Everyone agrees that Africa has economic potential. But who uses it best in the end?
(Photo: AFP/Getty Images)
There is a phrase that keeps coming up in the management floors of companies in Germany: “Africa is a continent of opportunity.” For decades, the southern neighbor has been considered a region with great economic potential, if only because of the large number of potential consumers. Some countries also offer excellent climatic conditions for renewable energies.
But the truth is that German corporations still see Africa as a “crisis continent”. Figures show that the praise for Africa is hardly followed by action: the proportion of money that German companies invest on the African continent has hovered around the sobering one percent mark for years. The potential of the continent is touted but not used – with potentially devastating consequences.
It is not a good investment in chaos, war and corruption, so the caveat. Much in Africa somehow seems too strange and too dangerous to park money and entrepreneurial risk there.
Others seize the opportunity
But with this view, the praise of German business will fade away until the opportunities for economic cooperation are gone and other countries such as China, Russia or the Gulf States finally dominate business in Africa.
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To prevent this, German companies that are serious about opening up new cooperation opportunities on the continent must do their homework. It all starts with knowing where you want to invest. Because “Africa” does not exist as an investment target. Instead, however, more than 50 individual states with their own particular circumstances.
How are the conditions in Senegal? How to negotiate successfully in Kenya? What needs do the people in Morocco have? Without being able to answer these questions, entrepreneurial projects are doomed to failure.
calls for the state
In order to make investments as risk-free as possible, companies like to call on politicians for help. Sureties and guarantees from budget funds are intended to secure the adventurous new paths as well as possible and protect them from losses. Even if these instruments make sense in principle, they must not become a condition for entrepreneurial activity. As with any investment, a residual risk remains.
But the truth is that the risk of not turning to Africa is greater than the risk of doing it. Because in a world in which trade with Russia is impossible, in which dependence on China is becoming a danger and in which Europe is economically weak, other options are needed. The “continent of opportunity” Africa offers many of them. At least when you really start to understand him as such.
More: How Germany wants to win the race with China in Africa