Berlin & Brussels
Recap

Smart Africa Delegation trip Berlin – Brussels 26.11.-5.12.2024

Meeting among good friends: The centrepiece of Smart Africa's visit was the exchange on intensified cooperation with the BMZ - including within the framework of the EU-AU lighthouse on data governance.

“AI is no longer a dream of the future – it is happening now and we need to be prepared. Those who don’t adapt to AI will be left behind by those who do”.

Lacina Koné, CEO of Smart Africa at the BMZ Digital Forum

Artificial intelligence is also a hot topic for Smart Africa at the moment – which is why Lacina Koné, CEO of Smart Africa, gave an inspiring speech at the BMZ Digital Forum on 26 November in Berlin, passionately promoting African AI solutions. Koné’s appearance also marked the start of the Smart Africa delegation’s visit to Berlin and Brussels to deepen the partnership between Germany, Europe and Africa in the field of digital transformation. Smart Africa is an association of 40 African countries committed to digitalisation and is one of the most important contacts for German development cooperation in this area.

Further Information: BMZ Digital Forum: AI revolution in development cooperation?

November 26-27, 2024, Berlin

Image 1/3: With: Birgit Pickel, Head of the Africa Department, Thomas Helfen, Head of the Coordination of Operational Cooperation with Africa Unit and Noémie Bürkl, Head of the Digitalisation Unit.

Image 2/3: Meeting among good friends: The centrepiece of Smart Africa's visit was the exchange on intensified cooperation with the BMZ - including within the framework of the EU-AU lighthouse on data governance.

Image 3/3: Lacina Koné speaks at the BMZ Digital Forum on 26 Novembe

28 November – 29 November 2024, Berlin

Image 1/6: With: Anna Sophie Herken, Member of the GIZ Management Board.

Image 2/6: With: Dr Irina Soeffky, Head of Division for National, European and International Digital Policy, Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs and Transport

Image 3/6: With: KfW's digitalisation team under the leadership of Piet Kleffmann

Image 4/6: With: Dr Thando Sililo, Head of the Sub-Saharan Africa Initiative of German Business (SAFRI) and the German-African Business Summit (GABS) at the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce.

Image 5/6: With: Manuel Kilian, Managing Director of the World Economic Forum Global Government Technology Centre (WEF GTTC).

Image 6/6: With: Manuel Kilian, Managing Director of the World Economic Forum Global Government Technology Centre (WEF GTTC).

2 Dec – 4 Dec 2024, Brussels

After intensive and successful talks in Berlin, Smart Africa travelled on to Brussels, where it met with the EU and the Digital for Development Hub to exchange ideas for an African digital single market and closer cooperation between Africa and the EU. The concrete result: the signing of an agreement to support the digital transformation on our neighbouring continent. With: Koen Doens, Director General of DG INTPA of the European Commission and Renate Nikolay, Director General of DG CONNECT.

Further information

Image 1/4: Head of Subdivision Philipp Knill, Subdivision Africa II Coordination of Operational Cooperation with Africa of the BMZ, welcomed the digital partnership and emphasised the existing cooperation between the BMZ and Smart Africa.

Image 2/4: Lacina Koné: "Our shared commitment and combined resources will create tangible pathways to digital inclusion, ensuring every African community can participate in and benefit from the digital economy.”

Image 3/4: Lacina Koné, CEO Smart Africa, Koen Doens, Director General of DG INTPA of the European Commission and Renate Nikolay, Director General of DG CNECT

Image 4/4: High-Level Roundtable on the signing of the Grant Agreement between the European Commission and Smart Africa as part of the Global Gateway Initiative.

“This ground-breaking collaboration with the European Commission is a powerful alliance that combines the strengths of both organisations. This agreement will open up significant opportunities to improve digital infrastructure, skills development and digital innovation across Africa. Our combined commitment and resources will create concrete pathways to digital inclusion and ensure that every African community can participate in and benefit from the digital economy.”

Lacina Koné, CEO Smart Africa

4 Dec. 2024, Berlin

Back to Berlin: Development Minister Svenja Schulze invited Lacina Koné to the conference Rethinking Development Policy: How to deal with coloniality. The aim of the BMZ’s current process of overcoming colonial continuities is to learn from the legacy of colonialism and to build on this to create fair, partnership-based relations with the countries of the Global South.

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“Whether you speak Portuguese, French or English, digitalisation is a cross-cutting issue that you don’t necessarily learn from the colonial power, because the colonial power itself is usually too late. That is why we take digitisation in Africa very seriously. Colonial development affected the whole physical infrastructure. It will be difficult to tackle technology. I think the decolonisation of development and knowledge is crucial.”

Lacina Koné, CEO Smart Africa

About Smart Africa

Smart Africa, an alliance of 40 African heads of state and government, aims to transform Africa into a knowledge-based economy through affordable broadband access and the use of information and communication technologies (ICT). The aim is to create a digital single market on the African continent by 2030. The main players: African member states, private companies such as Google, Orange and Huawei, political partners such as the German Development Ministry (BMZ), the ITU (International Telecommunication Union), the World Bank and the European Union.

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