The Makings of an African Century
Can African and European Ambitions Meet?
Interested in this topic? See the full EPSC paper published on 2 May 2017: ‘The Makings of an African Century — Where African and European Ambitions Meet’.
The image that many Europeans have of Africa is incomplete to say the least.
Africa is a continent of changing realities and unprecedented opportunities. With its booming cities, abundant natural resources and young and fast-growing population, Africa presents genuine economic opportunities in wide-ranging sectors. Making the most of these opportunities will not only benefit Africans, but also Europeans.
Private and business consumption in Africa is projected to reach 5.3 trillion euro annually in 2025, opening up new markets for goods and services. These tangible opportunities are fast attracting sizeable investments from countries such as China, India, Brazil, as well as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
In many African cities and rural areas, digital natives and dynamic entrepreneurs are already surfing on the wave of sustainable development and the rise of digital technologies, creating start-ups and burgeoning business ventures that contribute to improving their daily lives, and fill the gaps left open by African governments in critical sectors such as healthcare, education, energy and transport.
Africa has immense potential to capitalise further on its unique human and natural assets, namely by investing in industrialisation and diversification. The modernisation of its agricultural sector will be paramount to this transition and green industrialisation offers a promising avenue for the many local small-scale initiatives that are sprouting within Africa.
But economic transformation will require large-scale investments both in human development and in underlying infrastructure, on a continent where one in three children are still out of school, and where more than 600 million people have no access to electricity. It must also be accompanied by smart trade policies and the improvement of local and foreign direct investment conditions through better governance, fighting corruption, strengthening the rule of law and a more independent judiciary.
For decades, the European Union has been a key partner for Africa. Today, it is Africa’s biggest donor of development aid, as well as its largest source of foreign direct investment, a major trading partner and a key ally on security.
However, there is still much room for progress and cooperation. EU trade with the whole of Africa still only represents only 7.5% of its overall extra-EU trade — i.e. roughly equivalent to EU trade with Switzerland. And South Africa and Northern African countries alone account for nearly two thirds of this.
What’s more, the EU approach to Africa is still perceived by many as overly paternalistic, outdated, fragmented, and, sometimes, counter-productive. For instance, agricultural and consumer policies in Europe and other industrialised countries are often seen as hindering the development of a more sustainable African domestic farm production and preventing African farmers from exporting their goods.
The upcoming Communication from the European Commission and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy on the review of the Africa-EU partnership, as well as the Africa-EU Summit in November, present a unique window of opportunity that must be used to revitalise the Africa-EU relationship, to adapt it to the new realities we are facing today, and to ensure it matches the evolving ambitions of both partners.
And, while Europe should not compromise its values in its engagement with Africa for the simple reason that the theatre of operation is getting more crowded, it does need to reflect on how to update the relationship to reflect new global circumstances.
Any joint Africa-EU strategy must be firmly embedded in Africa’s own vision for its continent, which has been recorded in the African Union’s ‘Agenda 2063’, and be based on continuous dialogue and mutual respect. The EU cannot expect to put forward initiatives and set up tools unilaterally in the hope that they will meet African expectations.
The partnership must also be comprehensive and address all facets of the complex Africa-EU relationship, from aid, trade and investment, to migration and security issues. But coherence and simplification will be of the essence.
In this regard, the EU’s External Investment Plan presents an important step towards establishing a single coherent framework to growth and investment policies in Africa. It provides a one-stop shop, bringing together the EU’s development and external action services with Member States and development finance institutions, to achieve greater efficiency and improved policy coordination. Given the right involvement of African partners, it can serve as a central tool to engage with private and public sector actors at all levels and to drive sustainable investment within Africa towards making a brighter future.
