In the 2000s, together with China and India, Brazil was one of the emerging powers that significantly strengthened relations with Africa and challenged the dominance of former European colonial powers and the United States on the continent. At the same time, they offered new opportunities of trade and development cooperation for African countries, and improved their bargaining position vis-à-vis foreign partners. Compared with China and India Brazil's engagement in Africa has been considerably smaller in terms of trade and investments, as well as development cooperation. However, Brazil's relations with the continent do not only differ in scope, but also with regard to historical, cultural, economic and geo-strategic aspects. Brazil's relations with Africa go back to the early 16th century when the then-Portuguese colony began to receive regular shipments of African slaves. As a result of the forced migration of some four million Africans during more than three hundred years, currently roughly half of Brazil's population is at least partly of African descent. Consequently, Brazil claims historical and cultural affinities with Africa, particularly with the continent's five Portuguese-speaking countries, with which it shares a common language and the same colonial power, albeit a colonialism in a different historical and geopolitical context. Moreover, unlike China and India, Brazil is less dependent on raw materials from Africa, since it is a resource-rich country itself and a major commodity exporter. In addition, Brazil has regional geo-strategic interests in the South Atlantic that is bordered by several Western and Southern African countries.

Lyal White points out that, since the Second World War, Brazil's foreign policy has been guided by two opposing broad strands of thinking, which also have shaped its relations with Africa. The first strand of thought privileges relations with the United States and other developed countries to achieve international recognition and Brazil's own socioeconomic development. The second line of thinking underlines Brazil's identity as a developing country, where it seeks closer relations with other developing nations in the South to achieve those objectives. According to their ideological orientation, consecutive Brazilian governments have pursued one of the two different stands of foreign policy thought, which in academic discourse are also known as the Americanism paradigm and the Globalism paradigm.