The response of the AU and the impact to the African European relations
Date: Tuesday, 19th May 2020, 17.00 – 18:30 CEST
Venue: Zoom meeting,
Registration: schmidjell@vidc.org
With inputs by
- Angela Odai, African Union, The Citizens and Diaspora Directorate
- Geert Laporte, Director – European Think Tanks Group and Co-Director ECDPM – European Centre for Development Policy Management
- N.N, ADEPT – Africa Development Platform in Europe
- Moderation: Karen Kaneza, Co-Chairperson ADYFE – African Diaspora Youth Forum in Europe
African countries have reacted fast to the Covid-19 pandemic as the AU did in terms of coordination, knowledge sharing and online training of health care workers. On the international level, the pandemic has challenged existing relations and raised a number of questions about future (health) governance frameworks. The European Union might have to re-write its new Africa Strategy and re-schedule the planned EU-AU summit.
The AU has also stressed the role of the African diaspora. While the remittances to Sub-Saharan Africa are expected to fall by 23 % in 2020, African governments and institutions focus on knowledge transfer through and joint (health) research activities with diaspora experts.
What will be the impact of Covid-19 to the international governance system on the African continent? What changes will we see in terms of EU-AU policy dialogue, economic cooperation, development cooperation or humanitarian aid? How did the civil society, specially the African diaspora, react to the Covid-19 crisis and how could their efforts be strengthened?
The Afrika Club is a joint initiative of Radio Afrika TV (RATV), the Association of African Students in Austria (VAS Österreich), the Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation (VIDC) and Ambassador Georg Lennkh.
Photo by GovernmentZA via Flickr.
