Prime Minister Netanyahu is establishing diplomatic ties with African nations beginning with visits he conducted in the Summer of 2016 to Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, and Ethiopia. Before leaving for the historic trip he said, “The African continent constitutes vast potential for Israel in very many areas. Many countries are seeking to open their gates to Israel, and we will realize this desire for their benefit and for the benefit of the state of Israel.”
His multi-pronged goal included increasing economic ties and joint cooperation with the World Bank to expand aid in Africa’s development projects. This would effectively enhance decades of cooperation in Africa beginning in the 1950s.
Examples abound: Netafim, the world’s pioneer in drip irrigation technology has produced tea in Tanzania, drip irrigation for South African crops, and drip irrigation for Senegal’s sugar cane. Netafim operates in 150 countries and employs 3,000 workers. Israel’s most famous outreach to an African nation occurred in the 1990’s when they airlifted thousands of Ethiopian Jews to their homeland in Israel, the only nation in the world to bring Africans to freedom not to slavery.
By 2010 Mashav, Israel's Agency for International Development Cooperation, had trained a quarter of a million mostly African students to help their nations in education, health, science and agriculture. Created in 1955 by Israel’s then-Foreign Minister Golda Meir, Mashav’s mission is “to empower those living in poverty to improve their own lives.” In 1958 Meir visited Africa enacting an era of cooperation between Israel and the African continent.
While in Africa, PM Netanyahu met with Ugandan President Museveni where they held a ceremony opening the first Emergency Trauma Unit at Kampala's Mulago Hospital. In addition, four Mashav centers were inaugurated in four nations. In Rwanda President Clark welcomed Netanyahu saying, “Israel was seen as a small country in a very hostile neighborhood; a country with very few resources but which had recovered from its genocide very quickly and very impressively,” Clark said. “So Israel was an obvious place for Rwanda to look to for inspiration.”
One of Israel’s most prominent cultural, religious, and policy values is “to repair the world.” In Africa and elsewhere, they are repairing the world through Food Security, Agriculture, Education, Gender Equality, Women’s Empowerment, Medicine, Public Health, Community Development, Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
