Naturally, yearbooks are always snapshots. Their dating indicates this. At the same time, however, yearbooks claim to provide a snapshot of the current status of a subject. With regard to activities and events on the African continent, this is not easy, as many things develop and change very quickly.

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected global economies and business relations, yet the long-term implications on trade and investment flows as well as the consequences for global supply chains are not foreseeable. This uncertain outlook occurs in a moment of time where German policy makers and business associations have been fostering German companies to invest intensively in sub-Saharan Africa and cautious optimism started vis-à-vis the German activities on the continent. The volume of investment and trade between Germany and sub-Saharan Africa has increased over the past years and the question appears how these rather young business contacts – which are traditionally more fragile than long-established relations – are affected by the pandemic.