Fourth German-African Forum

(PANA)--German President Horst Kohler has identified cooperation as a key element in the partnership between Africa and Europe, as the 4th German-African forum rounded off in Nigeria’s capital city of Abuja Sunday.

‘Africa is interested in a partnership with Europe and Europe is interested in a real partnership Africa. I believe that both sides have understood that if we optimally want to serve our own interest we will have to be willing to enter into cooperation, there is no alternative to cooperation,’ Kohler said.

As the three-day forum ended with a resolve to tackle the problems of poverty, climate change, migration, regional conflicts and terrorism as well as enhance the economic, political and social development of the countries, the German leader said an important barrier to achieving a lasting sustainable and fruitful partnership is the ‘prevailing asymmetries’ between Africa and Europe . ‘The international financial crisis, which was triggered in the West can be and I believe can be one opportunity to deliberately focus on asymmetries and turn them into a starting point of a new kind of cooperation between Africa and Europe. ‘Beyond the new economic aspects, we now have the opportunity to look at the issues such as the fight against poverty, climate change, migration, regional conflicts and terrorism and turn them into the beginnings for a mutual policy,’ Kohler said.

Though the forum was not called to deliberate on the current conflict in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the issue featured prominently. ‘Of course we have discussed the crisis in the east of DRC. There is no doubt that we were shocked by the images of refugees, of raping, killings and there is no doubt that in Africa, Europe, everyone in the world wants the violence to stop,’ he said.

The German President spoke further: ‘We thought it was right that President Paul Kagame of Rwanda went to Kenya for the special regional submit in other to discuss with other political leaders, including President Kabila, the situation. As you know, President Kagame was supposed to be here; though on one hand it is regrettable that he was absent. ‘But I like it very much that he concentrated very much on this issue and I hope this first meeting will pave the way to stopping this killing and violence and to find a solution. But here in our smaller group during this forum, we called for a sustained solution,’ he added.

On the ongoing global financial crisis, Kohler said that the crisis was started by the industrial countries who till now had felt themselves to be the strongest but had learnt from their own mistakes that even they are vulnerable. ‘The industrial countries would do well to derive greater modesty from this as well as the ability to learn not just in terms of economy, a time has come when we can agree on a common task for humanity and commit ourselves to them,’ he said.

The German President disclosed that Nigeria and German had agreed on ‘an energy partnership’, with an emphasis on the electricity network, flaring of gas and new technologies for renewable energies in order to build a sound, stable network for electricity and energy in Nigeria . ‘There is of course also our own interest in delivery of gas and oil. So that is a mutual interest and I do think that is a good example where Germany in this case has a particular capacity and know how in energy issues which can be very well combined with the needs in the interest of Nigeria,’ he said, adding that efforts are on to prepare a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in order to lay down the concrete possibility of the energy partnership. He said the issue would receive more attention, including the signing of the MOU, when he starts his State visit to Nigeria on Monday (10Nov2008).

On his part, host President Umaru Yar’Adua also touched on the conflict in DRC, saying Nigeria as the current chair of the peace and security council of the African Union (AU) had called a meeting of the council to deliberate on the way forward. ‘I believe that with the ceasefire on now, the efforts being made by the regional leaders including our own former President, who is the UN special envoy, we are confident that a solution will be found and the situation will not deteriorate and we will continue to find ways and means through dialogue to curtail the situation,’ President Yar’Adua said.

Yar’adua said issues of power and energy were very critical and central to development not only in Nigeria but throughout Africa, but regretted that the sector in Nigeria had been, since independence, a state monopoly until the recent reforms to deregulate the sector completely. He said through the partnership with Germany, the first gas hub in the country was becoming a reality ‘in terms of the processing, central storage of gas and the point of packing the gas that will feed the West African gas pipeline, the domestic gas grid that we are planning in the gas master plan and the transparent gas pipeline’.

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