African Union (AU) and European Union (EU) have declared a renewed partnership in key areas of global interest including peace and security.
The AU and EU leaders passed a resolution for the two unions to work together on a joint vision as the 6th AU-EU summit ended on Friday in Brussels, Belgium.
President Uhuru Kenyatta was among the African and European Heads of State and Governments who attended the two-day summit that kicked off on Thursday.
The leaders also agreed to renew their partnership in social and economic development for the benefit of the people of the two continents.
The renewed broad partnership is geared towards exploiting opportunities and also addressing emerging challenges.
“The immediate challenge is to ensure a fair and equitable access to vaccines. Together we will support local and regional mechanisms for procurement as well as allocation and deployment of medical products,” a joint statement read in part.
In this regard, the EU reaffirmed its commitment to providing at least 450 million of vaccine doses to Africa in coordination with the Africa Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT) platform by mid-2022.
The EU has already provided more than US $3 billion (the equivalent of 400 million vaccine doses) to the Covax Facility, the statement read.
The parties also committed to combating illicit financial flows (IFF) as well as addressing domestic tax base erosion, profit shifting and cooperating in tax transparency.
The EU also announced an investment package of at least 150 billion Euros to be utilized in infrastructure, health, education, energy, transport and green transition programs as well as support industrialization and the development of sustainable and resilient value and supply chains.
The two unions also resolved to cooperate in combating instability, radicalisation, terrorism and violent extremism by tackling the root causes of the conflicts through an integrated approach.
“We express our commitment to foster our cooperation through support for adequate training, capacity building and provision of equipment to strengthen and scale up autonomous peace operations of African defense and security forces, including through EU missions and assistance measures as well as support for law-enforcement capacity-building,” the leaders said in the statement.
The leaders also agreed to partner and combat illegal migration, smuggling and trafficking of people across borders by strengthening border management.
They also made a commitment to multilateralism with a pledge of reducing global inequalities and strengthening solidarity, promoting international cooperation, fighting and mitigating climate change and improving delivery on ‘global public goods’ in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and AU Agenda 2063.
The Heads of State and Governments through their respective unions also pledged to reform the World Trade Organisation (WTO) with a view “to strengthening the multilateral trading system”.
