Scholz kicked off his three-day visit to Africa in Senegal, whose president currently acts as chairperson of the African Union. In the coming days, he will continue his trip to South Africa and Niger, which Berlin considers among the most important democracies on the African continent.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo prevent these crises from fuelling new flashpoints, we must act decisively. Because the world is becoming increasingly multipolar with different centres and influences,\u201d Scholz said in a press conference with his Senegalese counterpart Macky Sall.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany countries around the world are affected by this war that are far away from it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The trip feeds into a broader attempt by Berlin to win over the largest possible group of like-minded states to stand up for a rules-based international order, a German senior official said \u2013 especially regarding Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Germany and the EU were already seeking closer ties with Africa prior to the war in Ukraine. At the EU-Africa summit in early February, the EU pledged \u20ac150 billion in investments for the continent.<\/p>\n
Berlin itself tried to take a key role in the EU\u2019s Africa policy, as the neighbouring continent is seen as crucial to ensure the stability of the global rules-based order. Scholz attempts to continue this approach during his visit to Africa.<\/p>\n
Senegal and South Africa are both considered to be key states in the emerging multipolar order and Europe will likely not end up with this \u201cduopoly in China and the USA,\u201d the official stated. The world\u2019s emerging multipolarity would thus make close collaboration with non-Western democracies even more essential, he added.<\/p>\n
Rapprochement with \u201clike-minded\u201d democracies?<\/p>\n
Berlin has already made efforts to strengthen collaboration with other democracies. In early May, the German government held close consultations with India, stressing the importance of the unity of \u201clike-minded\u201d states, despite persisting human rights violations there.<\/p>\n
Germany has also set initiatives in motion during its presidency of the G7, which consists of the West\u2019s largest economies.<\/p>\n
To send out a strong signal of democratic resilience and unity, Berlin has invited India, Indonesia, South Africa and Senegal to participate in this year\u2019s G7 summit that will take place in Bavaria in late June.<\/p>\n
However, the picture with non-Western democracies is not as rosy as these efforts might suggest. Both, India and South Africa have refrained from publicly condemning the Russian war of aggression and abstained from voting against the war in the UN General Assembly.<\/p>\n
However, the German government is confident that the two countries would be much closer to the Western position on Ukraine behind closed doors.<\/p>\n
Beyond public declarations that take into account political considerations, there is a high degree of agreement on the matter, a senior German official stated.<\/p>\n
Fending off Russian influence in the Sahel region<\/p>\n
Russia has ramped up efforts to assert influence on the African continent in recent years. While its comparably small economy does not allow for a broad-scale investment offensive on the continent, Moscow is seeking to shape politics in Africa via means of disinformation.<\/p>\n
Russia has especially attempted to exploit social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Telegram or TikTok to spread anti-Western sentiments.<\/p>\n
Following the war in Ukraine, Russian fake accounts have for instance posted 23 million tweets to make the hashtags #IstandwithPutin and #IstandwithRussia trending in BRICS countries, a report by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies has found.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are indeed observing a massive Russian disinformation campaign,\u201d the German official stated, especially regarding global food security.<\/p>\n
These strategies of ambiguous warfare have already borne some fruit in the Sahel countries before the onset of the war, as Russia successfully launched a disinformation campaign following the coup in Mali last year. The same holds true for neighbouring Burkina Faso, where protesters were waving Russian flags following the military coup in January and asked for a \u201cpartnership\u201d with Russia.<\/p>\n
Amid persisting volatility in the Sahel, Scholz also chose to travel to Niger, one of the economically and demographically smaller African states, which he considers to be an \u201canchor of stability\u201d in the region.<\/p>\n
As Niger stands out positively in the Sahel, Scholz\u2019s trip to Niamey is also meant as a recognition of its positive role in the region, the senior official added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
German chancellor Olaf Scholz travelled to Africa on Sunday (22 May) in an attempt to forge closer ties with like-minded democracies in an increasingly multipolar world order currently being reshaped by Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12963,"featured_media":8639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,15],"tags":[7,26,25],"class_list":{"0":"post-8642","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-politics","9":"tag-apie-project","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-politics"},"yoast_head":"\n