← This Week in Global Development
This Week in Global Development
What did we learn at the African Union Summit and the Munich Security Conference?
00:27:27
We examine the latest developments surrounding the https://www.devex.com/organizations/african-continental-free-trade-area-afcfta-192471, or AfCFTA, which served as a focal point of...
Loading summary
Transcript26 lines
- [00:04]
A
My name is Advaas Saldinger and you're listening to this Week in Global Development hosted by myself, Rumby Chikamba and David Ainsworth. Today we're going to be discussing two big summits that happened over the past week. The Munich Security Conference and the African Union Summit. Joining me are my colleagues Devex reporters Inet Mursi and Jesse Chase Lubitz. Inot Jesse, thanks so much for being with me today. Looking forward to hearing all about what you guys learned and sort of the environment at the summits that you covered. Inat I'm going to, I'm going to go to you first. I know that you're still in Addis in Ethiopia where you were covering the AU summit, so hopefully people will bear with us if we have any technical problems. I know you had a last second power outage just as we were about to start recording this. But why don't, why don't we just start with getting a sense? What were your takeaways? You know, the summit wrapped up in the last couple of days. What are you sort of thinking about? What's sticking with you in terms of the big takeaways?
- [01:01]
B
Yes, thanks, Adva. Yes, I am indeed an ath. So ironically it's not great, even though one of the big conversations is of course this big bird dam that is generating a lot of electricity for this country. But transmission is another question. But in terms of the bigger topics at the African Union summit, I think for me the biggest conversation that was most interesting was around the African Continental Free Trade Agreement. And this is something that's been in the works for several years now. I believe it was first floated in 2019. It was the first kind of documentation around it. But it's been slow going. I mean, it's a really huge deal if you think about it, is how to create a free trade zone agreement between all of Africa. So this has been really a long way going, but there's been real tangible progress. You know, people signed the last sort of agreements in terms of the IP rights, which was a big sticking point towards the end. So that was done at the meetings and we just kind of got a better sense of how it would work these meetings. So we understand, for example, that, you know, we'll have a gradual reduction of tariff most countries. So basically, you know, you know that for many countries in Africa, tariffs are a huge source of revenues for the government. It's not really something that they want to get rid of overnight. So how does this work? So for LDCs, for example, they'll have like a longer leeway lead time in their reduction of tariffs. So that was an interesting point that I learned. And also another conversation was, you know, we can have free trade across the continent, but we need to have goods to actually trade. And what does that mean? It means, like, we're not just going to want to trade raw goods with one another. Like, what's the point, you know, of. Of trading coffee and gold with one another. You know, it's. We need to industrialize and make sure that we are adding value to goods and then also producing things that are actually in demand of our neighbors. So how do we do that? And so there are lots of conversations about how do we have, like, regional industrial policy facilitate that. One good example that I heard from one person from AFCFTA at one event was, you know, take cotton in the textiles industry, for example. So, you know, some countries in Africa produce cotton, some weave yarn, some produce textiles, some stitch apparel. And this is super disjointed right now. So, you know, the attire makers are making it importing yarn a lot of the time from places like China. So, like, how do we make a regional industrial policy so that we can be a little bit more cohesive and a bit more intentional with our trade? So this, for me was pretty much like the most exciting and most interesting conversation. And there were also conversations about how to link it with different industries like agriculture. AfCFTA, for example, signed an agreement with AGRA. So, like, how do we link it better to agriculture? Was one conversation. And another big topic this year was water. And water is the official theme of the AU conference. And so, you know, there's a huge financing gap in water in Africa. It has. It needs around $64 billion a year to meet what it really needs to do in terms of Africa. And only it's only at around 10.5 right now. So we heard from a lot of people, especially MDBs, on strategies and plans for investing more in water. We had the African Development bank, which said it had a $1 billion investment program across 18 countries to facilitate water access. And that also was, in addition, 12 million people with sanitation access. And they also were the ones who said they were partnering with the World bank on something called Mission Water. This is something that, you know, is part of their water strategy that was released late last year, pretty quietly, but it actually hasn't been officially launched. That will happen sometime this 2026. And that is basically a huge partnership across NDBs, across philanthropies, across NGOs. Looking at the question of how do we get water access to 1 billion people? And so there's. There's a lot of conversations about mission water. And so this was a lot of, you know, this was an interesting set of conversations because it was really like putting the money like, where people's mouths were in terms of water. So it wasn't just, you know, we need water. You know, what do we do about it? It was, we need water. And here are some concrete, bankable projects that people are investing in in order to fill that gap. And course, some. Some other conversations. One that, you know, I think happens quite a lot is, you know, the push for Africa to have a seat at the table and, you know, at the UN Security Council. This has been a long conversation, right? Why is there no permanent representation for Africa, even though most Security Council resolutions are actually about Africa? So this is a real big conversation. And there was a push, and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres was there. And, you know, he also said that it was pretty indefensible that Africa didn't have a seat at the table. So these were some of the major convers. And also, of course, like, the undercurrent of it all is always geopolitics. And no, Washington was not absent. Washington was actually there. I wasn't sure if, you know, we'd hear anything from. From the Americans, but they were there. Nick Checker was. Was around and in a lot of meetings around the au, and also I learned while I was there, the Americans are actually looking for their next corridor. So we always, of course, we know a lot. I know advai, you know, a ton about the Levito corridor. And so they are basically putting out feelers looking for their next P project that will be a corridor. And so this is kind of building on a partnership that was announced a couple of weeks ago between the US Government and the African Union. And this was a strategic working group, infrastructure working group. And so within that, what I learned at the summit was that they were actively seeking input from the African private sector and African governments as to what the next corridor project should be. And so one that was floated was DRC Rwanda, which, of course, we know the US Government has been very interested and involved in that part of the world, facilitating some peace agreements recently. So that could be one. Although it did leave some people I spoke to kind of scratching their heads. You know, what would a corridor look like there? I mean, Rwanda is, of course, a landlocked country. So, you know, there are some questions about what that would look like. But there were some other countries and regions that were floated, you know, Namibia, Mozambique. So we, we don't know what it will be yet, but the US Government is actively seeking input and people were thinking that there could be an update on this might be come July when the next US Africa business summit is set to happen in Mauritius. It's kind of the big roundup.
- [07:09]
A
Yeah. No, I especially read with interest your piece about this sort of expansion to looking for additional corridors. I do think it aligns very much with what we're seeing from the Trump administration about being very one oriented around critical minerals, but also about large scale economic development projects, commercial engagement and that type of thing. So I think that's interesting. I will say that, you know, taking a half step back, it is not new. I think the idea behind Libido was always to create a model that could potentially be replicated in other places. So it's interesting to see sort of the conversations happening now about moving that forward. I did want to, I mean, I think you got to a lot of the things I did want to ask you a little bit more about sort of the geopolitical conversations that were happening and the tone, because I think that there has been sort of stronger African voice as the AIDS cuts, as the AIDS cuts have happened more, you know, we have to figure this out on our own because this money's going away. And I'm curious how some of those conversations played out at the summit and sort of what you're hearing in terms of also cohesion across and sort of, you know, not doing individual deals, rather working together as a block. And what some of those conversations were like at the summit.
- [08:28]
B
Absolutely, that was definitely a through line. And even starting from the first day, I remember the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry saying that, you know, in, in this new era of, you know, this kind of race for critical minerals in particular, it was more important than ever. Can countries stand together and unite against this sort of, kind of potentially exploitative view that other countries might be taking on? So that was a through line, you know, Africa needs to really stand together was really a refrain that I heard, you know, in terms of kind of one other thing kind of related that I heard that really stuck with me that I thought was interesting was one thing I've been reporting a lot on, you know, a few times on in the past few months was this Dr. Between Afrexim bank and Fitch. Right. And so Afrexim just recently severed its ties with Fitch Ratings a few weeks ago. You know, this has been, it's been, it's really been a fraught thing, right? Because Fitch says we're just not sure that if a government defaults, if they're going to pay you back and if Frexim is saying, you know, you're, you don't understand our model. And also the undertone of that has been, you know, you don't under, you're not pricing African risk appropriately. You know. And so one thing that really stuck out to me in that was that the former Afrexim bank president, in a conversation about, you know, African finance and African risk, said, we're highly rated in Asia. And I was like, wow, that was such a, you know, kind of a mic drop moment of kind of who kind of, who cares really about this bitch stuff? We're highly rated in Asia. We're looking for other sources of capital. So, you know, kind of shrug at the West. So that was an interesting through line and that kind of the, the closeness, close ties with Asia also came up again. And in a briefing I went to about technology and science and AI. And you know, this, this was all about partnerships that the AU was having with China and Chinese universities. And there was not really like, or barely any Western countries mentioned, although they did mention partnering, potential partnerships with things like Google on things like AI. But one thing that struck me in that briefing that I went to about science, tech and AI in the African Union, there were eight questions asked, including me. I asked a question and four of them came from people working for Chinese news outlets. So that is just to give you a ref, like a frame of reference for like how well covered this was by Asian outlets. And that really struck me. So there was really a, you know, let's unite. We're African countries and also we're looking elsewhere. We're not necessarily looking westward anymore.
- [10:47]
A
Really interesting.
- [10:54]
C
If you're listening to this podcast, you're probably already working in global development, or maybe you're thinking about carving out a new path in the social impact space. Regardless, we all need a little help sometimes in our pursuit of a happy, fulfilling and impactful work life. Whether you're actively searching for a new role or looking for some pointers on how to strike a healthier work life balance, I'm Justin Sablich, devex's Careers Editor, and each Friday in the Career Hub newsletter, I'll bring you inside the minds of leading career coaches and recruiters to help you navigate the next step of your professional journey. You'll also have access to the latest hiring and salary trends and a weekly dose of the best leads from Global Development's Largest job board. Visit devex.comcareerhub to subscribe.
- [11:40]
A
All right, Jesse, I think I'm going to come to you because I know there was a whole lot of talk about geopolitics at the Munich Security Conference where that's sort of the crux of the matter. And I wanted to just sort of get a sense from you about the overall impressions and sort of takeaways. I think one of the things I was struck by in one of your pieces, you had this quote from someone who you spoke to at the summit who said, development is the dog tied to the bumper. Right. And I think that sort of helps to paint a picture in this that, you know, development was sort of clawing or struggling to stay relevant and part of the conversation. So what can you tell us about sort of how development showed up on the agenda or didn't, what sort of priority it got at the Munich Security Conference this year?
- [12:25]
D
Yeah, absolutely. I want to give like a little bit of background, just some numbers to kind of situate this. Obviously, we know that defense spending has skyrocketed and development is going down. And the NATO target is that countries have 2% of their GDP spent on defense. But some European countries are going for 5% of their GDP. Meanwhile, OECD countries spend well under the 0.7% of GNI on official development assistance. So we're already in this situation where, like, development's not the main kind of thing that people are focusing on right now. And so the development world was there sort of trying to figure out where they fit in, and it sort of depended on who you talk to. But my main feeling, at least for the main stage conversations, was that development was not top of mind. And that's where this kind of development is tied to the bumper analogy comes from. But I will say there was a bit of a divide on that because on the one hand, someone told me that if you're just talking about oda, if you're talking about aid, then this was not the place to find it. The global leaders from the Global south were sidelined in part, actually, because for a few years in a row now, MSC and African Union Summit are the same weekend, which many were saying, you know, this is a fixable problem. So I'm not really sure why we keep doing this. But of course, tons of African countries are not going to go to the MSC if they're at the African Union.
- [13:38]
A
So that's definitely something I was thinking about that it seems like a missed opportunity for Africa to, especially in an environment where it's talking about being sort of more at the table, to literally not be at the table because they're at a different summit.
- [13:52]
D
Yeah. And I don't know what the logistical barriers are of moving either of these conferences, but it sure surely seems fixable and it does sort of show that Global south voices are not super prioritized at the Munich security conference. They weren't from the beginning. This has always been a very kind of Western powers meeting from the start. And over, over the years it's improved, people told me. But of course it's not, you know, they're not getting the attention that, that many think that they need to get. Especially when a lot of security threats are either something these countries have had experience with or are based in those countries, whether it's migration or something like. Or conflict or climate change. So yeah, there were some side conversations on these things and there were places where you could see Global south leaders speak. But yeah, they were not on the main stage. But kind of getting back to what I was saying, not on the agenda, but there was a good amount of development finance talked about, so discussions about trade, debt, MDBs, remittances, illicit financial flows. People did tell me that those conversations were happening. And of course these things are like, you know, they're very, very tied to development. We have to talk about debt if we want to talk about development. So, you know, depending on your perspective, you could see this as a really productive conference. On the other hand, you could see it as, you know, another time where development's being sidelined.
- [15:13]
A
What's interesting to me is that it seems like that the way that you just framed that and how people were framing it in the conversation is so reflective of this moment that we're in. Right. Because I think that there's this effort to re or out of necessity, born out of necessity in some ways to reframe what used to be talked about as aid, which is more maybe altruistic or nice to have as more directly potentially tied to security, but in different ways in ways where we're talking about trade relationships and shoring up supply chains and ensuring that you're country is protected in the next health crisis or you know, acts of violence or whatever it might be, or from migration, et cetera. And so I think, I think to me that was one of the interesting things in reading some of your coverage was that it is reflective of this moment that we're in and the types of institutions that are sort of leading on some of those conversations. But would be curious sort of what, what Your take is on that. And if, and if it did seem like people were trying to reframe the way that we talk about some of these development issues, I mean, it's hard
- [16:22]
D
because with any of these conferences, there's like thousands of people there and you talk to like 20 at the most. Right. So, like, it really depends on who you speak to. From the people that I spoke to, a lot of it was like they're not talking about development. But I do think in the kind of back rooms there were discussions about this. And I completely agree that it's reflective of the time we're in. You know, how do we get private capital to take up some of the funding gaps here? And the only way to do that is to deal with these financial gaps that, that hopefully development can come in and de risk. So I, yeah, I completely agree with that. Yeah.
- [16:55]
A
One of the things I was just going to ask about is obviously Munich Security Conference is, is quite focused on defense. Right. And I think, and I think historically there has been an argument obviously that development is helpful to defense because if you prevent, you know, if people are happy and not living in poverty or in the midst of violence or conf. Have opportunity, they're less likely to be caught up in violence. Right. And so the world is a safer place if we do development. And we've heard that argument sort of made here in the US Where I sit for sure, over the years. And so I'm wondering how much that was part of the conversation. I know that you had a. Did an interview with Celeste Wallander, who's a former Assistant Secretary of defense at the U.S. department of Defense. And so kind of curious what came up in that conversation and how you were hearing that argument and whether it seemed to be landing with people.
- [17:46]
D
Yeah, that's exactly it. I mean, that was the main argument is that both development professionals and military professionals were making. And if, if we look back, Even, you know, USAID's dismantling the military was very upfront and saying, like, we do need defense. We, we do rely. Sorry, we do need development. We do rely on USAID for security measures. And so I talked to several, you know, there's so many people walking around with military uniforms at this conference, so you can just sort of walk up to any and ask them what they think. And there they were very cons saying, we need development capacity. And yeah, Celeste Wallander, she said that within national security circles, there's a long standing, standing belief that development capacity is essential and that aid has always been a part of the Strategy. I did also ask her, you know, from a US Perspective, what does this mean for the future Democrats need to do, you know, to how can we bring USAID back in some capacity? And she said, we, we still have to make the case that development assistance is in the American interest. And effective leaders, she said, will be able to draw the line between the instability we see abroad and an insecurity at home and that, you know, dealing with food insecurity, climate change conflicts. I mean, that's all going to be things that undergird a new security threat in the rest of the world. It was a very strong kind of call from both of those groups which you wouldn't normally put, you know, in the same room together, but it wasn't making its way into those big kind of political, high level geopolitical conversations.
- [19:19]
A
Yeah, that's so interesting to me because I do feel like it's an argument we've heard a lot here in the US Especially to sort of convince Congress of the importance of some of these issues. And I do feel like maybe it's landed a bit flat or it's not as successful of an argument these days. And I think it's interesting that it wasn't, you know, that maybe among the sort of rank and file of the, of what be it military or other sectors there, there's still this belief in it. But that it's not sort of of making its way up into the sort of political echelons is really interesting to me.
- [19:51]
D
Yeah. And I mean, I don't want to say that it wasn't there at all. There were 12 sessions, I think, on food security at MSC. And I actually think food might be a really smart way into these conversations because it is just less politicized overall. Again, those were not high level, you know, main stage conversations, but it was still discussed. There was one, at least one panel on water, at least one panel on, on climate change. But I spoke to the chief economist at the FAO and he said, you know, we're bringing these statistics to leaders saying like, this is what's going to happen if people don't get food. And you know, this is the timeline for when we need to worry about it. And he said generally there's just a lack of urgency. And he was sort of like confused about why that is when the information is so clear. So yeah, it was there and I think it was there more than maybe in the last two years it was there more than in previous years. So there's movement, but there's definitely a divide between in kind of these informal conversations. And the main message that's coming out of the conference.
- [20:55]
A
Yeah, it did seem to. I think one of the things you wrote is that it was also some of those conversations were quite siloed. Right. So then you have this challenge of making it into sort of mainstream outcomes and conversations. If they're happening in groups where sort of the people who care are talking to each other. And so I think, think that's a question of how, you know, how do you try to change that dynamic. I think it's interesting that food, that, you know, food is sort of emerging as, as, you know, maybe one place where there might be more consensus, but then still maybe not as much urgency or action as, as the sort of facts on the, on the ground might merit. And yeah, in some ways, like food and hunger are more tangible, easier to understand. In some way.
- [21:38]
D
Yeah, I think there's just generally like a shift to inward looking when it comes to these countries. And so it's really hard to make the case. And yeah, if you're going to have a conversation with food people talking to other food people about the importance of food in a room that frankly just doesn't have as big of an audience, you know, there's lots of panels you can choose from in these two days, basically that the conference is going on, then you're not going to get, you're not going to figure out kind of the communications gap that needs to be filled in order to make the case. I will say that the UN came up on the main stage. Marco Rubio made his speech. It was much anticipated after last year's speech by J.D. vance that sort of threw the whole world order into chaos. And there was a huge sigh of relief after this speech because it seemed a little bit less inflammatory. He was talking about the importance of the partnerships between the US and Europe. Although a lot of people felt very uncomfortable about how he justified that relationship as sort of like a shared civilizational relationship. But that's besides the point. He also said, you know, the UN's been really ineffective. Saying that it failed to sort out Gaza and Iran and Venezuela and Ukraine and the US has really done that. He did call it a tool for good, but said that it has had no answers and played virtually no role in actually solving these crises. And then the Chinese foreign minister came up right after and very much defended the UN and multilateralism, which is a really interesting sort of, of, yeah, look into how the geopolitics of these multilateral organizations are changing. So I just wanted to Add that note as well.
- [23:09]
A
Yeah, no, I think that's really interesting and something to watch. Right. Also because I think some of the sort of positioning or rhetoric of this US Administration vis a vis the UN is sometimes confusing or slightly contradictory. But I think partly because China is making such a push at the UN that the US doesn't really want to give up its foothold there, even if it thinks, it thinks it's largely ineffective and doesn't like it in some ways. So I think, I do think that's a very interesting dynamic and obviously one that, that we'll be watching. Do either of you have any other sort of last thoughts in terms of what you're looking at moving forward coming out of these summits? I know one of the things Jesse and I that we've talked a little bit about is sort of how there could be an overlap between defense and development funding, particularly do DFIs, especially in Europe, as seen with sort of the European investment banks start to do more investment on the sort of defense side. How does that impact the development side of things?
- [24:09]
D
Yeah, it's a good question. I did ask a lot of people like, you know, what's, what's the risk that we take by, by making development like a defense budgeted process? You know, because of course there's the fear of militarizing development. And one of the sort of pathways that came up if we don't move forward on this kind of coordinated multilateral approach that we've had for the last several years is a more transactional way of thinking about aid. And so you might have aid as long as a country controls migration. And so I don't know if that comes out of a defense budget or if it's counted towards a defense win in a country. But, you know, that's definitely kind of a concern of like, how does development start to get framed? How is it used? Who's on the ground actually administering aid when it's under the umbrella of a defense? I don't think we have the answers to that yet. I think right now development leaders aren't calling strongly for, you know, a piece of development, of defence money to go towards development. They're really calling for more development money. But I do think that's something that, you know, in the, in the coming years we could start to have to really look at closely inat any final
- [25:15]
A
thoughts from you or what you're still looking at in Addis as you're there after the summit?
- [25:20]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think one thing that I didn't mention is probably the biggest elephant in the room, which is the Sudan conflict. Right. And, you know, the AU is ultimately a political union and it should be, you know, a central peacemaking body. And unfortunately, with Sudan, it just has not been able to make any progress. This is really the elephant in the room that the Sudan war is still raging. It is a human humanitarian disaster with many people who have died, many people more who have been displaced. And so there's this real question right now about what is the point of the au. You know, I've hear. Heard that from a lot of people. An existential question. If it cannot stop a conflict like this, successfully bring those people to the table and end the fighting. And so one thing that the International Crisis Group wrote in the lead up was AU is arguably at its weakest in terms of peace and security. Since it's. So this. This is a real reality. And whether or not people kind of believe in the institution, that combined with the fact that AU has, many critics of it say the institution is quick to side with incumbents. Whenever we have an election and things go a little sideways, the AU is too quick to side with the incumbent in power. That's what a lot of critics say. And so this is something that has disillusioned some young people against the institution. So how it navigates that going forward is really interesting. So basically what I'm saying is that kind of the how people perceive and buy into the AU is something that I'll be really watching, especially in elections that are coming up and definitely in how we see any sort of progress on the Sudan conflict.
- [26:55]
A
Inat and Jesse, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and for being there and covering these important events for devex. We'll stay tuned to hear more about how sort of all of these issues unfold. I think there's a lot there for us to unpack moving forward as well.
- [27:08]
D
Thanks, Envelope. Great talking.
- [27:10]
B
Thanks,
- [27:19]
E
Sam.