The European Commission recently adopted a set of projects in support of African economic integration. The initiatives, worth 101.5 million euro, focus on infrastructures, intellectual property rights and improving the investment climate in Africa.

These new projects are the first batch of 2019 actions financed by the Pan-African Programme. The bulk of the funding for 2019 (90 million euro) will be for blending projects, which are part of the EU External Investment Plan (notably its Africa Investment Platform). They will support continental and cross-regional connectivity, through dedicated projects aimed at improving sustainable trans-regional transport and energy infrastructures. 

The initiative “Intellectual Property Rights for Africa” (7 million euro) will promote the value and benefits of intellectual property protection in Africa, strengthen African national and regional intellectual property organisations and support the negotiations of the African Continental Free Trade Area protocol on intellectual property. This initiative will therefore have a positive impact on intra-African trade, investment and job creation.

The third programme (4.5 million euro) will reinforce the investment climate between African and EU stakeholders from the public, private, academic and research world via a series of high-level strategic structured dialogues. This initiative nurtures the strategic sector dialogue foreseen in the Africa-Europe Alliance.