AU-EU leaders to focus on youth, migration in Abidjan

The 5th African Union–European Union (AU-EU) Summit, will take place in Abidjan, Côte
D’Ivoire, on 29-30 November 2017 and has “Investing in Youth for a Sustainable Future” as its overarching theme.
With half of Africa’s population under 20 years old, many consider the theme of youth to be apt. Yet Mogherini’s pledge to use young people as the “lens” through which to view all the other issues on the table risks, is being overshadowed by geopolitics. The leaders, beginning Wednesday will therefore have an uphill task to seek ways towards giving youth a chance. Equally, migration and security issues are likely to dominate the African Union-European Union Summit. Migration will be one of the major elephants in the room in Abidjan, an adviser to one EU development minister told Devex. “The EU at first considered trying to get both sides to endorse a position paper on migration to complement the ‘Continental Dialogue on Migration and Mobility’ proposed by the AU. However, EU sources told Devex that more work is required, with Brussels wanting to avoid duplication with the priorities of the 2015 Valletta Action Plan and the Khartoum and Rabat processes”.
According to political pundits, the Abidjan AU-EU summit will be a key moment and opportunity to strengthen political and economic ties between the two continents.
The summit comes at a crucial time in the relationship between both continents, in a world that has changed with increased challenges as well as threats affecting both partners. These common problems can only be addressed through an even closer and stronger, mutually beneficial and strategic partnership. The summit aims at lifting this partnership to a higher strategic level, increase cooperation in the international arena guided by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the AU’s Agenda 2063 and the EU’s Global strategy.
In the run-up to the Summit a series of side events has taken place: the Africa-EU civil society forum in Tunis 11-13 July; the 6^th EU-Africa business forum took place in Abidjan on 27 November and saw approximately 1500 participants; the 4^th Africa-EU youth summit on 9-10 October in Abidjan, which bought together 120 young leaders and presented the starting point of the Youth Plug-In Initiative. This innovative initiative saw 36 young fellows working together for a period of 5 weeks to develop a series of recommendations for the leaders at the summit.