on tuesday. of next to business news the africa the german chancellor angela merkel is visiting a continent in the region the last terrorism conference major concern so is europe doing enough to promote the economic development and would help stop the bottom's. decision because they will have got that story more in just a moment and on the back of the talk of the good day. i'm secure in that volume or that's hard and in the end is a me you are not allowed to stay here anymore we will send you back. are you familiar with this. with the smugglers when lyon said the what's your story.

on what numbers and women especially in victims of violence. take part and send us your story train all with understand this new culture. you are not a visitor nothing yet you want to become a citizen. in for migrants your platform for reliable information. german chancellor angela merkel is visiting africa's central sun hell region where terrorism and conflict are major concerns and economic development is severely lacking so what are the needs in the region and is europe doing enough. and one bucket at a time will show you the back breaking work behind ali's rapid urbanisation. which

depends on buckets of sand from the nearby the shared river. also on the show france and germany team up to subsidize battery cell production they call it a strategic investment in the face of tough asian competition others say it's a waste of money. welcome to business africa i'm stephen beard's in berlin thanks for watching german chancellor angela merkel has pledged more than one hundred fifteen million euros in aid to west african countries in the sahara zone the funds are earmarked for development aid in particular police and education michael's three day visit includes stops in burkina faso mali and the share with mauritania and chad the nations are central to the germans to help strategy itself part of a larger e.u. emphasis on the region terrorism and conflict are the focus as is curbing economic migration. now let's zoom in on one side help country in order to understand the

region's challenges mali is one of the world's ten corus nations just under half its population lives below the extreme poverty line agriculture is the chief means of employment a cotton is one of mali's most important exports gold is another income for mining has risen steadily in recent years last year the economy expanded by five point one percent of mali faces serious economic problems among them urbanization and a growing population. there are currently around eighteen point five million people in mali the median age is just sixteen point two years analysts say the government has to focus urgently on jobs for young people and on improving the security situation particularly in the north that could encourage private investors including foreigners a current business outlook is quite grim molly ranks one hundred forty six out of one hundred ninety countries for ease of doing business that according to the world bank's doing business report for twenty nineteen now to talk more about this we're

joined by joined or even be into she's joining us from nairobi hi joy so now joy germany calls this a hell its main focal area in africa but there was recently some criticism from the shares a terrier minister who is saying that europe could actually be doing more on the continent what should we make of all of this well i think maybe he was putting it in context of the e.u. being a little too late in terms of helping the silo region in terms of infrastructure development but i think the e.u. and gemini particular have been in the saddle region for quite a number of years in fact they've completed a thing together we've committed over six hundred sixty five million euros to the development of infrastructure and that is rules in energy access as well as in helping you know we've humanitarian aid as well so maybe the e.u. might give italy to the party but they definitely have stepped up the development

aid as well as funding to this a whole region and mali in particular speaking of bali we just took a look at some of the economic statistics behind the country when you look at that such desperate needs what exactly does economic aid look like. well for a country like mali first of all it's a landlocked country and one of the poorest countries on the continent and i guess one of the poorest ten in the world so we talk about development aid they definitely need it for first of all infrastructure development the need for food security and also the need for energy at says and building that infrastructure as well that goes with it and also looking at the population that is going to youth employment and is needed their investment needs to be attractive for that to happen

they have to step in lies the country as security wise because it out security you cannot attract investment it will also look at least as well as from the neighboring region and outside the continent you know sort of the classic chicken in the egg question there which comes first security economic policy and development joy during barrow joining us there from nairobi nairobi thank you joy thanks for having me. let's go back to mali we're cities are actually swelling right now from the country's high birth rates and a desperate search for work fifty years ago the capital bamako had just two hundred twenty thousand residents now there are two point four million construction projects are booming and so is the very grueling work of sand diving. day in day out men dive to the bottom of the niger river filling bucket after bucket was sent to. the construction boom in nearby bhaumik oh has created a flourishing sandridge an industry here on the banks of the niger and with it

employment for thousands because one of the toughest jobs is digging. well but i'm going to move a little bit to the young diggers diet as far as six meters and stay under water for up to four minutes filling a bucket with sand or that's in the dry season in the rainy season they dive to depths of fifteen meters and stay underwater for eight minutes. to get all my g.p. . everything here is done manually. most of the boats are unknown arised and their three tons of cargo have to be punted over the water. it's hard work and years of sandridge ing have altered the river because of the oil there's now less sand you can see it now instead of sand we can see rocks on the riverbed well when you get the middle of but over there but as long as there's sand

to dig people to dig it salaries here are relatively high for mali around eight euros a day and there's hardly any other work here. in the dry season one truckload of sand costs around one hundred euros two hundred trucks full of sand leave here every day most headed for the capital. city don't go well the people in bamako need a lot of sand i think the construction sites there take almost ninety percent of what we dig here so. the full article in the forthcoming. money's capital is one of the world's fastest growing cities new homes and even new districts so springing up everywhere. as for them it suggests that by twenty fifty they'll be eight million people living here three times more than today which means there's likely to be no shortage of work dredging sand from the niger with the at the heart of the electric vehicle is the battery itself a collection of batteries cells and most of those cells are currently produced in

asia and the u.s. or europe wants a piece of the rapidly growing industry france and germany announcing today a joint effort to kick start battery cell production in their countries with state subsidies to the tune of billions of euros. electric cars and charging stations are still something of a rarity last year just two million electric cars were sold worldwide. but that looks set to change with all major carmakers hutchings plan to develop electric models. of course requires batteries. at present battery cell production is dominated by asian companies those produced for tesla for example are made by a japanese company panasonic. now europe wants to get in on the game germany and france have launched a project worth over five billion euros to develop battery cell production among the games staying competitive against the united states and china.

we don't just want to meet demand from the european car industry we also want to export globally and make it clear that the tree is made in europe represent an important quality standard for electric mobility and other alec tronic up occasions . around a billion euros of the earmarks funds comprised subsidies for a cross border consortium involving french carmaker peugeot and its sister company opel in germany. a further four billion is expected to come from private companies including energy firms not everyone believes the project is a good idea the german center for automotive research says high production costs mean european companies won't actually be able to compete with asian but i thought . the turkish economy slid into recession at the end of last year high

unemployment and rising food prices are just some of the challenges as challenges rather faced by normal turks now the turkish president says he wants to fix the economy but experts are warning against his strategy. after his party suffered defeat in two major mayoral elections last month turkish president recha type at a one is only offensive he has pledged to fix the economy. we are certainly determined to lower exchange rates interest rates and inflation to targeted levels. turkey's inflation rate is now at twenty percent the highest in a decade experts say the central bank needs to raise interest rates to keep inflation down but that's not something that sits well with a turkish president who thinks lower interest rates would make the economy grow faster and pointing to economic gains could helping shore up support for his party but economists warn that his strategy would only temporarily stimulate the economy

and would be unsustainable in the long run. africa's farmers are a step closer to harvesting the benefits of digital technology growers and policymakers met in dakar senegal at the start of this week to compare notes at an event sponsored by the french government take a look. much of africa's farming involves low tech traditional methods but many african farmers are firmly in the twenty first century digitalize in their agricultural workflows farmers here at the agri numa in dakar want to improve yield and efficiency. the opposite i'm on there you can really say that there's a digital revolution taking place in africa at the moment it's a real hotbed of innovation where digital technology has really made big breakthroughs with africa's population of over one billion and growing farmers are facing major challenges they want to use digital technology to improve efficiency

and in often chaotic logistics chain. we realize that schools for example had a very limited budget to feed students and that the supply chain is so long that between twenty five and fifty percent of the budget goes for transportation and paying middlemen. digital technology is reshaping africa's agricultural sector with aid african farmers are beginning to unleash their enormous potential. and that's it for me in the business scene as always you can find out more about these and other stories online a d w dot com slash business we're on facebook and twitter i'm stephen beard's in berlin thanks as always for watching.

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