Africa will increasingly become the focus of global politics in the coming years due to its growing geopolitical importance and in connection with growing strategic uncertainties. Droughts, floods, desertification and other effects of climate change will lead to existential insecurities, social tensions and mass migration to an even greater extent. Climatic hazards influence the outbreak of conflicts, the strengthening of extremist armed groups, and have implications for global food security. The Corona pandemic has once again drastically exacerbated the tense situation in Africa.

In the coming years, German and European foreign and security policy will be called upon to an even greater extent than before to find answers to the questions associated with developments on the African continent. For the European Union, it is particularly important to work with African partners to meet the challenges associated with poverty, hunger, security, and climate and environmental issues. This can only succeed if the principle of "African Ownership" is further strengthened and regional security architectures such as the initiative on "Sustainability, Stability and Security in Africa" and the "Euro-African Dialogue on Migration and Development" are expanded.

Within the framework of the interdisciplinary research focus "Security Complex Europe-Africa", traditional and non-traditional security challenges will be identified and analyzed in terms of their operational consequences for the European Union and German foreign and security policy. With the involvement of national and international partner institutions, both the respective other perspectives on the problem constellations will be identified in order to subsequently work on selected partial aspects of common security challenges. Among other things, a strategic map of the issues relevant to the European Union and to German foreign policy will be drawn up against the background of Africa's development. The aim is also to establish a research network that will benefit sustainable knowledge transfer between Africa and Europe.