Niebel in Africa

Jan 15th, 2010 1:53 PM UTC
By Carola Bieniek

Carola Bieniek from ONE’s German office checks in with this great update:

This week the German Development Minister Dirk Niebel returned from his first trip to Africa. Niebel has only been in office for ten weeks, and before he took the post he was most famous in the development world for demanding the development ministry be shut down. So you can imagine that there was quite a bit of criticism and skepticism from the development community before Niebel took off to Rwanda, DRC and Mozambique.

On his first stop in Rwanda Niebel met with President Kagame and they both agreed that trade is the only thing that can help develop a country in the long term.

In DRC, however, Niebel learned that it’s not all that easy. The minister went to war-torn East Congo to see a hospital that cares especially for women that have endured sexual violence. He also went to see what’s left of the country’s vast forests and visited with the MONUC troops. And he found that different places might need different approaches. In DRC that approach might be to strengthen civil society and international efforts.

While Rwanda is seen by many as a “donor darling” for all the progress the country has made after the 1994 genocide, and DRC as seen as a country with so much potential, Niebel’s third stop was Mozambique. Germany has a special relationship with the country: during the Cold War many young Mozambicans came to East Germany for an education. After the 16 year civil war in Mozambique ended in the early 1990s the country, though extremely poor, was considered one of the most democratic countries on the continent. Former President Chissanó was even awarded the Mo Ibrahim Award for his efforts. Lately governance has taken a turn for the worse after some alleged irregularities in the 2009 general elections and widespread corruption being an open secret. Minister Niebel led some discussions with the Mozambican government on aid in the form of budget support as being the most efficient way to support the country’s development efforts.

After his return Minister Niebel acknowledged that he had learned a lot about the potentials but also the problems of the African continent. He also found his ministry’s focus on Sub-Sahara Africa confirmed as a good and worthwhile strategy.

Niebel’s conclusion after one week “on the ground”: “Africa‘s diversity is mirrored in our different approaches to development cooperation in those three countries. I would hope that the diversity of our neighboring continent and its potentials were seen more clearly in Germany.”

TAGS: Germany