About Us — Deutsche Afrika Stiftung e.V.

Market place in Banjul, Gambia

Our Mandate

The German Africa Foundation (DAS) is a non-partisan foundation committed to the successful implementation of the Africa policy guidelines of the German Federal Government. As a facilitator, we offer a platform for partnership-based exchange between German and African actors and thus strengthen cooperation with the states and institutions of our neighbouring continent. Hereby, we particularly focus on the work in the parliamentary sphere. In the context of expert talks, parliamentary breakfasts and panel discussions, we bring together members of the German Bundestag, specialist ministries and other political decision-makers from Germany and Africa. At the same time, we advocate greater involvement of representatives of African embassies and the African diaspora in German politics.

One of our core tasks is to convey a differentiated image of Africa in the political arena and to the German public. Since 1993, we have been awarding the German Africa Award every year, honouring outstanding personalities from the neighbouring continent who have rendered outstanding services to democracy, peace, human rights, accountability, art and culture, social market economy and social issues. In this way, we bring new developments in Africa to the attention of the German public and promote a differentiated perception of our neighbouring continent.

In our weekly press review we provide an overview of current political developments in Africa and offer a collection of online reports on Africa by German-speaking as well as selected English and French-speaking media. With our Africa Info Hub we furthermore offer an overview of Africa-relevant institutions, country-specific information as well as selected professional articles and are thus the first contact point for people interested in Africa.

Our History

The German Africa Foundation has been committed to promoting German-African relations for 45 years. On 10 May 1978, the Foundation was founded as a member association by a number of politicians of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU). In the same year, the Foundation was included in the institutional support of the Federal Foreign Office. From the very beginning, the DAS worked closely with the political foundations and advised the German Federal Government on African policy issues.

Under the chairmanship of Karl-Heinz Hornhues (CDU), Member of the German Bundestag, the Foundation underwent a reorientation and increasingly positioned itself non-partisan: in 1991, members of other parliamentary groups joined the Foundation for the first time and members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and Free Democratic Party (FDP) were elected to the board. A second wave of expansion followed in 1994, in which Dr Uschi Eid, the current president of the DAS, also became a board member. Under her leadership, the DAS was transformed into the cross-party foundation that exists today in Parliament. This is also reflected in the current composition of the board, which includes the foreign and development policy spokespersons from the CDU/CSU, SPD, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, FDP and DIE LINKE as well as non-parliamentarians interested in Africa.

Our Board

Dr Uschi Eid

President

Dr Uschi Eid was a member of the German Bundestag for 20 years, Parliamentary State Secretary in the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) (1998 – 2005) and Personal Representative for Africa of Chancellor Schröder. She worked in Eritrea for three years and has been President of the DAS since 2015.