THE DEVELOPING WORLD
Developing a new Euro-Africa partnership
Spring 2008
The continents of Europe and Africa are outgrowing old prejudices that in many cases stem from the colonial era. Nathalie Delapalme argues that both are moving toward a more equal partnership capable of dealing with their shared problems and ambitions
The relationship between Europe and Africa has for a long time been focused mainly on trade and development aid stemming from the colonial past. It is now becoming a more balanced partnership, reflecting awareness that the future will be one of shared risks and common goals. Europe’s perception of the African continent is moving progressively away from the old relationship deeply marked by history, and is instead focusing on geographic proximity.
In this new century, the real gap will be less between richer and poorer countries than the one now widening between ageing countries preoccupied by their own security, and young countries obsessed by their economic prospects. The real risk is of a world in which the prospects of the latter would still be perceived as running counter the security of the former. The reality is that the security and growth of the European continent will depend more and more on the stability and economic development of Africa.
A few somewhat self-evident facts are worth keeping in mind. No continent is closer to Europe than Africa and not just through geography, but through history, shared languages, and mixture of peoples and cultures.
Africa is the continent where both major risk and potential are concentrated. First, there are the migratory pressures that are often bluntly presented to European public opinion as Africans seeking to escape north, to prosperous Europe; the abiding image is of clusters of people hanging on to the railings of Spain’s north African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. Today, two thirds of the African continent’s inhabitants are under 25. Their employment prospects and living standards look dim in the short term and are virtually non-existent in the medium term. Two-thirds of African states are among those 50 countries around the world where demographic growth between now and 2010 will be greater than 2%. The African population is already two and a half times greater than Europe’s population, but the average yearly income of a eurozone inhabitant is, at $27,350, ten times that of an African, for whom the average is $2,540. Sanitary security is also at stake, with Africans having the highest proportion of transmissible diseases in the world. Equally problematic is the environmental balance, with rapid desertification, deforestation, the progressive drying up of large rivers and the increasing threat that plant diseases now represent in what is still a predominantly agricultural continent.
Africa’s threat of terrorism, a recent reminder of which was the cancellation of the Paris-Dakar rally, is not new and long predates the attack on the twin towers in New York in September 2001. There was the UTA crash in Ténéré desert in 1989, and then the attacks in Dar-es-Salaam and Nairobi in 1998.
But if Africa’s risks are high, its potential is just as great. To begin with, there are the continent’s natural resources. Significant rises in the price of raw materials, particularly those relating to energy and mining, seem to be here for the long term. Africa’s soil conceals potential treasures that are still widely unexploited, because of limited industrial and marketing structures and the various crises that have shaken major producers. Nevertheless, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo and even southern Sudan are expected to use their mineral prospects to attract many “new friends”.
Strong demographic growth is, meanwhile, a resource for African countries. Even though it may mean very real economic and social risk in the short-term, it also holds out the promise of expanding markets in terms of consumption and infrastructural development. Since 2000, average economic growth in the African continent has been running at more than three times the average of the European continent − 4.8% on average for Africa, versus 1.4% for the eurozone. Nineteen African countries are among the 50 countries that achieved the greatest growth in the past 10 years. And above all, the increase in average African incomes, which first started to show growth in the mid-1990s, is now accelerating.
Africa’s considerable potential has not gone unnoticed. Development aid from traditional donor governments has on the whole decreased, but the African continent is instead rapidly winning new and more diversified partners. Large foundations, and above all, sovereign wealth funds are now investing heavily there. The involvement of “emerging sponsors” − first and foremost China, but also India, Brazil and even Iran and Venezuela − is marked by a strong emphasis on political solidarity and, a key point, further emphasis on the sovereignty of partner states, which in practice means no conditions whatsoever as regards political or economic governance.
China for instance has recently lent $5bn to the Democratic Republic of Congo to finance infrastructure construction – by Chinese companies – which is repayable in mining rights. There are now 700 Chinese companies present in Africa, and they have already made more than $8bn-worth of investments there. At the first China-Africa summit in Beijing in the Autumn of 2006, China announced the creation of a $5bn development fund, and also opened up the Chinese market free of duties to 440 African products while setting up 4,000 grants a year for the benefit of African students.
United States investors, which with the end of the Cold War had seemed eager to pull out of the African continent, are now heavily re-investing. Their aim is to improve the security of their energy supplies, and to counter the threat of terrorism, to enlarge the scope for the promotion of Christian values and democracy and to offer an alternative to the growing Chinese presence.
In this increasingly competitive environment, the relationship between Europe and Africa must be based essentially on the logic of mutual interest. Europe is once again mobilising interest in Africa, but with a profoundly changed approach. There is no longer the sort of fatigue towards Africa that reflected public opinion in those major European countries that were once colonial powers.
Europe’s new relationship with Africa is based on a shift towards the shared management of common goals rather than meddling in African domestic affairs. Whether in Zimbabwe or in Ivory Coast, interventions by former colonial powers seem more often to have fuelled crisis than solved it. If anything, such interventions have had the opposite effect of promoting greater national, and regional solidarity. Spain, Germany and Nordic countries are, at the same time, showing growing interest in the African continent as too, somewhat unexpectedly, are the EU’s new member states. The Slovenian presidency is, for instance, proving passionate about the Darfur issue.
Among the major topics of joint interest to Europe and Africa, the most visible is migration. Conferences in Rabat and Tripoli in 2006 brought together at the same level countries of origin, transit countries and those of destination. These meetings focussed on the links between migration and development, and on the European side attempted to raise awareness that irregular migration also disrupts the population balance of African countries. Spain, as until fairly recently a country of emigration, is playing a vital role in highlighting this issue.
The European Union is beginning to dismantle the wall that long separated development aid policy from security policy, and now favours a close relationship between the two, and especially in Africa. The EU appreciates the urgent need to link security and development when trying to resolve regional crises. That is why the “Peace Facility” was set up in 2004, to finance peacekeeping operations carried out by the African Union. That’s also why Operation Artemis was initiated in the summer of 2003 in the Democratic Republic of Congo as the first European military operation outside European territory and independent of NATO support. The EUFOR operation in eastern Chad is also a result of this approach. That said, if the EU is to speed up the process of dealing with crises, it needs to emphasise, and prove, to the protagonists of a conflict that peace dividends will quickly outweigh any rewards from a war. Nor does the EU need to wait for the end of a crisis before mobilising its development resources.
The adoption at the EU’s Lisbon summit last December of the EU-Africa Joint Strategy, originally launched as a “Strategy for Africa”, exemplified Europe’s profound change of approach. Energy, climate change, migration, employment, mobility, and democratic governance are among the major partnerships that reflect this new logic of shared Euro-African interests.
But it is a joint strategy that still has to be implemented. It has yet to make much progress on the difficult question of economic partnership agreements; It will not revolutionise overnight the relationship between the two continents, but it has the merit of laying down the principles of exchanges between partners that, if not equal are at least complementary. It will at very least enable us to assess our collective ability to build a “Euro-African space”.