Between November 1884 and February 1885, the world’s powerful nations gathered in Berlin at the invitation of Germany to discuss the colonisation of Africa. This week, leaders of the world’s biggest economies, the G20, met in the same city as guests of Germany to discuss investment and climate change with their African counterparts.
Arriving in Berlin for the G20’s Compact with Africa (CwA) summit, heads of state such as Nigeria’s Bola Tinubu Zambia’s Hakainde Hichilema and AU chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat were notable among the 17 African representatives.
Tinubu is a new president in one of Africa’s biggest economies; Hichilema is a leader who wants his country to join the CwA; and Mahamat is the G20 representative for Africa — a new member to the club.
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The summit held in Germany presented Europe’s biggest economy with a front-row platform to enhance its policy on Africa.
In 2017, Germany chaired the G20, and it was at its Hamburg summit that the CwA was formally introduced.
Under the CwA, Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal, Togo and Tunisia, recently joined by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, came together to promote private investment in Africa.
A report compiled by the World Bank and the International Finance Cooperation, ahead of the CwA summit, said growth in CwA countries increased to 5.4% in 2022, while reaching only 3.0% in non-CwA African economies.
At this year’s conference, according to the German government, Angola, Kenya and Zambia were invited after showin interest in joining the group.
For the AU, the CwA presented the last grand stage to engage world leaders ahead of the Cop28 Summit at Expo City in Dubai early next month.
China remains a big challenge for Europe on the continent, but not unassailably so.
According to a report by Boston University’s Global China Initiative, China’s investments in Africa last year dipped below $1 billion for the first time in 20 years.
This indicated a shift in focus for China due to Africa’s poor debt repayment, and presents a window of opportunity for other big economies to do business with Africa.
The continent’s debt stands at a combined US$1.8 trillion.
“The debt burden represents a yoke,” said Mahamat, while the AU Commission chairperson and the president of the Comoros, Azali Assoumani, added that “Germany must support us for greater progress and prosperity in Africa and the whole world”.
Since 2010, Africa’s debt has grown by 183%, approximately four times faster than its GDP growth rate in dollar terms.
Numerous ways of dealing with that have been explored by African heads of state. Some of them are the G20 debt restructuring framework and the African Forum and Network on Debt and Development, a meeting of Africa’s thought leaders and economists.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced during the summit that his government would invest more than R76 billion in Africa’s green energy space until 2030.
“This creates jobs and prosperity in these countries, and the German industry gets reliable suppliers,” he announced during a news conference at the CwA.
The News24 Africa Desk is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation. The stories produced through the Africa Desk and the opinions and statements that may be contained herein do not reflect those of the Hanns Seidel Foundation.