African Industrial Development And European Union Co Operation

Of the 54African states, only South Africa is categorised by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) amongst industrialised countries. The economic activities in Africa are still dominated by the production and trade of agricultural and mineral commodities. This situation is in spite of the longstanding Africa--European Union (EU) co-operation, which intends, among other things, to support Africa’s industrialisation endeavours. Imperatively, a long road to substantive levels of industrialisation still lies ahead of most African countries. This raises the question as to what role the international community could and should play in the twenty-first century to provide the support needed to expedite Africa’s industrial transformation. This book argues that to supplement the initiatives of each African country, international partnerships, of both a ‘North–South’ and ‘South–South’ nature, will serve better purposes if they are leveraged to develop productive capacities in African economies. In order to enable the African countries to leverage their traditional partnership with the EU for industrialisation, a paradigm shift is obligatory. A feasible model should emulate the Japanese-led ‘flying geese’ model and the Chinese-led ‘bamboo capitalism’ model.

This timely book explores the current state of EU-Africa relations from a multidisciplinary perspective, placing emphasis on recent developments in five areas that are crucial for EU-Africa relations: development cooperation, trade, migration, security and democratization. It considers how Africa’s dependence on the EU has decreased due to the declining importance of development cooperation, and increasing cooperation with emerging powers, notably the BRIC nations.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This edited volume is concerned with the evolution and achievements of cooperation in research and innovation between Africa and Europe, and points to the need for more diversified funding and finance mechanisms, and for novel models of collaboration to attract new actors and innovative ideas. It reflects on the political, economic, diplomatic and scientific rationale for cooperation, while also examining practical developments, illustrated with examples, in the fields of food security, health, and climate change. The need to mobilise scientific knowledge and to ensure equality and fairness in the cooperation are recurrent themes. Africa-Europe Cooperation in Research and Innovation is essential reading for policy makers and researchers in international relations and science diplomacy.

Starting from the observation that the establishment of free trade as such will substantially impact upon economic development, the different contributions focus on the potential contribution of non-traditional aspects of EPAs.

This publication is an outcome from a seminar in Abidjan in 1997 with the aim to explore the problems and prospects for the establishment of a new partnership between Sweden and Africa. The seminar was attended by scholars, development bankers, government officials and civil society activists from all parts of sub-Saharan Africa, and development cooperation officials and academics from Sweden and the other Nordic countries.

"Africa is a continent with a great pool of untapped scientific talent. The brain-power is there, but the means to translate it into scientific input for socio-economic development need further enhancement. Increasing S & T capacity through cooperation will give African countries and people the tools and skills to create/adapt and disseminate knowledge to mitigate current weaknesses. It will help Africa to develop its resources and provide ways and means to deliver prosperity and sustainable development to its people. Policy measures to promote and support sustainable S & T capacity building relevant to Africa's economic growth are increasingly undertaken within Africa. Africans themselves have set their own priorities for S & T. The EU supports and contributes to the realisation of Africa's S & T objectives. This brochure outlines the development of European S & T cooperation with Africa over the recent past. It illustrates the link between the political framework, the commitments, the toolkit of mechanisms available and the action on the ground."--Editor.

China's rise on the international scene over the past few years has correlated with its exponential economic growth. The European Union (EU), the world's largest development aid provider, has been feeling the heat of Beijing's closer ties with Africa. As a result, the EU's overall policy-making towards Africa has suffered from a loss of credibility and this has been further exposed both by the success of China's investments in Africa, and by the favourable response that China's investment proposals have received from African leaders. Dividing the book into five parts, the editors and an outstanding line up of Chinese and European contributors guide the reader through the complexities of China's rising influence in Africa, but they also analyse if and how the EU should adapt to this. "

The European Union in Africa: Incoherent policies, asymmetrical partnership, declining relevance? provides a comprehensive analysis of EU-Africa relations since the beginning of the twenty-first century and includes contributions from leading experts in the field of EU external relations. It seeks to explain how the relationship evolved through discussion of a number of different policies and agreements, ranging from established areas such as aid, agriculture, trade and security, to new areas such as migration, climate change, energy and social policies. This book successfully challenges a number of widely-held assumptions on the role of the EU in Africa, and at the same time sheds light on the role and identity of the EU in the international arena. It will be of great interest to students and scholars in the field of EU external relations as well as practitioners of international development.