Draft documents reveal EU plan for summit with African Union

More than three years after the European Union announced a new “alliance” with Africa, it is planning to use’s February’s long-awaited summit with the African Union to launch another one. A draft joint statement for the sixth summit of leaders from EU and AU nations in Brussels, obtained by Devex, was shared with EU member states earlier this month. “The aim of the Alliance is to create a future-oriented space of solidarity, security, peace and prosperity for our citizens, bringing together our people, regions and organisations,” reads the text, titled “Europe and Africa: two continents with a joint vision for 2030.” “This space will be founded on geography, awareness and acknowledgment of history, human ties, mutual respect and accountability, the protection of shared values and the reciprocity of commitments,” the draft continues. “It will be embodied by tangible projects, designed together, which foster human, economic and scientific exchanges between our two continents, and fulfil the needs expressed by our populations.” A senior EU diplomat told Devex that the two-page draft statement was prepared by European Council President Charles Michel, though it remains a work in progress. It includes themes familiar to followers of EU-Africa relations, outlining plans to: • “Step up scientific cooperation project between African and European researchers.” • “Strive to facilitate cultural exchanges and the movement of artists and artworks between our two continents, encouraging the circulation of cultural goods and promoting access to cultural heritage.” • “Encourage exchanges of young citizens, volunteers and students, through expanding the Erasmus+ programme and developing partnerships between African and European universities, to make Africa a hub of excellence.” The draft statement also wades into the politically sensitive area of how countries will distribute the International Monetary Fund’s $650 billion in Special Drawing Rights, issued due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For now, the text reads, “We will also support the G20 Framework on Debt Treatments, and capitalise on the reallocation of at least EUR 100 billion” — about $113 billion — “in Special Drawing Rights for the most vulnerable countries, of which 50% will target Africa.” The diplomat said that negotiations are ongoing with EU member states about how to allocate their SDRs to low-income nations, and that the issue is unlikely to be resolved by February. Instead, the diplomat said the summit declaration was designed to raise ambition heading into the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings set for April. The text mentions six “key deliverables” for the summit, to be detailed in annexes to the joint declaration: an Africa-Europe investment package; a health and social protection initiative; an education initiative; an EU-Africa initiative for multilateral action on peace, prosperity and the planet; a Europe-Africa security and stability architecture; and an EU-AU migration and mobility initiative. The commission has so far circulated annexes on the first three, marked “INTERNAL (WORK IN PROGRESS)” and also obtained by Devex. The diplomat said the remaining three papers — currently under preparation by the European External Action Service, the EU’s diplomatic arm — will be circulated soon. Sensitive to criticism that the EU is precooking the outcomes of the summit — the date for which has yet to be confirmed on the AU side — each paper begins with a discussion of African priorities in the same area, often drawn from the AU’s Agenda 2063 plan. That’s a nod to the fact that the summit has been pitched by Brussels as the coming together of a joint agenda between the two continents, kick-started by the commission and EEAS’ document “Towards a Comprehensive Strategy With Africa” from March 2020. Education The annex on education includes two “Flagship proposals”: a “Regional Teachers’ Initiative” using online training to improve teacher quality and a “Continental Africa-Europe Platform for public policy on education and training.” The latter will focus on “designing, reforming and implementing public policy in the education sector” and be implemented through “a platform of demand-driven EU expertise and the use of a broad catalogue of EU tools and methods and networks, including technical assistance, EU global public goods (tools and methods), technical assistance capacity building support and European public expertise provided in line with the European Education Area.” The document also confirms that the commission is likely to try to use EU taxpayers’ money to cover the potential losses of mostly European development banks that invest in education in Africa. It says the European Fund for Sustainable Development Plus — which combines grants, technical assistance, financial instruments, budgetary guarantees, and the blending of grants and loans — “has the potential to leverage private sector capital to address major barriers to access and learning outcomes (e.g. access to learning through scholarships/vouchers, investments in infrastructure, connectivity and other ancillary services).” However, this is likely to worry NGOs that say health and education should mainly be funded by grants and question how development finance institutions can find profitable projects in these areas without unduly supporting companies at the expense of the public sector. Health Health initiatives will also tap budget guarantees, according to the draft annex on the topic. There, flagship proposals touch on: “Pandemic preparedness and health security”; “Equitable and inclusive access to quality essential healthcare services”; and “Access to essential vaccines, medicines and health technologies.” Under fire from health advocates over its failure to support the temporary waiver of some intellectual property restrictions on vaccines, the commission has made much of its €1 billion commitment in May to support vaccine manufacturing in Africa. The draft annex also vows action on the “Demand side,” through “trade facilitation; business environment; market shaping; demand defragmentation and consolidation, business plans, and addressing market failures for medicines and health products; health promotion and risk communication for the final users or communities; building trust and confidence of the local communities.” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday that the EU executive was working on a specific package for Africa in time for the summit, focused not just on providing more vaccines but also improving medical education and infrastructure. Investment package By far the longest annex is on a promised investment package, aimed at “ensuring that Africa’s ongoing socio-economic transformation is bolstered by increasing and innovative sources of funding from the public and the private sector and in line with the commitments of the Paris Agreement.” The document puts overall funding to Africa from EU institutions and member states at €20 billion per year for the next seven years — including funds for North Africa but not humanitarian assistance. From the EU institutions, that includes €40.3 billion in grant funding and €4.5 billion to provision budget guarantees, according to projections in the annex. The guarantees — whereby the EU budget covers part of mostly European DFIs’ potential losses on risky investments in Africa — are projected to “unlock” €18 billion from European development banks, including the European Investment Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. This is in turn projected to spur a further €50 billion in “further investments from other actors (such as the private sector).” However, the European Court of Auditors last year found such leverage calculations were still unproven. As for EU states themselves, the annex says they will contribute €95 billion through 2027, though that is “based on extrapolated OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] data for EU Member States over the past seven years.” What now? In many areas, the draft documents lack concrete figures for now. The European Commission is still sounding out EU states on how much funding they are willing to provide under “Team Europe Initiatives,” designed to marry the commission’s 2021-2027 foreign aid budget with grants and loans from EU countries, EIB, and EBRD, to boost the bloc’s overall visibility and clout. Whether the summit’s February schedule sticks is also up in the air. The event has already been delayed from its initial date of October 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, with the new omicron variant and rising case numbers, the EU diplomat said, “It’s not looking good.”