A conference was held on January 30-31, 2020, in Kenya, the Eastern part of Africa and over 200 officials from all over the African region participated in discovering ways of integration with Islamabad [1]. In this crucial conference, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, foreign affairs minister of Pakistan, said to media that Somaliland is asking Islamabad to extend its "Look Africa Policy Initiative" with the countries of Horn of Africa generally and with Somaliland particularly [2]. Pakistan and Africa can play an active role in enhancing the economic links between both regions. Islamabad has long traditional ties with some African states. The financial framework is yet unclear between Islamabad and Africa. Pakistan must adopt a clear policy towards Africa to strengthen its relationship. Africa is a bigger market and rich with natural wealth. This paper highlights the challenges and prospects to enhance trade links with the African countries.

Political maturity and economic prosperity are interlinked phenomena. Islamabad and African countries have different commonalities, but unfortunately, one of them is political instability. Economic prosperity indicators, such as production, sales, employment, GDP, stable inflation, etc., can be reached through continuous economic policies that can only be achieved through political stability. This paper analyses the prospects of the sociopolitical environment in Africa for achieving desiring results from joint economic initiatives in the area. This paper also shows the strategic significance of Africa and Pakistan's efforts to reach out to African markets.

This study takes Pakistan and African countries as a unit of analysis to analyze systematically improving networking patterns among themselves. The underlying research is based on qualitative research techniques.

The researcher has applied a qualitative method in his research paper. The researcher met various media personalities to get beneficial information to complete his research work. The researcher received most of the data from the articles and online journals. The researcher read various research papers, online material and newspapers to write his research paper. The researcher also got helped from electronic and print media to get relevant data to write his research paper. The writer got help from the Internet to find out pertinent data to write his research paper.

Strategic Importance of Africa

The continent of Africa has strategically significant for the East and the West for various reasons. The world consists of seven continents and Africa is one of them. The second-largest continent is Africa in terms of area and population. Africa consists of almost 20% of the land of earth and 16% of the world's inhabitants. Scholars often divide the African part into five regions to understand its uniformity. North Africa is the first region that consists of Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Western Sahara, Libya and Sudan. These states share their borders with the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Despite political instability in this region, authoritarian regimes have managed the democratic standard through economic and coercive measures. In some cases, these regimes have been fulfilling the aspirations of the Western countries; thus, African states are more dependent on the Western states to protect their interests. Comparatively, the northern region is more prosperous and progressive than other parts of the African region. Despite the political upheaval, which has been the permanent feature of these states, this area is connected with Europe, has a contrast in economic development than other regions. This feature makes it dependent on the European countries. The Eastern part of Africa is also called the Horn of Africa; This region of Africa is one of the critical parts that occupies a significant position on the Red Sea, a crucial area for sea trade between East and West [3]. The Eastern part is also one of the most conflicted regions globally, consisting of Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, Kenya, Ethiopia, Burundi, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania and South Sudan. This part has two-dimensional strategic significance; the first feature is political in terms. Political instability is a common phenomenon since the independence of East Africa, creating a threat notion in this part of Africa [4]. Trade is the second feature of its strategic significance. This trade route is used on a large scale to transport energy resources from East to West. The first feature is crucial to describe prevailing political instability and outer efforts to weaken them. After imposing dictatorship in Somalia, a power space was produced and ended up instability and anarchy. Moreover, American intervention worsened the condition from 1995 to 2005; it remained unattended internationally [5]. A sudden increase in freebooting on the sea route of the horn of Africa was seen due to instability, lack of resources and anarchy. The international forces were keen not just to solve the area's problems but also to protect their ships. Neighboring states of Somalia have been in war with each other. Ethiopia had friendly ties with Djibouti because, during its war with neighboring Eritrea (1998-2000), it had been trading via Djibouti port, being a landlocked country [6]. Djibouti's strained relations with Eritrea in 1998 were reinstalled in 2000 at the end of the war. Djibouti and Eritrea are located at the horn of Africa, now enjoying cordial ties. Sudan has been involved in border issues with South Sudan and Egypt.

The third region is Central Africa, which consists of Angola, Cameron, Chad, Congo, Central African Republic, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. These states are part of the

Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS). Six Central African states are Also part of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC) and use a single currency. When states of this part gained independence from Western powers during the 20th century, militant groups gained momentum and tried to control the part. This region is comparatively poor and the primary professions are farming, herding and fishing. The Congo River is the most profound river system on the planet. Lake Chad is situated at the borders of four countries, causing a disturbance because of the access-to-water problem. Deepwater lakes like Tanganyika and Albert are also the primary sources of living for most people in the area. Cameroon and Gabon are politically stable countries of the site. The political past of most countries of Africa is disturbing, which affected their growth.

Ethnic fights and resulted in genocides in Rwanda and wars in Congo caused enormously migration. The fourth is West Africa consisting of Ghana, Benin, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Mauritania, Togo, Senegal, Sierra Leone and The Gambia. The area borders the Atlantic Ocean on the West and the Sahara Desert on the North. Due to the geographic proximity, the Portuguese were the first who came there during the 15th century and started black slavery. British, French, Spanish and Dutch followed them. Western African kingdoms resisted colonial powers against their occupation, mainly British and French but could not sustain them. All Western African states became independent until 1974 but got involved in internal fights. Most of the states in this area are coastal states and few are landlocked. The Economic Community of West African countries was established in 1975 to improve the economic conditions with cooperation.

The fifth one is the Southern part of Africa, consists of Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Lack of water is a severe threat to the region and the population of this part of Africa is black. People in South Africa and Zimbabwe having European connections. Portuguese were the first who came to the western part of Africa and reached the continent's southernmost tip. They made efforts to control the indigenous trade market but failed. Like the Portuguese, Dutch also had their connections in this area. The African part is rich in natural wealth, like minerals, oil, gold, animals, plants, vegetation and forests. The abundance of natural resources cannot indicate prosperity. Niger is one prime example of the most conflict-prone country despite having gold, iron, uranium, coal and oil reserves. It is equally important to manage these resources to achieve prosperity. In this regard, political maturity matters a lot. African states have been experiencing political upheaval, interstate disturbances and frequent changes of regimes. America, China, the UK, France, Germany and other states have trade ties with Africa, but persistent underdevelopment and slow business tendencies are visible. Having abundant resources, this part of the planet remains insecure and dependent on America, Europe, China and others for trade. In recent times, African governments and the business community took concrete steps to minimize the region's dependence on European states. These measures included bilateral efforts with states like Pakistan and others to increase business. Different forums were established to serve the purpose. For this approach, the African continent is divided into Regional Economic Communities (RECs) to facilitate interaction in African states. The Lagos Plan was initiated in 1980 to develop Africa [7]. It was an effort to lessen their dependence on Europe while increasing self-sufficiency. They were convinced that European states exploited them for development and economic integration. However, it was considered to adopt a realistic strategy for cooperation to get good results. Their commitments at internal and regional levels helping economic growth will be transformed into an African Economic Community and a Free Market, like the European Union. Secondly, the Abuja Treaty proposed RECs to be established for better regional integration in 1991 [8]. Africa is an affluent area with natural reserves, attracts the world powers.

Pakistan Relations with the African States

Pakistan has been enjoying friendly ties with some of the African states bilaterally, like relations with Somalia. Pakistan and Somalia are members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). During the civil war in Somalia, Pakistan took part in UN peacekeeping operations in the South of Somalia in 2010, which paved the way to establish a government in Somalia. Islamabad has never been very active in the region regarding trade and investment; however, it remains active in Somalia. The Afro-Pak business has been constant at $ 2billion from 2012-2013 to 2016-2017. This trade volume increased in 2018-2019 up to $3 billion, which is still less as Africa's trade in total is $1 trillion annually [9].

Algeria, with 41.66 million people, is an oil-based economy. Algeria gets most of the revenue from the oil industry that never let other industries developed [10]. Pakistan was the first to recognize Algeria's independence and immediately established relations with the newly independent state in 1954. A Joint Ministerial Commission (JMC) was found in 1958, but no further developments were made to enhance trade volume. Pakistan supported Algeria in its struggle against independence from France and provided a Passport to the Algerian exiled leader who became President later [11]. Islamabad hosted the first session of this JMC in 2005. Pakistan's ties with Egypt are cordial; however, imports and exports have decreased with time [12]. Islamabad has also been supporting Sudan in its war. Pakistan enjoys friendly diplomatic relations with Ethiopia.

The Afro-Pak trade remains insufficient to enhance the years-old diplomatic ties. Recently, Pakistan has initiated its "Look Africa Initiative" to boost the trade volume and better ties. Pakistan has indicated enhancing bilateral as well as multilateral cooperation in the region [13]. Kenya hosted the trade conference recently brought stakeholders on a platform to enhance benefits for both sides. Various steps in this regard are planned to be taken in several phases. In the beginning phase, new business channels are opened to increase engagement in Egypt, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Sudan and Algeria. These commercial sections are transferred from Europe to Africa. A joint working group will be arranged to establish the Africa cell to facilitate the Pakistani entrepreneurs. Islamabad is also involved in talks with multilateral political and economic establishments within the region, such as the South African Customs Union (SACU), East African Community (EAC) and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) for Preferential Trade Agreements [14]. Pakistan plans to focus on states from every part of Africa. Tanzania, Ethiopia and Sudan are the eastern states. Sudan also shares its border with Egypt, situated in the northern part of the African continent, connecting it with the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) [15]. Algeria also has an important place in the plan from North Africa. A peaceful political environment is essential for economic gains for the country itself and the foreign partner. Pakistan supported Algeria in its independence from France in the 1950s and maintained cordial political and economic relations. Pakistan's primary energy consumption is mainly based on natural gas imported from Qatar, Iran and Indonesia are also willing to provide energy items to Pakistan [16]. Pakistan plans to import LNG from Algeria to minimize its dependence on Middle Eastern countries [17]. On the other side, Algeria will have a new market for its LNG export. Another country, Pakistan, chose to work within Tanzania. Pakistan has established an economic channel in Tanzania, a politically stable and economically sound African country [18]. A large number of Pakistanis are living in Tanzania. There is a receptive environment for strengthening cultural, economic and diplomatic ties with Pakistan. Pakistan navy recently visited the ports of Casablanca (Morocco), Nouakchott (Mauritania), Takoradi (Ghana), Lagos (Nigeria), Cape Town (South Africa) and Dar-e-Salam (Tanzania) to strengthen their ties with Africa [19]. Pakistan's navy supported medical aid in port cities as a soft gesture. Security problems, such as piracy, armed robbery, maritime pollution and drug trafficking, were also discussed during these visits.

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