Ghana and Germany have maintained longstanding and cordial relations which have been strengthened by means of collaboration, in help of Ghana’s improvement agenda, on a variety of bilateral and multilateral points bordering on safety, diplomacy, financial cooperation, commerce, funding, know-how switch, cultural engagements, human useful resource improvement, and capability buiilding, amongst others.
As a testomony to the strategic partnership that our two international locations take pleasure in, the Deputy Minister of the Federal Foreign Office of the Republic of Germany, H.E. Ms. Katja Keul, represented her Government to take part successfully within the Heads of State Summit of the Accra Initiative, held on twenty third November, 2022.
During the Summit, Ms. Keul, whereas expressing Germany’s admiration for the efforts and dedication of the Accra initiative and its west African companions to counter threats, emphasised her nation’s readiness to help the Accra initiative. She confused that prevention and early warning had been nonetheless potential to curb terrorism and violent extremism which might make an ideal distinction to keep away from the threats that confronted the Sahel and coastal areas of Africa.
It is value noting Germany’s tangible help for the Accra Initiative in numerous methods. In Ghana, Germany is supporting an Accra initiative Centre by working with the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) in essentially the most weak areas within the provision of related gear and the development of required amenities. This transfer by Germany has added impetus to the targets of the Accra initiative to trade intelligence, construct capability, and supply logistics to reinforce our personal actions towards terrorist forces within the Sahel that threaten the Sahelian area and coastal west Africa.
During a bilateral assembly with the Minister for Foreign and Regional Integration of Ghana, Hon. Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, within the margins of the Accra Initiative summit, the pair reechoed the sooner assertion, made through the Accra Initiative Summit, by the President of the Republic of Ghana, H.E. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, which emphasised that underneath the Accra Initiative, troops weren’t required from international locations as had been executed underneath MINUSMA. The Accra Initiative Member States possessed the human useful resource primarily based on expertise garnered from different battle missions, which had enabled the member states to pledge, on the Summit, to contribute troopers right into a pool to begin counter terrorist assaults, however not peacekeeping operations, geared toward stopping the terrorists from getting access to the coastal areas.
The Accra Initiative (AI) is a cooperative and collaborative safety mechanism, launched in 2017 underneath the management of the President of the Republic of Ghana, H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa AKUFO-ADDO together with his colleagues from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire and Togo. The present membership of the Initiative are Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Mali and Niger.
The Initiative goals to forestall a spillover of terrorism from the Sahel and to deal with transnational organized crime throughout the widespread border areas of member states. The Accra Initiative is an African-led, African-executed initiative which might rely solely on the armed forces of its member states.
Apart from the collaboration within the safety house, relations have additionally been encouraging on the political and financial fronts. Ghana’s membership of the G20 “Compact with Africa” (CwA) made the nation one of many first African international locations to have signed the Compact, which was launched underneath the German G20 Presidency in 2017. The engagement underneath the Compact is vital as Ghana advocates for an Africa past help to foster sustainable development in Africa.
This partnership underneath the CwA, led to an initiative for Fairafric to arrange a subsidiary in Ghana to advance sustainable chocolate manufacturing capability within the Central Region of Ghana. Fairafric, is a Ghanaian-German Social Business which produces premium high quality chocolate. Again “DO THE RIGHT THING” (DTRT) Apparel expanded its textiles manufacturing by creating 1,500 further jobs in Greater Accra.
The G20 Compact with Africa (CwA) was initiated underneath the German G20 Presidency to advertise personal funding in Africa, together with in infrastructure. The CwA’s major goal is to extend attractiveness of personal funding by means of substantial enhancements of the macro, enterprise and financing frameworks. It brings collectively reform-minded African international locations, worldwide organizations and bilateral companions from G20 and past to coordinate country-specific reform agendas, help respective coverage measures and promote funding alternatives to personal buyers.
Regarding Trade and funding, Ghana is one among Germany’s most vital buying and selling companions in sub-Saharan Africa. In that regard, Germany selected to host in February 2019, the “German Africa Business Summit” with greater than 600 members, in Accra which was the primary time it was held in West Africa.
Ghana’s predominant exports to Germany embody aluminum, timber and wooden merchandise, cocoa beans and cocoa merchandise, jewellery, valuable and semi-precious stones, gold, vegetable oils and fat, contemporary tropical fruits and handicrafts. Germany however exports motor autos, machines and chemical merchandise to Ghana.
According to the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), a complete variety of 197 German funding tasks had been registered throughout the interval September 1994 to 2022. Also, FDI amounted to US$86.18M. It is estimated that German buyers in Ghana would create employment for over 6,930 Ghanaians.
Economic actions have expanded between Ghana and Germany over time. Volkswagen (VW), in August 2020, arrange a automotive meeting facility in Ghana. Siemens, in January 2020, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCO) to improve and lengthen Ghana’s transmission, infrastructure, enhance grid capability and stability, allow and broaden a secure energy export to neighbouring international locations throughout the West African Power Pool. Siemens intends to teach and practice younger Ghanaians in varied engineering disciplines and on Siemens gear for STEM and TVET schooling, thus, including credence to our fruitful collaboration with Germany in help of schooling, coaching and Sustainable Growth by means of initiatives comparable to Ghana Beyond Aid and attraction of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to offer jobs, by means of industrialisation.
In 2020, Knauff, a number one German constructing supplies firm, established its workplace in Accra, whereas, a German-Ghanaian Joint Economic Commission was launched in Berlin in 2019. We even have an Institutional Partnerships on the Promotion of Anti-Dumping, Anti-Subsidy and Safeguard Rules and bettering the Standards of Public Test Laboratories within the Field of Construction Materials and Chemicals, respectively.
Ghana will proceed its strategic cooperation with Germany on different tasks such because the ‘Digital Ghana Agenda’, which entails the digitisation of companies and processes within the nation to optimize effectivity and effectiveness. Cooperation within the discipline of E-waste administration can also be value highlighting.
In the realm of well being, the German Government supported Ghana on the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic with Germany’s provide of 25 million euros value of COVID-19 aid help from Germany and monetary help in boosting the infectious ailments administration capability of the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine (KCCR) and the Takoradi Regional Hospital. Further collaboration within the well being sector was established when the Governments of Ghana, Rwanda and Senegal entered a joint partnership with German Biotechnology Company, BioNTech SE, to fabricate, fill, end and package deal BioNTech mRNA vaccines for Covid-19, Malaria and Tuberculosis. This partnership will place Ghana to fulfill its vaccine wants and people of Africa at giant.
On the multilateral entrance, Ghana’s membership of the UN Security Council offers additional alternative to advertise worldwide peace and safety from the angle of our widespread aspirations, particularly as they relate to any motion by any State that breaches the United Nations Charter and threatens the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a rustic. We will, subsequently, improve our partnership by means of burden-sharing with Germany, particularly, within the areas of intelligence sharing, logistics, capabilities and coaching of related safety personnel
