By Sanoussi
Bilal
Europe has seen
its role in Africa decrease, and it has missed good opportunities to benefit
from Africa's boom
While ‘Old Europe' keeps struggling with anaemic growth and
high unemployment, Africa has become a pre-emerging continent. In the footsteps
of Asia, it has experienced sustained high economic growth, around 5%, over the
past decade. This is why it is time to re-balance the Europe-Africa relations.
Africa continues to face major socio-economic challenges. It
is plagued by persistent poverty and recurrent crisis: look at the Central
African Republic (CAR), Mali or South Sudan, to mention just a few. This sad reality
tends to dominate headlines in the West and still shape the general perception
about Africa in Europe, including among policymakers. The story goes that
Europe must help, if not save Africa, by sending troops into troubled places
(at least from the French side) and spend billions in development assistance.
This common view can be misleading. Too often, it fails to
recognise the diversity of situations between African countries. Germany is not
Greece, and CAR is not South Africa. More importantly, it fails to identify the
underlying dynamics for change within Africa. Africans are becoming more
assertive and ambitious regarding their own capacity to transform their
economies.
True, they have learnt over the years to master the donors'
language, and keep calling for more aid when talking to Europe. But among
themselves, laments about the ever-insufficient support from donors have been
replaced by ambitious strategies to better mobilise their own domestic
resources and engage in structural changes, harnessing high potentials from
natural resources to industrialisation, infrastructure and institutional
reforms. The ‘hopeful continent' will continue to be frustrated and
disillusioned, as development milestones are missed and poverty and inequality
are not being sufficiently and rapidly addressed. However, the dynamics have
changed.
Outside Europe, the relationship of Africa with its partners
is also evolving. Emerging economies are rapidly seizing the new opportunities
offered by Africa's new dynamism. There is a lot of talk focused on China, but
India, Brazil, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, Japan, South Korea, Russia and many
others are actively engaging African countries on a new basis, mixing economic,
strategic and development objectives.
In this context, Europe has been slow in reshaping its
relationship with Africa. With its geographical proximity and long-shared
history, Europe is still the main trade and development partner of Africa. But
it has partly failed to capitalise on its strengths, perhaps too assured of its
traditional dominant position, believing in the superiority of its approach.
As a result, Europe has been perceived at times as arrogant
and patronising, with its money, know-better attitude and higher moral ground.
De facto, it has also seen its role decreased in Africa. This is not
necessarily a bad thing if Africa is taking its destiny in its own hands and if
new players are taking part of the burden to finance development.
However, in the process, Europe has missed some good
opportunities to take part in a booming Africa. Europe should seek to combine
better its values (in terms of universal human rights and good governance
principles, inclusiveness, ownership, transparency, etc) and its interests
(economic, political, geostrategic) when engaging with Africa. This means first
publicly acknowledging European own interests in Africa, and reconciling these
with its values and with African development ambitions, so as to generate the
famous win-win outcomes all partners are looking for.
Some European countries have embarked on such strategies.
The Netherlands, the UK, Denmark, Finland, Germany, and France are actively
engaging the private sector, starting with their own domestic companies, to
pursue development objectives in a way that the Dutch government characterises
as “enlightened self-interest”. Similar approaches are slowly being developed
in many other places, including at the EU level. Private-sector investment and
finance is at last recognised as a potentially key driver and instrument for
inclusive and sustainable development.
This evolution does raise suspicion among some African
policymakers and civil-society organisations. Managing expectations and
diversity of objectives will remain a delicate balancing act.
How to develop such win-win strategies, in a way that builds
on explicit self-interest while focusing on strong developmental outcomes in
line with African dynamics for transformation is the challenge Europe and
Africa have to address. This means focusing more explicitly on economic
dynamics and relations between the two continents, not only Africa. It also
means a less technocratic approach and a greater engagement with the private
sector and with civil-society actors, on both continents, at the national and
regional levels.
It is unlikely that the forthcoming EU-Africa Summit in
Brussels on 3-4 April will suffice to reshape the relationship between the two
continents in that direction in a significant way. But one may hope it will be
a first step in that direction.
Sanoussi Bilal is
the head of the economic transformation and trade programme and senior
executive at ECDPM.
This post originally appeared in European Voice
This is a guest post; views may not represent that of ECDPM
Photo courtesy of EEAS
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