Malheureusement, ce numéro de la revue de presse n’est actuellement disponible qu’en allemand et en anglais.
US President Joe Biden on a state visit to Angola
From Monday to Wednesday, US President Joe Biden made his first and last state visit to the African continent. After a brief visit to the island state of Cabo Verde, where he met with Prime Minister Ulisses Correia e Silva and emphasised his support for two permanent seats for Africa on the UN Security Council, Biden travelled on to Angola, the main destination of his visit, on the same day. In the capital Luanda, the US President met with his host, Angolan President João Lourenço, and discussed trade and security issues. On Tuesday, Biden visited the National Museum of Slavery in the province of Luanda. In a speech at the site, he recalled the fate of the more than four million people who were deported from this region of Africa to America during the time of the transatlantic slave trade.
However, the main focus of the visit was undoubtedly on the endeavours surrounding the so-called Lobito Corridor. The reconstruction of the 1300 km long railway line and of the port facilities aims to better connect the resource-rich Democratic Republic of Congo and neighbouring Zambia with the Angolan port of Lobito at the Atlantic Ocean, thus creating a fast and efficient route for exports. On the last day of his state visit, Biden also held high-level talks with his Angolan, Congolese and Zambian counterparts as well as with the Vice President of Tanzania, Philip Mpango, in the port city of Lobito. Following the talks, Biden announced immediate plans for US investment in Angola, including USD 3 billion to fund the railway project, which is also supported by Germany, the European Union and the African Development Bank, among others, and is widely seen as a response to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (Press Review CW 31/2023). In addition, the heads of state and government visited an extensive rail transport project that is part of the Lobito Corridor reconstruction and is supported by the Biden administration as part of the G7 Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment Projects.
President Biden also held further bilateral talks with the heads of state present. While he discussed the Zambian component of the Lobito project in particular with his Zambian counterpart Hakainde Hichilema, he reaffirmed their joint commitment to promoting investment and peace in the region with Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi. During the meeting between the two heads of state, Biden argued in favour of maintaining the Luanda Process, which emerged from the so-called Luanda Roadmap in 2022 and aims to defuse tensions between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and build peace in eastern DRC.
Biden’s first and only trip to Africa occurred late in his term of office. The 82-year-old was heavily criticised in some quarters for this. According to observers, hopes for increased attention to Africa after four years of political neglect under Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump had not been fulfilled. The decision to choose Angola as the destination also caused irritation. Human rights organisations such as the local Center for Democracy and Human Rights and opposition groups criticised the fact that the visit rewarded Lourenço’s government, despite growing concerns about the dwindling space for civil society organisations and freedom of expression.
Regardless of this, relations between Angola and the USA are likely to continue to grow. In November this year, the trade ministries of both countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding on a Trade and Investment Partnership, which aims to formalise regular cooperation between the respective governments and industries and facilitate business transactions. In addition, the US Department of Commerce announced a trade mission for rail and maritime transport in sub-Saharan Africa in 2025, targeting Angola and South Africa. Trade between the two countries already totalled around USD 1.7 billion last year, making Angola the fourth largest trading partner of the USA in sub-Saharan Africa.
Federal Minister of Economics Habeck opens German-African Business Summit in Kenya
The German Vice-Chancellor and Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection, Robert Habeck, opened the 5th German African Business Summit (GABS) in Nairobi on Tuesday. The GABS, which takes place every two years, is the most important event for German business in Africa and brings together leading entrepreneurs and government politicians to discuss German-African cooperation. This year, around 900 participants came together in the Kenyan capital, which was already host to the GABS in 2017. Key topics were the promotion of sustainable energy technologies with a focus on hydrogen, the recruitment of skilled workers for German and African companies, digitalisation and innovation as well as cooperation in the raw materials sector. During the Vice Chancellor’s three-day trip through Kenya, the agenda also included dialogues with high-ranking representatives of the Kenyan government as well as appointments to deepen German-Kenyan economic relations.
In his opening speech at the GABS, Habeck spoke about the prerequisites for German investments and called for planning and legal certainty. The Minister of Economic Affairs and Climate Action emphasised the importance of economic cooperation in times of conflict and in coping with climate change, and recognised that the African continent was particularly affected by the negative consequences. Measures are therefore needed to slow down global warming. He also announced that the German Accelerator, which is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection, was expanding into Africa. This is a consultancy and innovation network that supports German start-ups in their expansion abroad.
One of the main topics of Habeck’s trip to Kenya was the promotion of sustainable technologies in the energy sector. Kenya is positioning itself as one of the leading African countries in this sector, generating over 90% of its electricity from renewable energy sources – particularly with the help of hydropower and geothermal energy. Against this backdrop, Mr Habeck visited Africa’s largest geothermal power plant in Olkaria, which is supported by loans of the German development bank KfW and is intended to serve as a starting point for new value chains, e.g. for the production of hydrogen.
During his trip across the country, Habeck also visited The Toolkit Foundation, a vocational school located in a suburb of Nairobi. Established in 2020, the foundation is the philanthropic arm of The Toolkit iSkills and supports young people and women in Kenya who are unable to afford training. The visit took place against the backdrop of the intensification of German-Kenyan cooperation in the field of skilled labour recruitment, which most recently culminated in the signing of a migration and mobility agreement during the last visit of Kenyan President William Ruto to Berlin in September (Press Review CW 38/2024). Against this backdrop, the Toolkit Foundation is training young workers in Kenya for both the Kenyan and German labour markets. During his visit, Habeck emphasised that it was not about the targeted poaching of the best-qualified workers – the problem known in social science as ‘brain drain’, i.e. the flight of highly educated specialists from their areas of origin – but about mutual benefit and relieving the overcrowded Kenyan labour market. The extent to which the migration agreement will have the desired success remains to be seen. Interest from Kenya still only appears to be growing at a low level. By the end of November this year, 620 German work visas had been issued to Kenyans, compared to 560 in 2023 as a whole.
In other news?
Cameroonian curator Koyo Kouoh will be the first African woman to head the 61st edition of the Venice Biennale, one of the most important art exhibitions in the world, which will take place in 2026. The organisers of the renowned contemporary art exhibition, which takes place every two years, announced this on their website on Tuesday. Kouoh is currently Chief Curator and Managing Director of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town. In an interview, Kouoh explained that she was excited about the appointment and wanted to create an exhibition that reflected the current times and at the same time looked to a visionary future. In order to place the artists at the centre, she seeks to incorporate and be guided by the visions of the participating artists. Kouoh follows on from the Brazilian Adriano Pedrosa, whose exhibition attracted almost 700,000 visitors at the end of November this year. Kouoh can look back on an impressive career in the cultural scene: in 2008, she founded Raw Material, a residency and exhibition programme in Dakar, and has curated important exhibitions, including When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting.