While Libya captures a lot of headlines today, it is hardly the only African country where Turkey is keeping busy these days. While Turkey’s recent attempt (with Russian support) to negotiate a cease-fire in Libya has failed to halt that country’s violent civil war, Ankara’s moves in other parts of Africa suggest that Turkey will remain tenacious in pursuing its interests in Libya and in the rest of the continent.

When the Turkish Foreign Ministry prepared a document titled “Africa Action Plan” in 1998, not many noticed. But as Turkey’s economic profile grew under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP), Ankara’s overtures in African countries increased. Efforts ranging from state building to providing security assistance to taking over schools affiliated with the network of Pennsylvania-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, who is accused of masterminding the 2016 coup attempt, have ramped up. Meanwhile, despite challenges, commerce remains the most successful element of Turkey’s African overture.

In the Horn of Africa, Turkey has become something of a big brother to Somalia. Struck by political divisions and factional strife since 1991, Somalia also experienced a massive drought and famine in 2011 that killed more than 260,000 people. Erdogan, then prime minister, visited the Somali capital, Mogadishu, and initiated a high-profile reconstruction mission. When Somalia began struggling with another drought in 2017, a Somalian expert called for other countries to follow Turkey’s example by praising “the Turkish model [that] combined aid and development” in 2011-12.

Currently, Turkey maintains one of its largest overseas bases in Mogadishu, where it continues to train a quarter of the national army. Turkish Airlines flies to the Somali capital on a regular basis. The Turkish foreign aid agency and private companies are active in the territories controlled by Somalia’s central government.