The global economic crisis triggered by the pandemic is a crisis of international trade, which reveals the dependence of Europe to the supply chains vulnerable, too focused on China, too poor in skilled jobs, and incompatible with our climate goals. Simultaneously, in Africa, the decline in export revenues impoverishes States and a threat to the daily lives of millions of workers. While the continent represents only 5% of international trade, and only 3.5% of French exports, the emergence in africa is undermined by an insertion is insufficient, or unequal in the international trade.
In Europe, as in Africa, there is great risk to draw the wrong lessons from this crisis, succumbing to the sirens of the downturn or of localism. Neither Europe nor Africa can live in fortresses, according to the referred property of another age. Neither Europe nor Africa can meet environmental challenges by a “decay” illusory and a restriction of trade.
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For Vincent Ledoux, a French mep LREM of the North, it is necessary to densify the relations between France, Europe and Africa. © STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP
to Promote greater exchange and better quality
quite the contrary, it is through trade that the major emerging countries, have succeeded in their economic take-off, and, on the long-term, it is through openness that we pacifions the relations between the peoples and face the common challenges. The challenge, therefore, is not to trade less, but trade better, by conditioning our free trade agreements to environmental criteria, such as the president and Emmanuel Macron come to mind. We therefore call for that the economic recovery in France and Europe can revive economic relations with Africa in an aim of developing environmentally friendly, open and supportive, a creator of shared value. It is one of the challenges of the african priority of French diplomacy, strategic choice clearly stated in 2017, driven by the history and demography, so that in 2050 one third of the world’s population will be african.
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fully Take Africa into account
The current crisis confirms the relevance of this guidance and should allow to better adhere to our fellow countrymen. Africa is indeed at the forefront of the health challenges and epidemiological. It is a testament to our resilience capability by multiplying the initiatives adapted to local contexts. In Senegal, for example, the sub-sectors textiles were able to produce masks reusable from crafts and students of the École supérieure polytechnique of Dakar have developed a robot multi-tasking to provide, without contact, medication or meals to the sick and confined. In Nigeria, a society built drones autonomous delivering medical supplies in the health facilities… Without Africa, we do not take ever the challenge of the “common goods” in the world. The ecological capital of Africa is considerable, but it is threatened, and it is up to Africans to make the best use of their resources without sacrificing their contribution to the biodiversity of a planet. Similarly, the climate goals, the world will never be sustainable if africa’s economic development is not strongly low-carbon.
Mbaye Fall Diallo, a member of the CPA, is satisfied that it is necessary to integrate new paradigms in the economic relations between France, Europe and Africa. © Cio_Mag
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At the same time, investment, mobilizing territories
This results in enormous opportunities for investment common in Africa and in Europe, in order to achieve a more sustainable techniques and clean energy. But it is not just a question of mobilizing large international donors, public or private. The city and the territories sustainable primarily affect the territorial actors that must come together in new partnerships in Africa in order to provide concrete solutions, here and there, and the challenges of adaptation and mitigation of global warming. The region of the Hauts-de-France, for example, has launched a call for projects on “Actors of energy for Africa” to co-finance the supply of public buildings, renewable energy or vocational training to the equipment maintenance and the management of resources.
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Intensify relations with Africa
To ensure that the economic recovery is consistent with our objectives of ecological transition, it is thus necessary to jointly relocate and reorient our trade, in densifier relations between Europe and Africa. This transformation calls for significant funding : we therefore propose to identify, in the european recovery plan and the “green deal” measures in support of projects strengthening the economic links to euro-africans, as the investments are shared in Europe and Africa, here and there.
An efficient recovery also calls for new methods, involving the economic actors, the civil society, including diaspora, and local and regional authorities. Trade and investment must become levers of cooperation and of sustainable development, combining economy, environment and social in the broader sense, closer to the territories.
The development of the agro-ecology provides an emblematic example. For the cocoa value chain, the containment during the Easter period has strongly affected the craftsmen and industrial chocolate-makers in France, while lowering the price of raw materials at the expense of the Ivory Coast. The exit from the crisis provides a major opportunity to rearrange the sectors agro-ecological and increase the impact land of the cocoa trade.
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Identify the specialties of the territories
even an agroecology to support businesses and the local communities must be the basis of the project of the ” great green wall “, this belt of vegetation multi-species to cross the Sahel from west to east, promoted by the presidential Council for Africa and the French development Agency. It is necessary to embed the communities and the local communities to ensure the selection and monitoring of projects, to create employment in the informal sector, to guide the transfer of funds from diasporas to sustainable investment and to ensure that the african youth exploits all the potential of micro-financing, in particular digital. For Africa to (re)become a horizon of our small and medium-sized enterprises, it is necessary to identify the specializations of our territories in the relations of peer-to-peer by activating all the levers : since the initiative “Choose Africa” which should remove the obstacles to the access to bank finance for african entrepreneurs, until the renewal of the companionships of the chambers of French and african.
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circular Migration
Our policy prerogative should promote circular migration so that the passage through the Europe accounts for the rise in competence of young professionals, is an accelerator of development and change permanently eyes are on the ways of migration. The new generation of local elected representatives must be quickly initiated to the issues of relations with Africa, for example, by systematizing tandems “prefect-ambassador” franco-african officers to connect their territories, and in establishing a space of direct communication to the French mayors and africans : “the Skype of mayors “.
In this revival of trade, rooted in the territories, France must be exemplary. She may as well lay off the last spectra of the “Françafrique” that spoil our links to the heart of sub-saharan Africa. And it is by being faster with the initiative, and by sharing this challenge by our fellow citizens, that we will be able to lead our european partners.
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* Vincent Ledoux, member of LREM of the North
** Mbaye Fall Diallo, university professor, member of the presidential Council for Africa (CPA)
writing will advise you
France in Africa, interests that are also at the After-Covid-19 : Africa at the bedside of his companies, Stéphanie Rivoal : “The feeling anti-French is not generalized” Le Drian : “France wants to defend its place in Africa” How the president Macron intends to put the diaspora at the heart of the relationship Africa-France Christian de Boissieu : “Africa needs to promote the development of a more endogenous “
