A Different Africa Policy

From Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier's perspective, there are many good reasons to support Africa. A new Africa has emerged which, within the realm of the African Union, is setting ambitious aims to promote peace. It's a new Africa that wants to take responsibility to resolve conflicts and wars on the continent itself -- as will soon be the case on behalf of the United Nations in Sudan.

Democracy and political integration are the African Union's aims. Nigeria and Ghana are important engines of these reform processes, self-confident partners, which are in transition politically and economically and which are taking responsibility regionally and globally.

Above all, Germany wants to export education and know-how to Africa. Specifically, it wants to boost higher education and the exchange of scientists and students and to ramp up stipend programs. The foreign minister wants to reverse bit by bit the mistakes of the past 15 years, when Goethe Institutes and embassies were closed in Africa, and to considerably increase Germany's presence in Africa.

That's important, since it's well-known that one can only cooperate well on the basis of trust and knowledge of one another.

That's where Germany has thoroughly lost ground over the years. New actors, such as China, India or Brazil -- which don't engage in strenuous discussions of values with their African partners but instead bring the continent investments, infrastructure and inexpensive products -- have profited. They don't make developmental policy in Africa, but economic policy -- and the demand they generate ensures a clearly visible boom at least in Africa's resource-rich states.

These new actors have awakened the old ones. In the battle for minds in Africa, the issue is not lastly whether a sustainable and broad movement for more democracy will emerge. For, that would be the most important prerequisite for the people to also benefit from economic growth.

That's not the case in most of the African states that are rich in raw materials. Most people in those places are untouched by their countries' wealth; the number of people living in poverty has hardly changed. A bad example is Nigeria, where two-thirds of the population still lives in abject poverty.

Germany doesn't want to compete with the new actors -- nor can it. Instead, Germany's Africa policy is clearly set on partnership with states that are prepared to undertake reforms. That's also why the German foreign minister did without a business delegation and instead placed cultural and scientific exchange at the heart of his trip to Nigeria and Ghana.

But this time, too, readymade concepts can't be carried over. On many points the two sides talk at cross purposes.

Nigeria's leadership called for German investment and more cooperation in the energy sector when they met with Steinmeier. And in Ghana, too, the focus was on more economic cooperation. That is exactly what the "new Africa" demands in exchange for more reforms. Above all, Africa is interested in the abolition of trade barriers, the targeted promotion of economic relations.

But during his first Africa trip, the topic of business had shortened or limited talks, and this time Steinmeier wanted to avoid that.

The new cultural policy approach for Africa is forward-looking and ambitious. It can advance development in Africa. At the same time though, this approach requires enduring and patient interest -- a difficult and, certainly, a long route. For, the results of cultural cooperation only appear after years and are far less visible than the stadiums, streets, pipelines or hospitals built by the Chinese. A long wind and a lot of promotion of the idea in Germany as well as with the African partners will be necessary for the project to be a success.

Africa has finally regained the significance that, in view of the global situation, it should have, seeing as none of the pressing problems in the international community -- climate, energy security, terrorism, migration -- can be solved without the continent.

Incidentally, that was already the case 10 or 15 years ago, but it wasn't discussed adequately in the public sphere. It's good that that's now changing. It's high time!

Ute Schaeffer is head of DW-RADIO's Africa program. She traveled with the foreign minister on his visit to Nigeria and Ghana. (ncy)