European and African civil society has high expectations of the EU/Africa partnership to help African youth access decent jobs, support the industrialisation of the African continent, strengthen health systems that were already vulnerable before the Covid-19 pandemic and ensure humane treatment of refugees.
These are the concrete suggestions made by civil society representatives during the dialogue organised on Thursday 24 September by Friends of Europe between the European Commission and the African Union Commission on one end, and citizens on the other, on ‘A people-centred approach to human development’.
The EU and AU representatives, there to listen, took note of this dialogue in preparation for the EU/AU Summit, now postponed to 2021.
“I can assure you that youth will be a priority in the programming process of the funds”, said Commissioner for International Partnerships Jutta Jurpilainen, aware that 60% of the population in Africa is young and that half of the population in sub-Saharan Africa is under 16 years old.
The AU Commissioner for Social Affairs, Amira Elfadil Mohammed Elfadil, confirmed that “Africa wants opportunities for the continent’s development, for job creation in Africa”.
She said the private sector had been involved in the response to the pandemic from the outset in Africa with the creation of a digital platform for medical support.
“While the capacity of our health systems is fragile in the majority of African countries, we at the AU and the Africa CDC are trying to strengthen these public health systems”, she said. And asked for the future partnership to “build links between the European and African private sector”.
She and the European Commissioner for Health, Stella Kyriakides, both stressed the importance of multilateral cooperation in the fight against the pandemic, invoking the need for “global solidarity”. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)