Migration, development, and security are the focus of the incoming German government's Africa policy. But the private sector feels snubbed by the government's new coalition deal.

The need for diversification and collaboration in the wake of the global pandemic, as a vehicle towards achieving a robust economy, cannot be overemphasized. This was the reverberating sentiment opined by guests at the just concluded German-Nigerian Business Forum, which held physically at Eko Hotel & Suites, Lagos.

A consultative forum that aims at engaging German giant companies to massively invest in Ethiopia was held online.

Christoph Kannengiesser, the chief executive of the German-African Business Association, stresses the importance of being able to produce "innovative and highly effective vaccines on the continent in order to increase capacities globally." "But also so that Africa can get out of the role of taking what others leave to them," he told DW.

The forecast is similar for South Africa whose problems have been compounded by political unrest and severe lockdowns. "South Africa is deeply integrated into global value chains and thus its economy is vulnerable in the same way European economies are," said Christoph Kannengiesser, head of the German African Business Association.

“We are heading in the right direction,” says Stefan Liebing, chairman of the Africa Association of German Business, “but the dimension is not yet.”