24 January 2024 Reimagining development cooperation with Africa?

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Ladies and gentlemen,
Excellencies,

Can development cooperation move the world forward? Is it the right instrument to achieve progress?

I have been asked that question many times in the last few weeks – given the many crises in the world and, not least, the strains on public budgets.

My answer is clear: yes, it is! It is precisely these global and regional crises that make development cooperation more important than ever.

Development cooperation helps to protect people from poverty and hunger. It supports countries in coping with the damage inflicted by climate change. And it promotes education and decent work, enabling societies to set themselves on the road to more prosperity – in a way that is lasting.

Another question I’m often asked is: do we need to reimagine our development cooperation with Africa? And again my answer is clear: I say “no”. We don’t need to reimagine it. But we do need to refocus it. Using our imagination.

That is what my Ministry’s new Africa Strategy – published exactly one year ago – sets out to do. It puts our cooperation on a new footing – one of respect and reciprocity.

What exactly do I mean by that? I mean recognising that Africa is a dynamic continent. That it is no longer dependent solely on Europe as its partner. Instead, we Europeans need Africa as our partner. We must tackle global transformation together and support others in crisis. That’s what our moral values tell us. And that’s what our strategic interests tell us, too.

Take stability – it is both a moral value and, at the same time, in our own strategic interest. Germany and Europe can only be as stable as the world around them.

The Sahel region provides a case in point. As President of the Sahel Alliance, I visit the region often. And when I talk to decision-makers, to vocational students, to fishing communities and to displaced people – as I did recently in Mauritania – I get a real sense of how much climate change, demographic change and the spread of autocracy is impacting the region. Often people have no job prospects. Extreme weather events leave them struggling just to survive. And all that with little social protection. A situation like that is really a fertile ground for extremists.

And so I have made the decision: Germany will continue to engage in development cooperation with the Sahel region, even though in various countries regimes have now come to power through military coups. Where needed, we will work with non-governmental organisations at community level without government involvement. The aim is to support the people and to make sure that autocracy and extremism do not spill over into other countries in the Sahel and on the coast. That can only be achieved in cooperation with each other, by working together even more intensively with the surrounding countries.

We in Europe rely on the stability of our neighbouring continent. Because the challenges of today can only be tackled in partnership with Africa.

Europe is – to put it rather bluntly – an ageing continent that is in the process of re-defining itself. Africa, on the other hand, is a young, growing continent that will define the future. A smart structural policy could use this situation to develop shared opportunities – for healthy food for all, sustainable energy supply, and decent work.

Let’s look a bit closer at that last example: work.

In many African countries, the local labour market is struggling to provide jobs for a growing population. And in many European countries, including Germany, there is a growing skills shortage. That is why we are aiming for closer cooperation.

For example, Germany and Morocco have agreed to work together more closely on migration. When I leave today’s event, I will be setting off on a visit to Morocco. And I will be opening one of our centres for migration and development in Rabat. These centres have been set up with German funding in nine partner countries, five of them in Africa. They provide local people with information on regular migration pathways to Germany, Europe or to other countries within the region. And they can point people to training opportunities that will give them the skills they need to find work either locally or in another country. In all this, my ministry works closely with our partner countries to prevent a brain drain of the skilled workers they so badly need.

So contrary to what many think, most of the people prefer to find work within their region, close to home – and not in Europe. And that’s not just because of the weather! Here in Germany, half the population is over 45. In Africa, half the population is aged below 19. Where there are young people, societies are more dynamic, there are ideas and new opportunities.

I got a sense of that last November, when 35 young entrepreneurs from 16 African countries took part at an event held by my ministry in connection with the Compact with Africa Summit. The event was entitled “Shaping the Future with Africa – Young Entrepreneurship as Key to a Just Transition”. The energy and confidence of these young entrepreneurs was really incredible. They provided my ministry with precise recommendations on how to promote sustainable entrepreneurship. And they also voiced expectations for their own governments. These young entrepreneurs are both imaginative and pragmatic when it comes to developing tailormade solutions to their own challenges.

Talking to them showed me – again - how important it is for us to really listen closely. In German development cooperation, our role is not to know everything better. Our role is to offer partnership so that our partner countries can make full use of their own problem-solving capacities.

That brings us to another of our values, one that it very important to me: respect. A respectful partnership means that Germany must confront its own colonial history. At the development ministry, we are taking a very critical look at our work. We have called in outside experts to help us identify where colonialist attitudes still persist in our mindset and in our work. And to develop ideas on how to overcome them.

Of course, it is not only Germany and Europe that want to work closely with Africa. African countries have some attractive alternatives available to them. Often in the shape of countries that, sadly, do not share our democratic values. So we in Germany and Europe need to work hard to maintain a good partnership with African countries.

Because one thing is clear: nothing can be achieved without Africa. That is why African countries are quite rightly demanding equal standing on the international stage. It is a demand I fully support.

Last year, the African Union achieved a significant step in becoming a member of the G20. The next step is for Africa to have permanent representation on the UN Security Council. It has the backing of the German government in that.

Africa needs a place at the table. That’s not only right because it’s right. It’s also necessary. Africa has a key role to play in transforming the global economic system to make it socially just. That was the clear message from the Africa Climate Summit in September. In the Summit Declaration, the countries outlined their ambition to expand renewable energies. And at the same time they clearly called on the world community to move forward on debt relief, the reform of the international financial architecture, and fair taxation of greenhouse gas emissions. State Secretaries from the Development Ministry and the Federal Foreign Office attended the event on Germany’s behalf. All of them reported back to me on the general sense that change is underway.

The self-confidence and constructive approach shown by African stakeholders makes me hopeful that, together, we will be able to overcome the immense challenges that lie ahead. We need you. Thank you for working with us.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Let me conclude: the answer is not less international cooperation, but more. Much, much more.

And so on that note I will close and wish you a good discussion.