Upcoming Nexus25 Policy Conference: EU-Africa Relations in Transition

The Nexus²⁵ project, a transatlantic effort led by the Istituto Affari Internazionali and Center for Climate and Security, will be hosting its first annual conference in Rome on October 29th, 2024. This invite-only conference, organized in collaboration with The European Think Tanks Group, will center on enhancing EU-African partnerships from the lens of mitigation, adaptation, and the energy transition.

At the 2023 Africa Climate Summit, leaders produced the “African Leaders’ Nairobi Declaration on climate change and call to action,” which is now the basis for the continent’s common position on global climate change negotiations. The Nairobi Declaration stresses the importance of climate-positive growth, green industrialisation, and local value creation while recognizing the cascading effects of climate change across sectors and borders. We believe that the EU has the instruments, from its regulatory power to its flows of climate finance, to be a more effective partner of the African continent in these efforts. Ahead of critical climate milestones this fall, this conference will serve as a critical opportunity to assess the successes and failures of the EU-Africa relationship, covering: opportunities and roadblocks to regional collaboration in the green transition; EU/African cooperation on mitigation policies and future-proof energy supply chains; and sustainable agri-food systems across the EU and Africa.

Attendees will include representatives from the European Union and its member states, African Union and its member states, key UN bodies, and other civil society organizations. A public event in the morning will be followed by a series of private discussions in the afternoon. Takeaways and policy recommendations from these discussions will be published in November.

This discussion is part of a series of Nexus²⁵ meetings with a diverse range of bilateral and multilateral stakeholders throughout 2024. Nexus²⁵ is funded by Stiftung Mercator, one of the largest private foundations in Germany. Future Nexus²⁵ discussions will be held in Germany and the United States in early 2025.