Long regarded as the economic engine of Europe, the German model of the social market economy has been undergoing a phase of profound transformation since the early 2020s. The combination of a major energy shock, a rapid increase in interest rates, a slowdown in global trade, and Europe’s ecological transition is placing significant pressure on Germany’s industrial fabric.

For decades, the two countries were perceived as complementary pillars of the pro-Western Sunni bloc in the Gulf. However, in recent years this relationship has gradually evolved from a strategic alliance into a discreet but growing geopolitical competition centered on the control of trade routes, strategic ports, and zones of political influence in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa.

For several decades, the global development imaginary has been consolidated into a rigid dichotomy: Asia as the engine of world growth and Africa as a marginal continent within the international economic system. This narrative, widely reproduced in political, media, and academic discourse, fails to capture the complexity and heterogeneity of African trajectories.

The changes in the geopolitics of the African continent, with several countries distancing themselves from their former economic partners...