Dakar: At the centre of African contemporary art
With today’s multiple crises, we need two things: people who are willing to take on leadership responsibilities and places where a trustful dialogue can take place. This is why we launched?#TheAfricaRoundtable.?
With?The Africa Roundtable, we are creating an exclusive circle that enables high-ranking representatives of African and German/European politics, business, civil society and media to engage in open and frank dialogue with each other. We promote?continuous, results-oriented and fact-based discourse?and strive for mutual understanding that leads to reliable and actionable recommendations.?
After the?first virtual edition?of the conference?during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021, the second Roundtable took place?in the German Bundestag in May 2022. For the third edition of?The Africa Roundtable,?participants met in Dakar, and thereby the conference was situated on the African continent for the first time, in cooperation with the Senegalese Ministry of Economy, Planning and International Cooperation.??
The dialogue in Dakar took place only a few days after the #COP27 in Egypt and was titled "Europe and Africa: Together for a Just Green Transition", focused on the possibilities of a green economic recovery. Research papers by 麦肯锡 ?and the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) ?served as the foundation for the discussion. The conference program was complemented by insights into West Africa's center for contemporary art. We spoke with five important protagonists of the art industry - with the kind support of Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung für die Freiheit - about?the status of contemporary African art in the world and the domestic promotion of the creative industries.
This month,?The Africa Roundtable, in cooperation with the Mo Ibrahim Foundation , is again gathering its participants on the African continents; in Nairobi, the economic and technological center of East Africa and?on the sidelines of the annual?Ibrahim Governance Weekend (#IGW).??
Geopolitical crises have unsettled European companies and presented the need to seek new markets and investment opportunities. The African continent is thus finally becoming an important option for Europe and Germany. Under the title "Roadmap to Africa: A Turning Point in Economic Relations (#RoadmapToAfrica)", we want to identify?opportunities for deepening trade and investment relations and mobilizing private and institutional resources.
At the same time, participants of?The Africa Roundtable?will also have the opportunity to exchange ideas with successful entrepreneurs from the country. The "Silicon Savannah" - as Kenya's flourishing start-up scene is also called, in reference to Silicon Valley - will present its protagonists at?The Africa Roundtable?and bring them into exchange with African and German-European decision-makers.?
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