Prof. Dr. em. Robert Kappel, Institute for African Studies at the University of Leipzig and Postgraduate Program „small enterprise promotion and training, was a professor at the University of Hamburg from 2004 to 2011 and president of the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA). He researches and publishes on the development of small and medium enterprises as well as socio-economic development in globalisation, and politics and economics in Africa.