A Turkish company is generating part of Ghana’s power supply. Another one just this month finished a flashy new terminal at the country’s international airport. A Philippine utility is about to take over the running of Electricity Company of Ghana, the largest distributor in west Africa. Even Ghana’s biggest flyover, named after liberation hero Kwame Nkrumah, was built by Brazilians.

Ghana, one of the fastest-growing economies in the world this year, is a tiny microcosm of forces that are radically reshaping Africa’s interaction with the world. A new group of outside powers — from China to Brazil and from Russia to Turkey — is gaining a commercial and strategic foothold across a vast continent that was, until recently, dominated by former European colonial powers and the US.

In what some have called a “new scramble for Africa”, these non-western nations are sniffing out commercial opportunities and seeking to project themselves in a difficult but dynamic part of the world. While China has been taking the lead over the past decade, a host of other countries has begun to follow its path.