ST. PETERSBURG, July 25. /TASS/. The first Russian-African conference of the international Valdai Discussion Club will take place in St. Petersburg on Tuesday.

Dozens of experts and diplomats will discuss how to bolster Russia’s positions in Africa and prevent the West from sowing doubts among African countries about cooperation with Moscow.

The event is held on the eve of the Russia-Africa Summit which kicks off on July 27. The organizers hope "that the recommendations and results of the Valdai Club conference will have an applied nature and will fall on the table of leaders on the eve of the summit," because "most of the guests are involved in the process of foreign policy planning in their countries." "The Valdai Club Conference will actually become the final synchronization of watches at the expert level in the run-up to the summit," a statement by the club’s press service said.

The press service reported that more than 60 people from 15 countries had been invited to participate in the event, including guests from Algeria, Benin, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Senegal, South Africa, South Sudan and Zambia, as well as from China, India and Russia.

The second Russia-Africa Summit and Economic Forum is slated for July 27-28 in St. Petersburg. The first such event was held in Sochi on October 22-24, 2019 under the slogan "For peace, security and development.".