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German-African relations: development policy too dominant?
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8-9/2003
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[ Plea for a new German policy on Africa ]
German-African relations: development policy too dominant?
The book published by Ulf Engel and Robert Kappel gets to grips in 11 articles with the structure and goals of German policy on Africa. The articles are written in English with the aim of reaching non-German readers as well, since the editors believe that Germany's policy on Africa is paid too little attention abroad. That is true. However, for this purpose it would have been better to have let non-German academics have a say also and seek a publisher for the book in the English-language region.
The book aims not only to recapitulate German-African relations to date, but also to make recommendations for a reorientation of the German policy on Africa. That is not surprising. The two editors and two other authors were, after all, involved in producing a 'Memorandum on the refounding of German policy on Africa' in 2000. As in the memorandum, some authors, such as Ulf Engel and Jürgen H. Wolff, criticise the strongly overweighted role of development cooperation within the framework Germany's Africa policy compared to other policy fields. They blame incorrect and usually over-optimistic assessments of Africa's current situation for the lack of developmental success there – a deplorable state of affairs which the book aims to remedy.
There has long been argument over the success and failures of development cooperation with Africa. But another trenchant thesis of this anthology has so far been less of a discussion point. Some of the authors (Ulf Engel, Rolf Hofmeier, Robert Kappel und Stefan Mair), say that aside from development policy, Germany is represented so weakly in Africa because it has no real national economic interests there. They seek to underpin this thesis with data on economic relations between Germany and Africa (foreign trade share, investments), but overlook on the one hand that the quantity of the economic exchange between the two says nothing about its quality. Germany, too, is dependent on coffee, gold, cotton and coltan [short for columbite-tantalite, a metallic ore] from Africa. On the other hand, they also fail to notice the fact that it was only after its reunification that Germany began to think about a foreign policy going beyond Europe – that is the main reason for the earlier low German profile in Africa.
Despite these objections, the book is worth reading because the articles describe the fundamentals of a new German policy on Africa. But practice-oriented suggestions for such a policy are lacking. For instance, nothing is said about how Africa's oil riches could be used in future for the benefit both of the Africans and Germany. True, Andreas Mehler in his article names crisis prevention as a new, important policy field, but remarks himself that the "regional concretisation" of this concept is still lacking. In addition, the book fails to discuss the anti-globalisation movement which is also growing in Africa. Therefore the authors are called upon to supply what is missing.
Armin Osmanovic
Ulf Engel, Robert Kappel (Ed.): Germany’s Africa Policy Revisited. Interests, images and incrementalism. Münster, Lit 2002, 214 pp., ¤ 20.90 Euro, ISBN 3-8258-5985-1
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