The media is easily pointing out negativities and difficulties from Africa such as the Ethiopian war and the storm in Mozambique. This and old fashioned curriculums in schools lead to misleading stereotypes regarding the continent.
Due to the projection that the population in the 54 African countries would double during the next 30 years, African countries will for sure have the world’s fastest regions to urbanize and grow. Compared with the continental average, the income per capita is more than double in the African cities. The continent has done major improvements quite fast regarding technology and the population, where over 70 % are under 30 years old, is quite eager to adopt and innovate in digital things. For example, mobile payment services have already 122 million African users and are used significantly more in African countries compared with European countries. (Leke et al., 2018; Malaty et al., 2020)
During 2020, the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has started to develop a strategy for developing the relationship between Finland and the African countries. The aim of the strategy is to outline shared interests between Finland and Africa, to set goals for Finland’s policy regarding African matters, to strengthen the political and economical relationships and to expand the relationships into other types of co-operations than development co-operation as well.
Therefore we, Kretsstyrelsen i Nyland, believe that SU should be working for
– THAT awareness about the current situations in African countries is raised
– THAT cooperation possibilities and exportation opportunities with and to African countries are encouraged
– THAT Finlands’ Africa Strategy is successfully implemented and marketed
The board’s answer:
The writer of this motion is bringing up an important issue that the board of Swedish Youth sees as a global issue. The media often portrays Africa as a group of countries that are all similar, often disregarding the fact that Africa as a continent contains a multitude of different cultures, economies, livelihoods etc. The media is also quick to point out the negatives of the continent, instead of its possibilities and positivities, as the writer points out.
Although the board agrees with the intention of this motion, we see that there are other, better ways of improving the bonds with, and the relation to, African countries. The board would be more than happy to talk more about Africa and its possibilities in the political programme, especially in the international programme. We also see that bringing up Africa in the media, and raising awareness that way, would be very hard. The risk of mistakenly highlighting Africa as a uniform continent, and not giving the countries the credit they deserve is extremely high.
The board also sees some issues with the second part of the motion; the board thinks that Africa should be seen as more than an export opportunity for Finland and other countries. To start exporting and importing at a larger scale would also impose an enormous amount of changes on both the industrial and economic systems of Europe and Finland. It is also important to here point out the fact that Africa is not a uniform continent – a business relationship with a company in Johannesburg is not to be compared to one to a rural village.
The board is happy that Finland’s Africa Strategy is in the works, but thinks that it needs to be discussed thoroughly before being accepted and implemented by the association. Finland’s Africa Strategy was approved by the Finnish government on the 18th of March 2021. The board sees that following up on the last point would be redundant, since the strategy it is already in the works.
The Federal Board believes that the motion should not give rise to any measures, and considers the motion answered with the aforementioned motivations.
Förbundsstyrelsens svar:
Motionären lyfter fram en viktig, och enligt förbundsstyrelsen, global fråga. Media målar ofta upp en bild av Afrika som en grupp sinsemellan likadana länder, och ignorerar ofta att Afrika som en världsdel innehåller en vid rad kulturer, ekonomier och näringsformer. Media tenderar också pricka ut de negativa sidorna med världsdelen, i stället för dess möjligheter och positiva sidor, precis som motionären påpekar.
Trots att förbundsstyrelsen understöder motionens andemening, ser vi att det finns andra, bättre sätt att förbättra kontakter och relationer till länder i Afrika. Förbundsstyrelsen diskuterar gärna vidare om frågan i samband med det politiska programmet, särskilt det internationella programmet. Att lyfta upp Afrika i media och öka medvetenheten den vägen ser förbundsstyrelsen som väldigt svårt. Risken är hög att av misstag framhäva Afrika som en uniform världsdel och inte ge de enskilda länderna den uppmärksamhet de förtjänar.
Förbundsstyrelsen ser också problem med motionens andra att-sats – Afrikanska länder borde ses som mer än en möjlighet till export för Finland och andra länder. Att påbörja export och import på en högre nivå skulle leda till en enorm mängd förändringar inom både Europas och Finlands industriella och ekonomiska system. Här är det också viktigt att poängtera att Afrika inte är en uniform världsdel – en affärsrelation med ett företag i Johannesburg kan inte jämföras med en affärsrelation med en rural by.
Förbundsstyrelsen gläds åt att Finlands Afrika-strategi är under arbete, men anser att den bör diskuteras mer genomgående före den godkänns och implementeras av associationen. Finlands Afrika-strategi godkändes av regeringen 18.3.2021. Förbundsstyrelsen ser det som redundant att följa upp den sista att-satsen eftersom strategin redan är under arbete.
Med den här motiveringen anser förbundsstyrelsen att motionen inte ska föranleda några åtgärder och är därmed besvarad.
Utskottets förslag:
Motionen föranleder inga åtgärder.
Kongressen beslut:
Motionen föranleder inga åtgärder.
