The German Africa Foundation sees a well-founded interest in Africa policy to combine the topics “promotion of German economic activities in Africa” and “African Diaspora in Germany” in order to identify future potentials and challenges and to address them in politics, economy and society.
As economists, we can only endorse this interest, since from an economic perspective it cannot be explained so far why German companies, which are basically very export-oriented, are so underrepresented on the African continent. Investigating this question from the perspective of the African diaspora and thus expanding both the holistic macroeconomic and the traditional company-centred perspective is an appealing multidisciplinary challenge that we are happy to take on.

You are also welcome to read the shortened version, which has been published as an issue of Afrikapost aktuell.