possibility to compete when providing security to local workers and foreign workers.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Chair. I want to start by thanking the chair and committee members for giving me this opportunity to testify today. The views I will be presenting today are solely my own and do not represent any organization that I am affiliated with. In mapping out Canada's strategic approach to Africa, in my personal opinion, it's imperative to take into consideration a core security variable.