The COVID-19 crisis has created a dire need for the active facilitation of sustainable investment to promote an inclusive, gender-sensitive and green recovery. The partnership between the European Union (EU) and the African Union (AU), and their respective member states, can provide a strategic and institutional framework for stimulating sustainable investment in a collective manner.
In the United Nations General Assembly at the end of September, European Council President Charles Michel called for effective multilateralism in tackling today’s global problems. He stressed the EU’s role in building back better after COVID, contributing to a safer world and leading the race against climate change.
A joint press release about the recent cooperation with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Institute for Security Studies (ISS) and our Network on a series of high-level, closed doors virtual expert seminars for the AU-EU partnership.
Multilateralism has been in trouble for a while, particularly at the global level. Yet, the European Union (EU) and its member states have remained among its staunchest supporters. The recent EU Communication on Multilateralism, published in February 2021, seeks to lay out a European vision to uphold, extend and reform the multilateral system.
Chloe Teevan – ECDPM Policy officer is the lead author of our ETTG paper A new multilateralism for the post-COVID world: What role for the EU-Africa partnership?
Together with a team of researchers from the other ETTG members she is proposing some key measures to improve cooperation and which can help on the reforming procedure for carrying forward the multilateral system.
Europe–Africa relations are facing a double challenge – the COVID-19 pandemic puts social and economic systems under strain at a point when the consequences of the climate crisis are being increasingly felt on both continents. Within Africa and Europe, debates have started about recovery measures to address the pandemic’s short and medium-term socio-economic consequences. A key question in these debates is how to “build back better” and use the crisis to promote green transitions and move towards more sustainable development pathways.