In just one week the web site has had over 2060 unique visitors and received 80 comments. Several people have contacted us and offered their support and commitment to the process.
Contributions have arrived from: Belgium, Benin, Ethiopia, France, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Nigeria, Portugal, Senegal, Slovenia and Spain.
Some questions raised:
- “To be absolutely honest and fair to both Euro-African Leaders, there is hardly any ‘shared vision’! … The vision must be redefined and owned.” Victor Onoviran (Nigeria)
- “For the best of this strategy we must to go back to the very questions, such as, what is working and what is not working in Africa-EU partnership and why so? What are the causes behind the failure.” Silvestre Baessa Jr. (Mozambique)
- “We have to do the public debate and awareness raising on very fundamental issues that matters and affects Africa and Europe…” Eyachew Tefera (Slovenia)
- The common interests in the partnership need to be raised. Both continents’ requirements need to be taken into consideration, and priorities mutually agreed. Catherine Kithinji (Kenya)
The process is gaining momentum also outside of Internet and several activities and conferences have been planned. VENRO is holding an international NGO conference on ‘Prospects for Africa – Europe’s Policies’, 12 March in Bonn. The North-South centre is planning regional consultation meetings with youth organizations in six venues in Europe and Africa with the aim to contribute to youth policies in the Africa-Europe context. These are just two examples, and please let us know of any activities that you or your organizations are planning.
How do your comments link up with the official negotiations?
The European and African experts will meet in an EU-Africa expert meeting on the 19-23 of February, where they will start to discuss the content of the joint strategy. Since we want to ensure an optimal linkage between the public debate and the official negotiation, we will submit the initial comments and ideas presented on the web site to the official negotiators at the end of next week. The same will be done for future official expert meetings (see calendar and timeline of the consultation for details): we will submit each time a short summary of your comments and contributions to the experts negotiating the joint Strategy.
We would like to focus the debate at this early stage on:
- the agenda setting of the public debate: we have proposed some key questions on the various issues but there might be others you would like to raise
- the shared vision: what kind of partnership do you want between the EU and Africa for the next 10 years? What have been the shortcomings of the part partnership? What are the key challenges for a new EU-Africa partnership?
We will launch more detailed rounds of discussion towards the end of February on the basis of the questions you have raised.
Make sure your views are heard at this early stage!
Read more about the launch of the public consultation!
Frequently asked questions:
Organisers of the consultation / Who can participate? / Why this consultation? / The basis for the consultation / Consultation timeline / Opportunities offered by the consultation / Limitations to the consultation / How will the consultation take place? / Getting progress updates / About the web site / How to participate
Post your comments
My name is Magdalena Wolf, I´m a student in political sciences in Halle, Germany, and i would like to express my congratulations to this one-of-a-kind public project. I think it is important to create an athmosphere of lateral transfer of ideas and wishes in order to receive conclusions authorized by every part of the project! And it is also important for european actors to realize and accept that european customs and way of thinking not automatically means the best answer for african problems. Or, in other words, that many problems of Africa are “homegrown” or home made in Europe. I´m really looking forward to the development of this project!!
My name is Shareef a development consultant from Mozambique. Honestly speaking, this strategy has failed in the sense that it was developed in Europe and intended for Africa. If you want to know what is good for Africa, ask Africans living in Africa and avoid doing things for us, we know better our problems and perhaps solutions than you think you do. one more piece of advice to EU is that start supporting civil society organizations in order for them to be actively participative in the consultation processes, living everything to the national government won’t give you a more balanced contribution to whatever strategies you would like to come with.