With EU programming for the 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework underway, a new ‘geopolitical’ European Commission in place with Africa high on its agenda, and the sixth EU-AU summit intended to take place this year, it is a good opportunity for the EU to rethink its engagement with Africa’s regional agenda. Since this paper was written, the outbreak and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has altered the context for regional cooperation dramatically, but many of the issues raised remain valid.

This paper aims to feed thinking on external support to regional organisations. Using a number of short examples, it highlights how regional integration processes on the African continent are complex – in terms of the range of actors, interests and power relations between and within countries – and the need for the EU and other external actors to understand and adapt to the interests and incentives of their African counterparts – whether through the AU, the regional bodies or bilaterally. We draw on two strands of work: evaluations of support to African regional organisations by the EU and the World Bank Group in 2019, and ECDPM research on the political economy of regional integration in Africa.

Using short examples, the paper aims to underline the importance of understanding the complexity of regional integration processes – in terms of the range of actors, interests and power relations between and within countries – and the need for external actors to adaptively engage with these dynamics rather than assume them away. These will be core to all future EU and other external actor efforts to engage differently with their African counterparts, whether through the AU, the regional bodies or bilaterally. The paper does not explicitly address regional responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, nor the regional economic risks and opportunities, though the implications do carry over. Those issues deserve and will receive attention in future work.

In March 2020, the European Commission released one of its joint communications to the European Parliament and Council entitled “Towards a comprehensive Strategy with Africa” laying out a series of proposed actions for “the EU and Africa” to undertake together in addressing a range of global and joint challenges.3 These challenges include climate change, instability from expanding terrorism, gloomy prospects for international trade, and populist revivals including those against irregular migration. Though emerging after the Communication, we now know they also include health pandemics.
About ECDPM
The European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) is an independent think tank working on international cooperation and development policy in Europe and Africa