German Chancellor Scholz visits Ethiopia, Kenya

BERLIN – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is setting off next week on his second major trip to Africa as head of state, with visits to Ethiopia and Kenya planned, government spokesperson Christiane Hoffmann announced on Friday.

The chancellor will be in Africa from May 4-6, she said. The trip’s focus will be on the fight against hunger and climate change, economic cooperation, peacekeeping and the management of conflicts such as the current one in Sudan.

In Ethiopia, a civil war with hundreds of thousands of deaths raged over the Tigray region until recently. This ended in November with a ceasefire after two years of bloodshed.

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Scholz will not only meet government representatives in the capital Addis Ababa, but also visit the African Union, in which 55 states have joined forces.

He will then travel on to Kenya where, among other things, cooperation in the field of renewable energies will be discussed. On Saturday, the chancellor will visit the continent’s largest geothermal plant at Lake Naivasha in the East African country. Scholz will be accompanied on his trip by several representatives of German companies.

The chancellor travelled to Africa for the first time in May last year, less than six months after taking office. At that time, he visited German soldiers stationed in Niger and made stops in the West African country of Senegal and in South Africa. In November he visited Egypt for the World Climate Conference.