The COVID-19 Pandemic on African Economies

To fight against the COVID-19 pandemic on African economies, the African Union and the European Union are supporting the common framework for debt treatment beyond the debt service suspension initiative. The African Union and the European Union are also appealing for voluntary and ambitious contributions, with the aim of channeling part of the recently allocated Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) so as to achieve the global ambition of bringing together at least minus $100 billion in liquidity assistance for the countries that need it most, much of which should go to Africa. The African Union and the European Union welcome the $55 billion that has already been pledged under the new SDR allocation, of which $13 billion has so far been pledged by several EU member states (Team Europe), and encourage more EU Member States to consider contributing to this global effort. African institutions, in consultation with national authorities, will be involved in the use of these SDRs to support the continent’s recovery. The African Union and the European Union will strive to ensure that expenditure made through international programs in the areas of health, climate, biodiversity, education and security is increased to facilitate economic recovery. They agreed to examine lending instruments for sustainable investment projects in priority sectors. While building their capacity to address these challenges, we agree that recovery investments should continue to build better resilience and more sustainable economies to achieve their long-term priority goals. They pledged to combat illicit financial flows (IFFs) and base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS), as well as cooperate on tax transparency. In this regard, they agreed to continue cooperating to develop and consolidate strategic capacity in the fight against different types of IFFs, including money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing, as well as those related to systems tax governance and the return of stolen funds and goods from countries of origin.

The African Union and the European Union will intensify their support for scientific cooperation between researchers in order to jointly develop knowledge and share technologies and expertise, in particular through a joint AU innovation program and the EU, encourage exchange programs for young citizens, volunteers and students under the wider Erasmus+ program and develop partnerships between universities, in order to improve their mutual understanding and foster excellence. The African Union and the European Union will endeavor to facilitate cultural exchanges and the circulation of artists and works between these two continents and to encourage mutual commitment with a view to the restitution of cultural property, as well as to promote access to cultural heritage and its protection.