German Chancellor Angela Merkel heads to Africa on Sunday seeking investment opportunities which her government hopes will drive economic development on the continent and curb future waves of migration to Europe.
A flood of almost a million migrants into Germany last year, many from Syria and Iraq, has hit Merkel’s popularity at home.
A European Union deal with Turkey helped stem the flow from the Middle East and Asia, but thousands of people still risk the perilous Mediterranean crossing every day from Africa to Europe.
“The migration pressure will increase dramatically in the coming years if we do not manage to generate economic prospects in African countries,” German Development Minister, Gerd Mueller, told Reuters.
Merkel has described Africa, with its population of 1.2 billion people, as “the central problem” in the migration issue, and last month said the EU needed to establish migrant deals with North African countries along the lines of the Turkey deal.
She visits Mali on Sunday, Niger on Monday and Ethiopia on Tuesday in her first multi-day trip to Africa since 2011.
Germany, France and Italy want to develop particularly close partnerships with Niger and Mali, which they see as key states in the migration issue. In Mali, Germany has over 550 soldiers as part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission.
