In March 2020, the EU published a proposal for a comprehensive strategy with Africa, ahead of their regular summit with the African Union scheduled for October that year. Both the strategy and the planned summit were soon overtaken by the dramatic events of the global COVID-19 pandemic. One and a half years onwards, discussions are now ongoing about rescheduling the next AU-EU summit in Brussels in the first half of 2022, while senior officials and ministers convene in Kigali on 25 and 26 October 2021. Health (COVID-19 and vaccines), green transition and digital agendas are currently expected to feature on the summit agenda.

During this uncertain period for the partnership between Europe and Africa, the European Centre for Development (ECDPM), the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) and the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) convened a series of expert seminars. These seminars brought together a broad range and number of experts representing policy, investment, research and civil society communities in ‘closed-door’ virtual expert meetings. Each of these meetings focused on specific priority themes in the relationship between Europe and Africa: trade, investment, environment, health and digital.

The discussions during the seminars fed into a series of policy briefs, based on which we recently published a short synthesis report that is available for download here.

To conclude this initiative, we are convening a final online event for invited experts to discuss the overall findings from the project, as well as the current opportunities and challenges in the AU-EU partnership ahead of next year’s summit. This meeting will be convened virtually and held under the Chatham House rule, to create a space and basis for informal and frank exchange.

For further information, please contact Niels Keijzer (Niels.Keijzer@idos-research.de).