Development cooperation: an aggiornamento

A series of Western governments are cutting budgets for development cooperation: an alternative that takes into account the needs of Africa and the precarious budgetary situation of European countries.

European development cooperation: an aggiornamento

Faced with Trump's antics, Europe should urgenty transfer, on a large scale, know-how and advanced industrial technologies to Africa

"Factories" that is what Africa wants. Africa has had it with the Western 0.7% GNP "Aid & Advice"

With the US in the lead, a series of Western countries are scaling back their development cooperation. As an alternative, a proposal that makes all European governments want to make entrepreneurs eager to invest in the local processing of African natural resources into exportable products. That is what Africa wants. European entrepreneurs remain deeply convinced that Africa is not yet ready for modern manufacturing industries. African entrepreneurs fear permanent dominance by more advanced partners. However, in times of immense world transitions (climate, demographics, energy, regionalisation, AI), can Europe still remain blind to the opportunities offered by balanced partnerships with neighbouring Africa?

Therefore, the suggestion that Belgium takes the lead in Europe and instruct its development agency (1) to organise, in 2025, fifty town-hall debates throughout Belgium on the theme "Africa is not what you think it is", (2) to fund, in a pilot country in Africa, five young masters in business administration who document success stories of impactful economic growth in developing countries and disseminate them locally under the theme "Why participate in international industrial growth partnerships and how to achieve balanced win-win results".

Drops in the ocean

Why some Africans see opportunity in aid cuts – They want to be more self-reliant”: “The African Centre for Economic Transformation urges the continent to prioritise growth and transformation by integrating markets and moving beyond the extraction and export of raw materials.” (The Economist 8/3/2025)

In "Gambling on Development – Why some countries win and others lose” (July 2022), a reference work on development cooperation, the Belgian Oxford professor Stefan Dercon, former chief economist UK-Department for International Development, documents that no country has been able to develop without inclusive economic growth and the involvement of local elites with power and influence. Outsiders (ODAs, NGOs) who fight for human rights, democracy, SDGs, gender, chain care laws and capacity building of micro-entrepreneurs never succeed in impactfully reducing child mortality, poverty, child labour and other inequalities. Progress in these areas was mainly made in the newly industrialized countries, not in Africa. Indeed, every year in Africa, 20 million young people still enter the labour market with no prospect of a decent job, even highly educated engineers, economists, agronomists and computer scientists. According to Africa, development cooperation is in urgent need of an update. (Everyone agrees on the importance of humanitarian emergency aid).

In July 2024 the thinktank Institute for Security Studies South Africa published the disappointing results in Africa of billions of development cooperation "Europe-Africa" over the past thirty years.

Evolution of income per capita in the world (dark blue) and in Africa(light blue).
"While global per capita income has increased by 75% in the last 30 years, it has only increased by 25% in Africa."

“"The average GDP per capita in Africa is only 12% of that of the European Union, with a 15-year gap in average life expectancy. We expect these differences to decrease only marginally over the next two decades."

Institute for Security Studies South Africa (July 2024)

Source of the graph: MO* magazine 4/9/2024 “Afrika een continent om rekening mee te houden” (a continent to be reckoned with)

This grapic shows that the classic Western development cooperation of the past thirty years was only a drop in the ocean. Full 0.7% of GDP "help" continues to be Kurieren am Symptom. Africa still manufactures next to nothing.

A storehouse of raw materials

The root cause of Africa's continuing and growing backwardness compared to the rest of the world is that the rest of the world, just like in colonial times, continues to use Africa as a storehouse of raw materials – and now also of green energy and climate-strategic mineral resources – to add value and decent jobs at home. In collusion with local African elites, who also benefit from the proceeds of the export of raw materials, the West and China still refuse to transfer modern technologies and production methods to Africa. As a result, Africa still does not manufacture exportable products and services.

A new, large educated middle class, even in the most fragile Sub-Saharan countries, wants its mineral resources to be transformed locally into exportable products in order to create millions of decent jobs and reduce poverty, inequalities and forced migration. This empowered middle class has had it with the hypocritical Western 0.7% GDP solidarity, paternalistic advice or cerebral SDGs. It is at the root of the rising anti-Western resentment in Africa. Jobs, "factories" and participation in advanced industrial SME value chains, that is what this "other" Africa wants.

A culpable omission?

Europe does not know the "other" Africa

Why is it that the thousands of professionals and volunteers, experts in development cooperation, from both the public and private sectors, with all their knowledge of the field, never denounce the poignant injustice of the collusion of world players from the extractive industry and local African elites? GOs and NGOs continue to work for the status quo and the further deepening of the former types of development cooperation. They dominate the Africa narrative in the mainstream media. They perpetuate and reinforce the stigmatising image of a "rich" Africa with a "poor" uneducated population, which would not be ready for investment in modern agri-food and manufacturing industries. Quod non. A culpable omission?

A budget-friendly remedy

For more than a decade, The Economist has published an annual list of mostly the same fifteen or twenty Sub-Saharan countries with fairly stable institutions, a significant educated middle class, developed industrial sites and abundant renewable energy. Conversations, in 2023 and 2024, in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and France with more than 200 potential investors in Africa or successful industrial SMEs showed that only four of them were able to cite three of the fifteen to twenty "stable" Sub-Saharan countries. Conclusion: Europe does not know the "other" Africa, nor the growth opportunities offered in Africa'!

Message to the Belgian Minister of Development Cooperation

Broad change in mentality in Europe and in Africa: EU governments only must promote the “other” Africa. That’s all

Here is the suggestion that the Belgian Minister of Development Cooperation takes the lead in Europe and urgently responds to Africa's demand for investment in "factories" (the transfer to Africa of advanced business processes and technologies) and instructs his development agency ENABEL to:

In Belgium. ENABEL is releasing ten of its two thousand(?!) employees for one year to organise fifty town-hall debates evenings throughout Belgium in 2025 on the theme: "Africa is not what you think it is".

The goal: to change the mentality of the general public, policymakers, academics and entrepreneurs. To make entrepreneurs want to invest in Africa.
Expected result: about fifty established Belgian entrepreneurs, including SMEs – which rely on their own financing or from their financial institution – enter into industrial partnerships with African counterparts (from the most diverse economic sectors) or invest in Africa in the productive economy.

In Senegal (as a pilot country for the whole of Africa).
ENABEL finances a team of five PhD students in business administration or industrial sciences in Senegal for one year. They study the win-win industrial value chains of emerging and small countries and adapt these success stories to the Senegalese reality. They are evolving into future animators of partnerships with international industrial SMEs. In return, Belgium expects the Senegalese government to organise thirty awareness-raising campaigns for the general public and SMEs throughout Senegal. Theme: "Why participate in international industrial partnerships and how to achieve balanced win-win results".

Cost. Since a fraction of the existing, budgeted staff of ENABEL is used, the cost of such a broad awareness campaign "pro-Africa" can be limited to a fraction of the current development cooperation budget. Even if the intended results are not achieved, the losses for taxpayers will remain extremely limited. The budget for humanitarian emergency aid will not be affected.

***Message* *to the Belgian Minister of Foreign and EuropeanAffairs***

In just twenty years' time, Europe will have only 8% of the world's population and will account for barely 1% of the global potential for the production of green hydrogen. Africa will then have 25% of the world's population and can boast 35% of the global potential of the production of green H2 at €2/kg. Africa has the potential to produce green electricity at one-fifth of the cost of grey nuclear electricity. Is it possible to avoid that European energy-hungry industries (steel, petrochemicals, glass, aluminium, cement, fertiliser, etc.) will sooner rather than later relocate to Africa blessed with abundant green electricity?

In response to the antics of "drill baby drill" Trump about Ukraine and Gaza, EC President von der Leyen called on Europe to seek new partnerships with South America and India. The Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs is suggesting to his European colleagues that they should transfer advanced industrial knowledge and technologies to Africa? A neighbour with historical cultural ties who dreams of the Western European model of society he is familiar with. To forge a twin bloc "Africa-Europe"? A powerful geopolitical bloc that resists Trump, XI and Putin about challenges that are happening these days (climate, biodiversity, deglobalisation, energy, migration, ...).

More

“Jobs”, that is what Africa is concerned about - Circular Know-How Economy Africa-Europe - Europe needs Africa more than the other way around - Strategic Agenda Europe-Africa 2025: five priorities - Africa's advanced industrialisation in four phases - A thousand Africa-Europe SME partnerships drive Africa's industrialisation - GRAND INGA hydropower project DRCongo = 35 nuclear reactors - ‘Mandela-Schuman’ AU-EU Energy-Intensive Industry Community

(*) The Economist Democracy Index 2023 Sub-Saharan Africa (Ranking Feb 15 2024): 1. Mauritius, 2. Botswana, 3. Cabo Verde, 4. South Africa, 5. Namibia, 6. Ghana, 7. Lesotho, 8. Malawi, 9. Zambia, 10. Liberia, 11. Senegal, 12. Tanzania, 13. Madagascar, 14. Kenya, 15. Benin, 16. Uganda, 17. Gambia, 18. Sierra Leone, 19. Nigeria, 20. Côte d’Ivoire, 21. Angola, 22. Mauritania.

25/3/2025

Karel.Uyttendaele {@} pandora.be

2009-2024 Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroun, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinée Equatoriale, Mali, Niger, Sénégal. - 900+ interviews with locally qualified engineers, economists and agronomists - 150+ introductions to discussion sessions 'The industrialisation of Africa'
2004-2005 Belgium : Head of Staff State Secretary ICT - 1997-2004 Agoria Technology Federation - 1990-1996 Hewlett-Packard SE-Asia - 1968-1989 Hewlett-Packard Europe

Circular Know-How Economy Africa-Europe