Africa and the G20

Africa and the G20 – Join the discussion!

The position paper "Africa and the G20 – Approaches for a progressive Africa policy" has been developed in a discussion process together with Members of the German Parliament and experts from German civil society and academia. Its aim is to develop ideas for a progressive Africa policy in the scope of the G20 process. It has been prepared on the occasion of Germany's G20 presidency and the G20 summit, which will take place in Hamburg from 7 to 8 July 2017. We are interested in specific expectations, proposals and criticism concerning the summit's focus on Africa, as well as in the overall direction in which German and international Africa policy is headed. The paper thus refers to the G20 as a forum and to the "Compact with Africa", but is also intended to go further and take up ideas for a progressive Africa policy.

It is important for us not to develop a policy for Africa but with Africa. This is why we are asking for your opinion. Up until 20 April 2017, the website will be open to selected experts from Africa and Germany for comments. Thereupon, a final draft will be prepared by the end of April and made available on this website. We look forward to your additions, proposals and questions for clarification. As we plan to write a short and concise position paper, we ask for your understanding that we will not be able to incorporate every additional aspect. We will, however, make every effort to respond to every input.

The position paper "Africa and the G20 – Approaches for a progressive Africa policy" can be downloaded here.

NEW: The revised position paper "Africa and the G20 – Approaches for a progressive Africa policy" can be downloaded here.

Dear participants in the discussion,

We would like to express our sincere gratitude for the numerous comments on and responses to the position paper "Africa and the G20 – Approaches for a progressive Africa policy" that we have received from Germany and Africa. The contributions were professionally and politically enriching and addressed a broad range of topics from the perspectives of very different players. A host of ideas inspired by your feedback are now reflected in the social democratic position paper "Africa and the G20 – Approaches for a progressive Africa policy". Compared to the initial draft, this paper has a much more pointed political message. In addition to criticising the investment agenda of Germany's G20 presidency, the paper focuses on topics such as public participation, social justice and democracy, which are important from our perspective. We cannot list all the changes here but wish to mention the following key points that have been expressed more clearly and are of core significance for a progressive Africa policy:

The G20 is an influential but also an exclusive body that is not democratically legitimised. This is why the United Nations remain the central forum for solving global problems - multilateral solutions take precedence!

Investments are intended to create jobs. For us, this means creating decent work and consistently complying with social, human rights-related and ecological standards, such as the ILO core labour standards – so far this aspect is completely lacking in the Compact with Africa (CWA).

Investments for Africa must be deployed in a differentiated approach, i.e., within the scope of economic transformation processes to support local industries in country-specific contexts and create value chains. The CWA tool kit does not address less developed or fragile states, although they are specifically the ones we cannot leave out.

The Compact's authors (World Bank, IMF und ADB) have had a previous history, especially in Africa but also in other so-called developing countries: a number of their projects have had adverse impacts on development and plunged the affected countries into a spiral of indebtedness and dependency. Against this backdrop, the underlying interests, functioning logic and path dependencies of the players need to be questioned particularly critically – also to ensure avoiding a new structural indebtedness.

The relationships between Africa and Europe are characterised by a joint colonial past: political, economic and cultural power relations were formed over the past centuries that have been kept relatively stable until now and from which Europe is still benefiting to the present day. This aspect should always be borne in mind at the outset of every Africa policy initiative.

We agree with other comments in principle but still see ambivalences that can hardly be resolved in a short position paper. We criticise, for example, the deficiencies concerning participation in the G20 process and are aware that participation is restricted to citizen consultation processes in the run-ups to summit meetings and counter-summits. However, we consider this civil society participation an important instrument to mitigate the deficits in democratic legitimisation that characterise the G20 as a self-proclaimed forum, and also to prevent the preferential access that clearly overrepresented business lobbyists and representatives of orthodox economic policies have enjoyed so far. We criticise the club governance of the G20 and the CWA's neoliberal approach, but we nonetheless address them because they exist. We make proposals outlining the conditions under which fora such as the G20 and investments initiatives such as the CWA could contribute to sustainable development in Africa and in Europe. Our goal, however, must be a way forward as genuine partners, taking existing African solutions into account.

In this regard, we see the "Africa and the G20 – Approaches for a progressive Africa policy" paper not only as a political position paper but as a document intended to contribute to an on-going discussion about social and ecological transformation of African and European societies. It offers important reference points, specifically for accompanying the follow-up process to the G20 summit and for tangible investment partnerships in the scope of the CWA.