G20 Compact with Africa conference pushes for private investment in fast-growing continent

Leaders from more than a dozen African countries have gathered in Germany’s capital city for the G20 Compact with Africa conference, which aims to help bolster private investment in the world’s poorest, but fast-growing, continent.

Underlining renewed interest in Africa, leaders of Italy, France, Germany have all visited Africa this year, viewing it as a future global market owing to its growing population and vast natural resources.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who has visited Africa several times since taking office in late 2021, held bilateral talks with representatives of several African countries on Sunday (20 November). On Monday, Scholz hosted a German-African investment summit in Berlin, pledging to invest 4 billion euros in African green energy projects until 2030. While the Chancellor did not mention any specific projects, he said the continent should benefit more from its wealth of raw materials used in green energy and therefore they should be processed in the African countries they come from. “This creates jobs and prosperity in these countries,” Scholz said. “And the German industry gets reliable suppliers.”

Meanwhile, the current chairman of the African Union (AU), Azali Assoumani, has told the delegates that shortcomings in the financial system hinder the mobilization of capital for African economies. Therefore, he asked the AU’s G20 partners to support Africa’s call for reform of the international financial architecture, and for more fair and more inclusive global economic governance. The President of the Comoros Azali Assoumani also called on the Compact with Africa initiative to be extended to all African countries, “for a stronger, more inclusive partnership, to the benefit of the entire continent and our continent crossed with Europe and other continents.”

The member countries of the G20 Compact are Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Senegal, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia.