EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The African region is generally underestimated regarding market potential and overseen when companies decide locations for production facilities. There are certain impediments to the industrialization process in Africa and one of them is the lack of relevant skills which industries, especially the capital-intensive and manufacturing ones, require from the local labor force. Numerous European manufacturing companies are already exporting to Africa; however, only few have set up subsidiaries and production facilities. FESTO Didactic’s opportunity is to step in and facilitate the process of technical education, enabling incoming companies to have access to a highly skilled labor force, on the one hand, and, on the other, providing African countries with a chance to attract more foreign capital and leverage the labor potential.

Goal

This project aims to provide FESTO Didactic with important insights into the current developments in EU-African trade relationships as well as the African socio-economic landscape. We present the different parties in the, for this project, most important African countries and display which aspects and initiatives to consider in a collaboration model when cooperating with European companies in Africa. This will enable FESTO Didactic to make use of the major potential of this continent.

Methodology

Secondary research lays the basis for the research, but also constitutes the mean to achieve our goal of identifying and analyzing the trade relations between the EU and Africa. Furthermore, interviews with companies, business development analysts, and economics experts give valuable insights to qualitative data that is not publicly available. Finally, we develop six country profiles mainly focused on governmental and private initiatives that emphasize “Technical and Vocational Education and Training” (TVET).

Results

The results of the project differ significantly from the assumptions given in the project’s objectives.

First, African countries for a prospective market entry should not be chosen solely based on their machinery imports. The main result here is that while some, especially northern African countries, import a lot of machinery, their industries are mostly based on resource extraction. Consequently, these countries are heavily dependent on these industries and are not in need for a broad skill training program. Based on this finding, we recommend looking at countries that have industrialization initiatives in place, which aim to attract a broad engineering and manufacturing industry across various sectors. The identified countries are Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Morocco, and Rwanda. A country profile for each of the mentioned countries is given in the report, describing current TVET initiatives in detail.

Second, while a triangular model between companies, universities and FESTO Didactic seems to be a good starting point, more stakeholders shall be included. In fact, the individual aspects of each African country must be considered, as each of them has different governmental and private TVET initiatives set in place. Depending on the country, international organizations, foreign companies, governmental and non-governmental organizations, local TVET institutions, and development funds might be adequate collaboration partners. The country profiles provided in the report give substantial information about country-specific initiatives.

Cooperation Partner

• Festo Didactic SE
  Rechbergstraße 3
  D-73770 Denkendorf
  www.festo-didactic.com/de-de
  did@festo.com

Contact Person

• Dr. Nader Imani

Student Team

• Theo Moers

• Anna Karmava

• Milos Drljaca

Project Manager

• Shtefi Mladenovska

• Caroline Fabian