「経済・金融ゼミ」課題サンプル

Resetting the AfricaAfrica-Europe RelationshipDec 5, 2017 IBRAHIM ASSANE MAYAKI

Africa faces a broad range of development challenges, and overcoming them will requirehuge sums of foreign aid and investment. But as Africa develops, its people will alsoneed partners who recognize that there are mutual benefits to engaging with thecontinent’s mobile and highly-educated base of human capital.
JOHANNESBURG – In October, the European Union announced a plan to invest €40billion ($47.6 billion) in Africa, a “Marshall Plan” for the continent that would boost
economic growth, create jobs, and, ultimately, slow the migration of young Africans toEurope. “Words won’t convince migrants to stay at home,” European Parliament
President Antonio Tajani said. “We must give them a chance to have a decent life.”
Tajani is right. Unfortunately, his approach is not.
For almost 60 years, well-meaning foreign governments, many of them European, havepoured huge sums of money into Africa, with little to show for it. Lasting solutions toAfrica’s development challenges require funding, to be sure, but they also demand asignificant recalibration in relations with foreign partners. And Africa’s relationshipwith Europe may require the biggest overhaul of all.
The problem goes much deeper than money; one might even say it’s philosophical. Africa
and Europe have a very old relationship, marked by complexity and pain. Europe
imposed its system of governance, values, and more recently, approaches to trade, longclaiming that Africans need to be trained, to modernize, and to emphasize “capacitybuilding.” This patronizing partnership has run its course, and it is crucial that wechange the dynamic.
Meetings like the fifth African Union-European Union summit, which wrapped up last
week in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, are a good start. The meeting, which focused on“investing in youth,” put a spotlight on the complex links between the sides. Oneconclusion was clear: the EU’s current answer to addressing migration from Africa isoutdated. If Europe’s strategy to solve its migration challenges relies on money alone, itwill fail.
We are a long way from the lopsided dynamic that defined African-European relationsduring the colonial era. Today, Europe may need Africa more than Africa needs Europe,
especially if one considers human capital.
Over the next 15 years, some 440 million Africans will enter the job market, compared
to 72 million in Europe. Africa’s job seekers will need work, and Europe will have it. An
aging population is already putting a squeeze on Europe’s growth, and vacancies are
forecast to multiply amid a shrinking labor pool. There is even a strong possibility that,in the long run, it will be African young people who pay for the care of Europeanpensioners. These demographic differences underscore the potential benefits ofrethinking economic and political relations.
Without migration, the redistributive policies on which European welfare states depend1

「経済・金融ゼミ」課題サンプル

will be unable to withstand the current rate of aging. Not only will finding the staff tocare for an aging population become more difficult; obtaining sufficient revenue to fundsocial security systems will also become harder as the dependency ratio rises. Migration
policies that emphasize mobility are essential to support European industries,
household consumption and, ultimately, the financing of social benefits.
Because strategic competitors like China and India have already identified thehuman-capital potential of Africa’s youth, Europe must move quickly to attract andretain – rather than repel – African professionals. Of the 375,000 students from thecontinent who study abroad each year, many will establish businesses and find theirown place in a globalized economy upon graduation. There is already growing
competition in the US, Canada, China, the Middle East, and Africa itself to attract
these highly educated and mobile students.
Just as sixteenth-century Europe needed African gold, twenty-first-century Europe
cannot do without the African diaspora. Which other world region can offer similarmarket potential for European industries faced with declining demand and or subdued
growth in both their domestic and traditional export markets?
That is why it is more important than ever that Europe not engage in an administrative
bean-counting exercise, in which other economies will always appear stronger. Instead,the EU should commit to mutually beneficial employment schemes that maximize thestrengths of people and cultures on both continents, notably through skills transfer.
Europe’s recognition of its need for Africa is a necessary paradigm shift, leading, onehopes, to reasoned collaboration. In an increasingly uncertain world, Africa and Europe
can set the foundations for a smarter partnership by changing the basis of theircooperation.
Failure to do so will be costly. But most of that cost will be borne by Europe. With
alternative partners already courting their talent, it is not Africa that will be hurt themost by the missed opportunity.

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