Listen-Up! Speak-Up! Meet-Up! : Youth from Africa and Europe engage in designing a common future

06.07.2020

 

Inventing another future based on collaboration is inevitable and Youth has a key role to play in this process. The current Covid pandemic makes this collaboration even more imperative,  particularly between Africa and Europe.  With the next Summit of African and European Heads of States planned for 28-29 October – as well as the accompanying Youth Summit - it is paramount for Youth from both continents to be able to debate, interact, and weigh in. 

 Fresh ideas and new recommendations for the upcoming Africa-Europe Youth Summit

 In this context, EU and AU are organizing from 8-11 July, along with youth organisations and several partners, the Africa-Europe Youth Meet-Up.  This online event – which will be streamlined on Facebook: African & European Youth will be thinking of their post-COVID-19 future together and bring recommendations to the 5th Africa-Europe Youth Summit.

Over 3 days, 7 Afro-European panels (Environment, Education, Job creation, Digitalisation, Peace & Security, Governance, Culture & Arts) will take place. Prior, a Speak Up online consultation, on the 7 topics, was concluded and yielded close to 6000 answers in just one week!  

An opening session (Wednesday 8 July, 12.30pm CET) will feature Commissioner J. Urpilainen, a short presentation of the various panels and then focus on climate with Dr Jane Goodall & Vanessa Nakate. The closing session (Friday 10 July, 3pm CET) will see (from EU side), Commissioner Lenarcic & MEP Zacharopoulou. 

Many interesting speakers from Africa & Europe are confirmed across the various panels (incl. Youssou N'Dour, Bobi Wine, Bertrand Piccard, Jacqueline Novogratz, Peter Verstebacka, Miguel Angel Moratinos, Cheick Modibo Diarra, Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu, etc.). 

 Background

Involving young Africans, Europeans and diaspora in active, meaningful and innovative ways is an important priority for both the EU and AU. Since the Abidjan Summit in 2017, the inclusion of youth in the Africa-EU partnership and AU-EU Cooperation has been significantly strengthened via the AU-EU Youth Track, where the AU-EU Youth Hub is a key component.

Follow @AUEUYouthHub on Twitter - #AUEUMeetUp #AUEU - and more information on https://www.aueuyouthhub.org/meet-up/