Lively communities distinguish African from Western societies. They enable people to navigate through a world of uncertainty. In times of COVID, can we in the West learn from this?
African companies will also be hit very hard by the impacts of this pandemic. However, African companies are much more used to a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous business environment.
How the pandemic might change our interlinked global society. The level of interconnectedness will not decrease compared to the pre-pandemic level but increase. However, it will be different.
In 2019, people in African countries continued to connect digitally. And in 2019 the major geopolitical powers continued to enter Africa to increase their influence.
Development cooperation can only be a functional part of a holistic Africa policy. With one responsible unity which brings together foreign trade policy, innovation promotion, development policy, humanitarian and migration-policy.
Europe has laid the foundations for an interconnected global society. So also for the upswing in Africa. With our false image of Africa we cannot see that at all. The two narratives - hopeless Africa, the break-up of Europe - reinforce each other.
In Africa, the entrepreneurial mindset is the norm, the "default" position of African societies. That makes a big difference for the digital transformation.
The small East African country Rwanda has discovered its competitive advantage in our interlinked global society. It offers a greenfield for proof-of-concept of digital innovations. And expects a contribution to its development.
Rwanda is different. Driving from the airport to the center of the capital Kigali, you feel a bit like in the Tuscany in Italy. Green alleys and red-roofed houses in „the land of a thousand hills“. As an European you might forget that you are only some 200 km away from the equator, in the middle of the African continent.
