German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock will visit Senegal and Ivory Coast next week to talk to leaders of the few remaining democracies in West Africa.
The two countries are vital for stability in the region and important economic partners for Germany, a foreign ministry spokesman said in Berlin on Friday.
Migration and renewable energies are two topics likely to be discussed. German business representatives will accompany Baerbock on her visit.
Baerbock will meet her Senegalese counterpart Yassine Fall in Dakar on Monday, together with newly elected President Bassirou Diomaye Faye.
Talks with the President of Ivory Coast Alassane Ouattara and Foreign Minister Kacou Houadja Leon Adom will be in the country’s capital, Abidjan, on Tuesday.
Baerbock’s visit comes amid instability in the Sahel region, dubbed by some observers as Africa’s coup belt, the result of military uprisings in Mali, Chad, Guinea, Sudan, Burkina Faso, Niger and Gabon since 2020.
Although many of the new military governments have turned their backs on relations with the European Union, withdrawn from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and sought support from Russian forces, the two littoral states have maintained their relations with the West.
A key item on the agenda will be migration, with discussions on legal routes to Europe and deportation. Regional issues in the Sahel could “quickly spill over to us, for example in the form of irregular migration or organised crime”, the spokesperson said.