RELATIONS BETWEEN BELARUS AND THE COUNTRIES OF AFRICA AT THE PRESENT STAGE: ORIGINS AND TRENDS.

The article analyses the key areas of cooperation between Belarus and the states of the African continent, which include a wide range of projects - from joint military-technical enterprises to cooperation in the fields of agriculture and education. The relevance of the research topic due to the fact that the African continent is a prospective region to deepen cooperation in many areas. The efforts of Belarus in this area suggests that there is the interest of the countries in interregional cooperation. Among the main methods used for the consideration of the topic is to provide methods of description and comparison. Descriptive method was used to identify the potential of economic cooperation of Belarus with African countries. The comparison method has been used to identify the political and military request form long-term relations between Belarus and Africa. In the result, it was revealed, that Belarus has managed to form a quite adequate legal and institutional framework for cooperation with African countries, but this is not enough in the face of growing competition for the development of the continent's resources. Therefore, the Belorussian authorities, in fact, have developed a new approach to the specifics of the region, which envisages an emphasis on political, not just economic contacts, and also implies a reduction in costs associated with the mutual geographical distance between Belarus and African countries. This will require the development of a long-term strategy for the presence of Belarus on the continent and for increasing the interest of the African states themselves in relations with Minsk. At the end of the article the author makes several conclusions. First, the estimation of the dynamics of relationships in economic, political and military-technical spheres of cooperation between Belarus and African countries. Second, there were identified the main partners of Belarus in each direction. Thirdly, there were analysed the basic policy changes of Belarus in relation to the African continent and highlighted new features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]