The EU is mobilising €82.5 million to fund six new projects in its Pan-African programme to strengthen EU/Africa cooperation in a wide range of sectors such as sustainable resource management, regional integration, air transport, and digitalisation, the European Commission announced on Monday 21 December.
The envelope will be distributed as follows:
- €32 million to support the ongoing negotiations on trade protocols and the establishment of the African continental free trade area. This will include supporting the African Trade Observatory and making trade data and analysis available to African policymakers and the private sector.
- €25 million for monitoring food security and ecosystems using space technologies;
- €8 million for pan-African support of geological sciences and technology for the Africa-EU partnership (2021-2023) for sustainable management and governance of natural resources using geoscientific data;
- €8 million for the recently launched Africa-Europe Digital4Development platform to accelerate digital transformation (see EUROPE 12618/4);
- €5 million to accelerate the emergence of the single market for African air transport. This programme will help the African Civil Aviation Commission and African States to implement the single aviation market;
- €4.5 million for the modernisation of air navigation systems.
Launched in 2014, the pan-African programme has received €400 million from the EU for 2018-2020. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)