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Publications

This page presents the ETTG’s most recent publications. Previous publications can be perused below or may be accessed by clicking on the topic labels on your right

Recent Posts

The European Green Deal and the war in Ukraine: Addressing crises in the short and long term
Public sector expertise: A building block for a value-based Team Europe and international partnerships
Guerra e sicurezza alimentare: l’Africa potrà sfamarsi da sola?
The EU’s global crisis response: from Eurocentrism to stronger international partnerships?
The first European Humanitarian Forum: talk shop or game changer?
Ready for a common Africa-Europe future? Our reflections beyond the 6th EU-AU summit
Putting Development at the Centre of G20 Policy Agenda: Lessons for the T20
Lisbon Talk: AU – EU Summit: and now what?
Social justice also means vaccine justice. Achieving globally equitable vaccine supply.
Africa’s transition from a provider to a key actor of the global energy transition

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Recent Publications

The European Green Deal and the war in Ukraine: Addressing crises in the short and long term

Key messages • The European Green Deal (EGD) is instrumental in addressing some of the implications of the war in Ukraine. It can facilitate an integrated response that considers the global concerns raised by the concurrent geopolitical, health and socio-environmental crises, in both the short term and the long term. The war’s effects on food security, energy security, industrial supply chains and environmental protection should be addressed with due attention to immediate threats, and with a view to speeding up the nascent sustainability transformation in order to avoid exacerbating future disruptions. To achieve this, three approaches are essential: enabling policy coherence between sectors and institutions, designing adequate social protection measures, and advancing international cooperation. • To simultaneously address energy security and the climate crisis, the energy transition should be accelerated worldwide. Domestically, the EU can ratchet up production of renewable energies, phase-out fossil fuels (including liquefied natural gas (LNG)), and make energy efficiency improvements across all sectors and industries. The EU should avoid response measures that create lock-ins to pathways that are incompatible with the green transition. In parallel, the EU has the capacity to build strong international partnerships to assist other interested countries in their own energy transitions and support them to become key trading partners of renewable energy sources. • Global supply chains, particularly industrial supply chains, have been disrupted by the war and related sanctions. Ukraine, Russia and Belarus supply much of the world’s key raw materials, such as neon, nickel, aluminium and palladium, and crucial goods, such as iron-derived products and fertilisers. The energy price spike and inaccessible transportation routes have further exacerbated the disruptions. As companies relocate their production and seek new suppliers, the EU should aim to incentivise low-carbon options, boost innovation and material efficiency, and support developing countries in building their own green industries. • Food security has also been adversely affected by disrupted supply chains. In particular, developing countries reliant on food imports face serious challenges due to record high prices. The EU has already put measures in place to support short-term food security, both domestically and beyond. To mitigate future crises, it should develop long-term measures to transition the EU food system towards sustainability and support the development of resilient food systems in developing countries. • The war in Ukraine poses a serious threat to global environmental governance, particularly with regard to environmental protection and biodiversity conservation. The war will likely influence supply chain-driven deforestation and ecosystem degradation, in part due to increasing food insecurity. The EU can support effective and smart agriculture to minimise or avoid land conversion for food or energy production, both domestically and in developing countries. In addition, the EU can play an active role in assisting Ukraine in its ever-more precarious environmental situation, and to support neighbouring countries like Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary that may suffer from trans-boundary pollution. • The war in Ukraine has exposed the urgent need for effective coordination and coherence between EU policy frameworks. To implement the EGD, internal and external trade-offs between core issue areas, such as food and environmental protection or energy and industrial supply chains, and between short-term and long-term effects, need to be minimised. Simultaneously, synergies need to be enhanced. Currently, however, the content and implementation of the EGD still follows a sectoral and siloed approach that contradicts the EU’s policy coherence ambitions. More than ever, the realisation of the EGD’s objectives requires an integrated approach to facilitate efficient alignment with long-term global agendas, such as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement. • In the short term, social protection can help vulnerable households cope with increases in food and energy prices, through mechanisms like cash transfers, in-kind transfers and subsidies. To promote longer-term resilience, social protection can support the just transition and independence of energy and food systems by way of facilitating structural changes, for example, in terms of employment. This will require increased spending on social protection systems anchored in equity concerns. • With regards to its international cooperation, the EU still needs to define the goals it seeks to attain under the external dimension of the EGD. These will need to be translated into concrete actions in close dialogue with the EU’s partner countries. Moreover, international cooperation must be aligned to support long-term strategies to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement in a synergistic fashion. This requires a policy space for accountability and learning, through continuous monitoring and evaluation of pertinent international cooperation activities and partnerships. The EU also has the important role of building trust between partner countries and demonstrating international leadership in the face of Russia’s geo-political belligerence. Read the full paper here. Coordinating lead authors: Gabriela Ileana Iacobuţă and Alexia Faus Onbargi (IDOS) Section lead authors: Nathalie Bolduc (IDDRI), Adis Dzebo (SEI), Alexia Faus Onbargi (IDOS), Gabriela Ileana Iacobuţă (IDOS), Niels Keijzer (IDOS) and Daniele Malerba (IDOS) Contributing authors: Damien Barchiche (IDDRI), Nicolas Berghmans (IDDRI), Mauricio Böhl (IDOS), Fabrizio Botti (IAI), Michael Brüntrup (IDOS), Koen Dekeyser (ECDPM), Ines Dombrowsky (IDOS), Élise Dufief (IDDRI), Elisabeth Hege (IDDRI), Nicolas Heger (GIZ), Jonas Hein (IDOS), Alfonso Medinilla (ECDPM), Jean-Carlo Rodríguez de Francisco (IDOS), Florian Schierhorn (IAMO) and Zoha Shawoo (SEI) Full paper reviewers: Steffen Bauer (IDOS) and San Bilal (ECDPM) Reviewers: Mariya Aleksandrova (IDOS), Margherita Bianchi (IAI), Clara Brandi (IDOS), Lukas Hermwille (Wuppertal Institute), Hanne Knaepen (ECDPM), Geert Laporte (ETTG/ECDPM), Anna Pegels (IDOS), Andreas Stamm (IDOS) and Marjanneke J. Vijge (Utrecht University) This paper was written in cooperation with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO) and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash. The views are those of the authors and not necessarily those of ETTG.
Ready for a common Africa-Europe future? Our reflections beyond the 6th EU-AU summit

The 6th EU-AU summit, held in Brussels on 17-18 February 2022, marked an important milestone in the relationship between the European Union (EU) and the African Union (AU). After almost a year and a half of delay, the summit provided leaders of both European and African countries an opportunity to negotiate on a series of key topics that will shape the future of their relations. Additionally, the summit provided a further opening for the regional bodies and their member states to move away from an asymmetrical top-down relationship to a more vertical partnership in which both sides negotiate deals based on sound analysis, trust and mutual respect.
Putting Development at the Centre of G20 Policy Agenda: Lessons for the T20

Our ETTG Coordinator Daniele Fattibene has published an IAI paper on how the Think20 (T20) can support the G20 Development Working Group (DWG) to boost the G20 legitimacy on development cooperation worldwide. The paper, that benefited from the review of ETTG members like Geert Laporte and Niels Keijzer, addresses strengths and weaknesses of the G20 DWG, providing policy recommendations on how the DWG and T20 can feed better into each other’s policy agendas, increasing their chances to influence other G20 tracks on crucial development issues such as development finance, food security or the global climate agenda.
Green transformation in Africa-Europe relations: linking energy and adaptation with economic transformation

This report is the outcome of a partnership initiative launched in 2021 by the European Think Tanks Group (ETTG) and the Africa-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Our initiative seeks to advance Africa-Europe relations in the run up to the 6th EU-AU summit in Brussels (17-18 February 2022) and contribute to effective follow-up and implementation of the decisions taken there. Key messages Energy is key in Africa’s economic diversification and industrialization, and therefore also for AU-EU relations: this is what a shared narrative should focus on. Social innovations should not be overlooked and underinvested in AU-EU collaboration; they are crucial for the energy transition. AU-EU cooperation can add value in managing transitions and building capacity for long-term strategies towards green economies. The question should be less about “gas or no gas” and more focused on context related visions and timelines in line with Africa’s need for industrialization and the Paris Agreement. Investing in these institutional capacities needs long term finance in institutions for which the EU could play an important role. Against this backdrop, the AU and EU should also start discussions on how climate neutrality strategies will impact trade and new value chains. So far, fossil fuels constitute a large share of exports from Africa to Europe. Climate adaptation is not only a local issue, but also a macroeconomic concern, joint efforts are needed linking economic transformation, employment and the vulnerability of countries as a whole. Both Africa and Europe should push to achieve the Global Adaptation Goal and push for ambitious outcomes from the work programme. Europe should ensure it acts as an adaptation ally for Africa, supporting efforts that concretely address African adaptation needs. Read the full paper here. Authors: Elisabeth Hege, Damien Barchiche and Sébastien Treyer (IDDRI). Acknowledgements: The authors wish to thank Aimee-Noel Mbiyozo (ISS Africa), Charles Nyandiga (UNDP), Geert Laporte (ETTG) and Daniele Fattibene (ETTG) for reviewing the report. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors. This report is part of a special series on Africa-EU relations in the run-up and follow-up of the 2022 AU-EU summit, produced by ETTG members in cooperation with the Institute for Security Studies (ISS Africa) and UNDP Africa. Photo by Thomas Richter on Unsplash. The views are those of the authors and not necessarily those of ETTG.
Beyond business as usual: Igniting the AU-EU partnership on peace, security and governance

This report is the outcome of a partnership initiative launched in 2021 by the European Think Tanks Group (ETTG) and the Africa-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS), with the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Our initiative seeks to advance Africa-Europe relations in the run up to the 6th EU-AU summit in Brussels (17-18 February 2022) and contribute to effective follow-up and implementation of the decisions taken there. Key messages Africa is working to reduce its dependence on donors and enhance its role in financing its own institutions, both generally and in particular in peace and security. There is an urgent need to speed up this process. Two thirds of the budget for peace support is still funded by external partners. This risks undermining African political leadership in peace support operations. More nuanced and frank political dialogue is critical. It is time to move beyond a reliance on political declarations without concrete supporting commitments and action. The AU should negotiate for an oversight role in the newly created European Peace Facility (EPF), which will contribute to the financing of military peace support operations in EU partner countries. Though the EPF is global in scope it is expected to focus on Africa. Moreover, it will replace the African Peace Facility (APF), bringing the risk of bypassing the AU Peace and Security Architecture. This would undermine AU ownership of conflict prevention, dialogue, negotiation and mediation efforts on the continent. Governance should be understood as more than just political governance and the pursuit of democratic ideals, to include factors affecting socio-economic well-being, such as effective management of public affairs and strengthening of the rule of law. Capable African institutions with peer pressure mechanisms in place and locally embedded civil society initiatives will be more effective in ensuring domestic accountability over externally driven donor accountability. Read the full paper here. Author: Bernardo Venturi (IAI) Acknowledgements: The author wishes to thank Ottilia Maunganidze (ISS), Jide Okeke (UNDP), Geert Laporte (ETTG), Daniele Fattibene (ETTG), Lidet Tadesse Shiferaw (ECDPM) and Ueli Staeger (University of Geneva) for their kind support in the revision of this report. This report is part of a special series on Africa-EU relations in the run-up and follow-up of the 2022 AU-EU summit, produced by ETTG members in cooperation with the Institute for Security Studies (ISS Africa) and with the support of UNDP Africa. Photo by Pawel Janiak on Unsplash. The views are those of the author and not necessarily those of ETTG.
Strengthening the AU-EU partnership on the economic development and trade agenda

This brief identifies some of the shared priorities between Africa and the European Union (EU) as well as challenges in their partnership as it currently stands. It also suggests concrete ways forward to strengthen the economic development and trade agenda of the AU-EU cooperation and gives policy recommendations towards a more effective partnership.
Fixing UN financing: a Pandora’s box the World Health Organization should open

In a context of existential transnational challenges and growing inter-state rivalries, we need well-financed, universal multilateralism that can set global rules and norms, drive forward action, and sidestep the tendency for money and military might to buy global influence. The WHO Executive Board now has an opportunity not only to reinvigorate its own organisation, but also to advance a discussion on how the entire UN system can be placed on a stronger, more financially sustainable footing. Passing up this moment out of fear of the implications for member state fiscal obligations to the wider UN system would be both unfortunate and short-sighted.
European Think Tanks Group “Collective action for greater impact”

We are pleased to release our new ETTG brochure that provides you with more information about the work of our network in the field of EU international cooperation and global sustainable development.
The rise of public development banks in the European financial architecture for development

Elcano and ETTG have published the report on the rise of public development banks in the European financial architecture for development which shows how PDBs are critical in promoting resilience to shocks (financial, economic, pandemic, climate, etc.), stabilise the economy and foster a more rapid long-lasting recovery. The report also stresses the importance of medium- and long-term finance for development that can help building markets and promoting economic transformation in a sustainable, green, inclusive and gender-sensitive manner.
Synthesis note: Strengthening the continent-to-continent dialogue on sustainable development

This synthesis note presents one-page overviews of the main findings and recommendations in relation to the five themes, which are discussed in greater detail in the policy briefs that have been published during the past months. A link to the full policy brief is included at the end of each one-pager. These thematic overviews are preceded by a short analysis of the relationship between Africa and Europe and five proposals for strengthening the continent-to-continent dialogue on sustainable development.