Africa Programme Conference Summary

Africa, Japan and the UK: Emerging Partnerships Beyond Summits

Date: 24–25 November 2020

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2 Africa, Japan and the UK: Emerging Partnerships Beyond Summits

Introduction

On 24–25 November 2020, the Chatham House Africa Programme hosted a virtual conference on the theme of Africa, Japan and the UK: Emerging Partnerships Beyond Summits. Against the backdrop of a proliferation in summits aiming to build international engagement with Africa, within which Japan’s Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) has been a standard-bearer, the Chatham House discussion sought to reflect on summitry on Africa, and on the changing configurations and frameworks for engagement. The discussion included a comparative examination of the UK-Africa Investment Summit – the first meeting of which was hosted by the UK government on 20 January 2020 – and explored African agency in summitry, the wider trends underpinning trade and investment relations, and the diversification of frameworks as well as choices of partnerships.

Summitry and relationships in context

TICAD VII and Africa

Professor Naohiro Kitano, Visiting Fellow of the Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development and Professor at Waseda University in Japan, opened the event with a brief outline of Japan’s now triennial Tokyo International Conference of African Development (TICAD), which has served as a model for similar summits across the globe since its inception in 1993.

TICAD VII, held in 2019 and focusing on three main pillars – economy, society, and peace and stability – saw the participation of 53 African countries and the adoption of the Yokohama Declaration 2019 and Yokohama Plan of Actions 2019. The summit notably positioned business at the centre of its agenda, with specific measures being announced for the promotion of Japanese companies and businesses in Africa, including the launch of the Japan Business Council for Africa.

As highlighted later by Professor Scarlett Cornelissen of the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, this positioning of business at centre stage forms part of a wider trend in Africa-Japan relations over the past decade. Notably, relations have been shaped by a concrete business agenda – partially by design and intent, driven by ‘Abe diplomacy’ and Japan’s resource and energy security interest, but also as an unintentional outcome of changes in Japanese politics. TICAD V, hosted in 2013, was a watershed moment for the promotion of the business agenda more prominently, and more aggressively, by the Japanese government.

However, Professor Kitano also highlighted that human security has become part of the DNA of Japan’s development cooperation – an issue of particular significance, given the current human security challenges stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the last quarter of a century, Japan has been supporting the mid- to long-term development of health and medical systems in Africa: this is an area which will continue to be a priority in the period leading to TICAD VIII, to be held in Tunisia in 2022. Guided by a vision of Universal health coverage (UHC) and of ‘leaving no one behind’ in terms of health, and committed to African ownership and international partnership, Japan aims to provide assistance in (1) strengthening Africa’s capacity to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic; (2) building resilient and inclusive health and medical systems; and (3) responding to the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19. TICAD VIII will be the second TICAD summit to take place in Africa since the hosting of TICAD VI in Nairobi in August 2016.

3 Africa, Japan and the UK: Emerging Partnerships Beyond Summits

The UK-Africa Investment Summit

Paul Arkwright CMG, who served as the CEO of the UK-Africa Investment Summit until November 2019, briefly described the genesis of the summit, which was part of the UK’s roadmap for the recalibration of its engagements with Africa beyond its traditional or historical ties, as articulated by former UK prime minister Theresa May in 2018 in Cape Town. The focal question in designing the summit was defining the UK’s added value, and how future-relevant skill sets and historical ties could best be leveraged. A related priority in the design process was distinguishing the UK-Africa Investment Summit from the many others that have emerged on Africa, including those hosted by Russia, China, France and Germany. Challenges in meeting these design priorities included the limited capacity and time to prepare for the first UK–Africa summit, as well as locating a venue that could house 5,000 delegates.

As a result, the decision was made to hold the summit over the course of just one day, with the focus being restricted to a few key areas: (1) financial services, building on the strengths of the City of London; (2) energy transition and green investment; (3) agricultural development; and (4) technology. Targeting youth unemployment through practical job creation was also identified as an overarching thematic focus and objective.

A controversial decision was taken at an early stage of planning to limit the number of African countries to be invited to 21. Of these, 16 were represented by their presidents. This was driven partly by concerns of practicality and capacity, but also allowed for a more targeted approach to diversifying the UK’s potential African partners; for example, francophone and lusophone states were invited to send representatives. Care also needed to be taken to navigate a middle course between ensuring that the summit remained a high-level political platform for African heads of state to present their cases for investment in their countries, and creating a practical platform for deals to be made in the margins and for specific opportunities to be turned into concrete action. Young people and women were also involved across all platforms as both moderators and panellists. As a result, on the day of the summit more than £6.5 billion worth of commercial deals were agreed, with a further £8.9 billion of investment commitments being made following the event.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has since affected the ability for meaningful follow-up, but a number of initiatives have been set up following the summit under the leadership of the DIT. These include the establishment of an Africa Investors’ Group (co-chaired by Emma Wade-Smith, the UK Trade Commissioner for Africa, and Andrew Skipper of the international law firm Hogan Lovells) and an online investment platform with Asoko Insight, through which more than $750 million of deals have been made.

Moving forward, the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), which is scheduled to take place in November 2021 in Glasgow, will be a particularly relevant forum for engagement with Africa, including on issues such as energy transition, sustainable land use, nature-based solutions, resilient livelihoods and access to climate finance. All of these areas have associated trade and investment opportunities.

African agency in summitry

While high-level ‘Africa+1’ summits, meetings and forums have been characterized by some as a manifestation of ‘the new scramble for Africa’ – echoing the Berlin Conference of 1884–5 and colonial competition for territorial establishment in the 19th century more generally – Dr Folashade Soule of the University of Oxford challenged this narrative by focusing on the exertion of African agency through the structures of Africa+1 summitry. 4 Africa, Japan and the UK: Emerging Partnerships Beyond Summits

While a general tendency to focus on external power rivalry on the African continent persists, Dr Soule highlighted the importance of reversing the question in order to investigate the motives and strategies behind African leaders’ engagement in these summits. Africa, far from being a passive commodity subject to competition, is a continent of governments and leaders that choose their partners on the basis of strategic calculation and need.

Notably, African actors use summit diplomacy and competition amongst external powers to orient this interest towards four specific strategies:

(1) Attraction of investments in a competitive environment: many African countries are seeking to position themselves as regional economic hubs. Although inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) to Africa rose to $46 billion in 2018, an increase of 11 per cent compared with 2017, Africa still attracts the lowest share of total global investment of any continent. Among the 20 countries that topped FDI inflows and outflows in 2018, none were in Africa. Furthermore, FDI inflows into Africa in 2018 were also concentrated in the continent’s top five recipients – Egypt, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Morocco and Ethiopia. The multiplication of Africa+1 summitry therefore offers a vehicle for African governments to strategically promote their countries and attract foreign investment.

For example, Kenya’s vision, which is articulated in its 2019 Kenya Investment Policy (KIP), was also expressed rhetorically by President Uhuru Kenyatta in a speech to the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC in February 2020. President Kenyatta noted that Kenya is not only a ‘gateway’ to African markets, but a ‘platform of skills, entrepreneurship, stability, and the rule of law’. Senegalese President Macky Sall has also been promoting the reputation of his country as one of Africa’s most politically stable states, enjoying one of the continent’s fastest economic growth rates, which has prompted him and his ministers to attend and seek investments at many Africa+1 summits. Such fora also offer politicians and political parties an opportunity to demonstrate their capacity to deliver on electoral promises, providing hard infrastructure to targeted communities and localities.

(2) Diversification of economic partners and reduction of dependence: the diversification of partners as part of African countries’ strategic autonomy strategies is an important factor in the engagement of African actors in summitry, including a diversification of trading partners and an overall reduction in partner dependency. Representatives of the Togolese government, for example, have voiced concerns about the lack of technology transfer in some Chinese-funded infrastructure projects, while the president of Guinea has cautioned against relying too much on China in the context of mining projects.

(3) Claiming back of economic policy space: summits offer a venue to express concerns and claim back economic policy space. African leaders have been using them to explain, for example, how global rules currently restrict the ability to enhance their economic attractiveness and thus directly constrain their policy space, for example regarding debt contracting and credit rating agency policies.

(4) Escape from political isolation through increased visibility and expanded networks: holding both a symbolic and substantive component, summits enable political leaders to focus the attention of the world on their country, and offer a vehicle to raise individual leaders’ political profiles and to serve foreign policy as well as domestic goals. It allows African leaders a sometimes much-needed opportunity to demonstrate stature, attract global attention, and 5 Africa, Japan and the UK: Emerging Partnerships Beyond Summits

express power and sovereignty in a clear and visible manner – an opportunity that quiet diplomacy cannot offer.

At an online investment summit hosted by the Atlantic Council in October 2020, Senegalese President Macky Sall stated: ‘Africans today know exactly what their priorities are.’ He went on to add that ‘partners will gain a lot in listening: listening deeply to Africa and to Africans’. The UK, Japan, and any other partner, must therefore build a strategy that is aligned with African countries’ strategic priorities, as enunciated in their national development plans. Each partner also has their competitive advantages, and Japan and the UK have been strategic partners to many African countries. Innovative mechanisms, including increased trilateral and triangulated cooperation, have become an important feature of development cooperation, in which both Japan and the UK have been actively involved, but this is a path that should be pursued not just in the context of development cooperation, but also through innovative business and public-private partnerships.

Private sector engagement in Africa: evolving approaches

As outlined by Masa Sugano, Africa Representative of the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), the default interaction between Africa and external powers remains intergovernmental in nature, often taking the form of development assistance or government-to-government investment deals, or involving state-owned enterprises.

Moreover, despite Japan’s foreign policy shift towards engaging with Africa through business, Professor Scarlett Cornelissen highlighted that Africa still only accounts for 1–2 per cent of Japan's global FDI outflows – a figure that has remained unchanged over the past decade. Similarly, while the UK is the fourth largest investor in Africa, contributing 6 per cent of Africa’s total FDI, Africa captures only 3 per cent of the UK’s global FDI, a figure that has also remained relatively constant over the past decade. Sogo shoshas (Japanese trading houses), as well as Japanese corporations such as Mitsubishi, are the principal drivers of Japanese investments in Africa, focusing primarily on resource extraction, including in platinum, iron ore and copper. Similarly, UK investments remain centred on extractive sectors, with up to 51 per cent of UK investments in Africa being destined for mining and quarrying.

Japan’s large multinationals have often been able to have a presence in Africa, because they can afford to create backward linkages, replace infrastructure that is lacking or is not being provided by the local host governments, and develop human capital by training workers. However, mid- to semi-large Japanese companies with specialized products, e.g. printing presses, machinery or small oil services, are often absent from Africa, although present in East Asia, Western Europe and the US.

Professor Cornelissen suggested that there has, none the less, been a marked shift in investor attitudes on the part of Japanese firms, and that there is a growing and broader-based interest in exploring African markets. While Africa’s share of Japan's global FDI remains low, this FDI has percolated through Africa's political economies in meaningful ways, including through increased involvement of Japanese firms across the spectrum, from major multinational companies, to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and micro firms. Moreover, while China and India’s impact on Africa's political economy has been geographically wide in scope, the impact made by Japan has been deep. Japan has notably had success in establishing economies of scope in Africa, particularly in agro-industries, agricultural processing and the automotive sector.

The underlying enabling factors for these new dynamics and investment tendencies include various internationalization strategies that have recently been undertaken. One example is the collaboration of 6 Africa, Japan and the UK: Emerging Partnerships Beyond Summits

firms in ‘greenfield’ investments to collectively enter African markets and co-finance investments, typified by the role played by the sogo shosha Sumitomo in capitalizing Toyota's operations in Nigeria and Libya, so as to share the capital risks. Another strategy involves partnerships with third countries such as Turkey and India: for example, collaborations are underway in construction projects in Africa between Turkish and Japanese firms, with Turkish firms offering their own comparative advantages and higher appetites for risk. For their part, Japanese firms bring comparative advantages in quality engineering, infrastructure design and financial facilitation. While resource and energy-seeking FDI remains prevalent among Japanese firms operating in Africa, such changes reflect a shift towards more strategic asset- seeking and efficiency-seeking FDI.

Japan has also been at the centre of, or closely involved with, a number of emerging geopolitical schemes, including the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) framework, the Asia–Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC), the EU–Japan free trade area, the recent UK–Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), and a variety of major new trade blocs with the ASEAN member states and China. Africa’s place within this configuration of emerging trade formations is uncertain. The AAGC is dormant, the FOIP remains undefined, and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 served to postpone the implementation of Africa’s continental free trade area. These emerging dynamics suggest that African leaders must focus on leveraging Africa's development blueprint as laid down in the African Union (AU)’s Agenda 2063 roadmap. In any discussion with external partners, attention must also be paid to debt governance and sustainable financing.

Masa Sugano highlighted that the onus also lies with African governments to improve predictability of business in their countries and to create a level playing field for the entry of specialized companies to partner with local firms. Ghana, Senegal and others have notably been working hard to improve their business environments, and encouraging trends are being seen in South Africa, Angola and Ethiopia.

The potential of triangulation

The question of trilateralism and triangulation involving African countries, Japan and the UK was explored at varying levels. Professor Naohiro Kitano highlighted that over 80 per cent of the world’s population is projected to reside in Africa and Asia by 2100: however, significant psychological barriers persist in deepening engagements between Africa and Asia. The geographical concept of ‘Afrasia’, coined by the British historian Arnold Toynbee, was explored as a possible tool that could be utilized to reframe discussions, penetrate the psychological barriers separating populations in the two continents, and open the conversation around conceptual triangular relationships with countries in Europe such as the UK.

Several examples of Africa–Japan–UK collaboration were discussed, including a partnership between the Japanese construction company Shimizu Corporation and the UK digital mapping company Gaist, which concluded a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Uganda National Roads Authority and the Kampala Capital City Authority to provide a highly efficient infrastructure maintenance service as a public–private partnership.

Norio Suzuki, the Chief Planning Officer of BBOXX (a UK-based solar energy utility with investment from Mitsubishi) highlighted the company’s work in nine African countries, including the creation of four joint ventures in Kenya, Rwanda, the DRC and Togo. He also outlined the need for more business-oriented and practical support, such as results-based financing (RBF), and discussed the dialogues undertaken between BBOXX, Mitsubishi, and the UK and Japanese governments to promote support schemes. As echoed by Tom Luff of the British Embassy in Tokyo, the UK’s expertise in legal, financial and engineering services, 7 Africa, Japan and the UK: Emerging Partnerships Beyond Summits

among other service types, could complement Japan’s construction expertise and strengths for fruitful partnerships.

Mechanisms for such partnerships include the UK–Japan Infrastructure Dialogue, as well as accompanying MoUs such as that between the DIT and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation. The UK also had a stand at TICAD VII, focusing particularly on triangulated collaboration with Africa.

However, as highlighted by Ben Shepherd of Chatham House’s Africa Programme during his closing remarks for the conference, the framing of any triangulation involving individual countries of the African continent and two other countries (the UK and Japan) must be the subject of continual reflection. Country specificity and depth should be integrated into frameworks of thinking from all three corners in a triangular relationship.

Meaningful transregional partnerships in a multipolar world

Serge Mouangue, Founder and Art Director of WAfrica, outlined how arts and culture could provide new frontiers for engagement, going beyond the commercial and material contexts within which countries typically seek to engage with Africa. He highlighted the role of creativity and art in deepening connections between disparate populations.

While Japan and Africa are often seen as culturally distant, Serge highlighted what he views as some broad parallels between West Africa and Japan, including: the presence of animist beliefs; the parallels in historical structures of African communities and clan histories in Japan; and the contemporary treatment of elders. Through a series of images, he highlighted collaborations between WAfrica and Toyota that drew on such spiritual parallels, to bring emulations of flight and speed to a commercial advertisement for automotives. Another piece of artwork fused sculptures from a region in southeast Cameroon together with Japanese urushi lacquer. In presenting these artistic partnerships visually, Serge highlighted the need for summits to put forward a meaningful vision that goes beyond business plans, and the use of art as an emotional engagement driver to deepen transregional engagements.

Professor Tukumbi Lumumba-Kasongo of Wells College (based in New York state) highlighted that due to growing multipolarity, future formulations of triangulated frameworks would require all actors involved to have clear objectives, tools, and visions for their futures. He emphasized that the COVID-19 pandemic, while a tragedy, will also bring more opportunities to challenge existing economic and political relations. He underscored the need to question the new orders of multipolarity, in particular by interrogating the political philosophies underlying them, reflecting on the historical lessons from the Cold War era. Interdisciplinary policy thinking – including connecting business, engineering, and agriculture with anthropology and societal relationships at large – are also critical, rather than focusing on business in a siloed manner.

The BRICS grouping, made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, is one reflection of the growing multipolarity of the world, but this formation also demonstrates how contemporary nodes of multipolarity are not articulated on the basis of a single philosophy or ideology. In response to a question on reconciling the need for investment in Africa with the need to protect its economies from extractive domination by external powers, Professor Lumumba-Kasongo also highlighted the need to focus on development agendas conceived and adopted by Africans, such as the AU’s Agenda 2063. As well as articulating development goals such as the eradication of poverty, these blueprints also aim to create the conditions for African unity – which will be an important tool in centring African agency in future multipolar arrangements. 8 Africa, Japan and the UK: Emerging Partnerships Beyond Summits

Underlining the need to learn from the central role of education in Japan’s development trajectory, Professor Lumumba-Kasongo also highlighted the need to question to whom educational opportunities accrue, as well as the overall content of education in Africa. Notably, the ‘African diplomat disease’ must be avoided, where masses of people obtain qualifications, but remain irrelevant. Education must be relevant, addressing local and regional objectives, and drawing on diverse forms of knowledge. 9 Africa, Japan and the UK: Emerging Partnerships Beyond Summits

Conference Agenda

Tuesday 24 November 9:00 – 10:30 Session 1 | Africa, Japan and the UK: Engagements in Context From Yokohama to Tunis, and Towards the Future of Japan-Africa Cooperation Professor Naohiro Kitano, Visiting Fellow, Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA); Professor, Waseda University The UK-Africa Investment Summit and Approaches to Engagement Paul Arkwright CMG, UK Regional Ambassador for Sub-Saharan Africa, COP26 Climate Summit [March–October 2020] African Agency in International Summitry Dr Folashade Soule, Senior Research Associate, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford Charting the Shift Towards Private Sector Engagement in Africa Masa Sugano, Deputy Executive Director, Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) Africa Region

Chair: Dr Alex Vines, Director, Africa Programme, Chatham House

Wednesday 25 November 9:00 – 10:30 Session 2 | Emerging Fields and Frameworks for Engagement Evolving Approaches and Innovation in Africa-Asia Relations Professor Scarlett Cornelissen, Professor of Political Science, University of Stellenbosch ‘People, Technology and Innovation’: The TICAD 7 Slogan in Practice Norio Suzuki, Chief Planning Officer, BBOXX Political Structures and Engagement to Support Purposeful Partnerships Tom Luff, Energy and Infrastructure Counsellor, British Embassy Tokyo Arts, Culture and New Frontiers for Engagement Serge Mouangue, Founder and Art Director, WAfrica Navigating Multipolarity and Trilateral Frameworks Professor Tukumbi Lumumba-Kasongo, Professor of Political Science, Wells College

Chair: Dr Champa Patel, Director, Asia-Pacific Programme, Chatham House

10:30 – 10:45 Summary and Wrap Up Ben Shepherd, Consulting Fellow, Africa Programme, Chatham House