Chancellor Angela Merkel last week focussed her attention on Africa with the intent of reducing migrant numbers entering Europe.
She visited Mali, Niger and Ethiopia and also met the heads of state of Nigeria and Chad.
Merkel has vowed to increase efforts to help Africa and thereby reduce the impetus of African citizens to leave their countries.
"I think we will need to take a vastly greater interest in the destiny of Africa," Merkel said at the start of her trip. "The well-being of Africa is in Germany's interest."
Although the majority of migrants reaching Germany have been from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, thousands have also come from African countries. More than 13,000 last year were from Eritrea and another 10,000 from Nigeria where the economy has felt the pinch of the drop in oil prices as well as the need to counter the jihadist Boko Haram insurgency.
While in Nigeria, Merkel said it was important to help fight Boko Haram but that Germany intended to repatriate most of the Nigerians who arrived in her country.
She said that most refugees from war zones like Syria were being granted asylum, which contrasts to "the approval rate for people from Nigeria is only 8%. We presume that most of them came for economic reasons."
The best way to stop such migration is to encourage greater stability in their home countries, Merkel said. It is crucial for Africa not to lose its brightest minds.
As the chair of the Group of 20, Berlin plans to host a conference next year to encourage investment in Africa, particularly in transport and energy.
With huge youth unemployment, repression and conflict in many states pushing people to leave home, she said, the migratory pressures were unlikely to stop soon.
Germany is also considering shorter-term solutions, including granting billions in aid to specific, usually transit, countries in return for migrants being accommodated temporarily there.
Earlier this year, Germany moved to categorise Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia as “safe” countries of origin so that asylum requests from these citizens need not be approved.
But the bill has been stuck in the upper house for months over human rights concerns in those nations.
