How the AU-EU partnership can contribute to stimulate investment in Africa

Event Type
Online Expert Roundtable

Location / Date
Online, 03.09.2020

German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE), African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET), European Center for Development Policy and Management (ECDPM)

The COVID-19 pandemic is causing unprecedented socio-economic consequences. In Africa, economic growth is expected to decline from 2.4% in 2019 to -2.1 to -5.1% in 2020, household welfare losses will range from 7% to 10% on average, about 19 to 22 million jobs could be lost. Already before the Corona pandemic, a huge knowledge gap existed with respect to potentially viable development pathways for African countries as development pathways that European and Asian countries used in the past to promote broad-based and productive transformation offer little guidance for today’s policymakers in Africa.

Many external actors have responded by launching and/or supporting policy initiatives to promote private investments and investments in infrastructure. The European Union has initiated the Alliance for Sustainable Investments and Jobs, EU member states have launched the German Marshall Plan with Africa or the French Choose Africa initiative. As a result, of the Corona pandemic, the fiscal space of (African) countries is shrinking and private companies could be more hesitant to invest. At the same time, well-established global value chains are reorganising which might open windows of opportunities for African companies, replacements of fossil resources with biomaterials could be accelerated or digital technologies that reduce transaction costs more easily available.

In this context, this online expert roundtable exchanged ideas on how best to stimulate investment, with a view to identifying processes and mechanisms through which the AU-EU partnership could most effectively stimulate sustainable investment. In particular, the role of public, private, domestic and international investment in the context of joint systemic issues like the promotion of sustainability dimensions as well as the inclusiveness of decision-making processes were discussed.

The event is part of a series of policy briefs and online events ahead of the AU-EU summit, jointly organized by the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE), the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET), and the European Center for Development Policy and Management (ECDPM) with the financial support of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Hinweis

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