EU’s New finance instruments: NDICI and democracy promotion in Sub-Saharan-Africa

Speakers: Maria Arena (MEP), John Gbodi Ikubaje (African Union Commission), Nathan Vandeputte (University of Gent)

Political factors such as democracy and human rights seem to have become secondary in the current discussion on the new partnership between Africa and the European Union. Besides the fact that democracy is advocated as closely interrelated with economic development and peace, in times of crisis, the support of democratic structures is as relevant as ever. Worldwide, democracy is under pressure and challenged by other systems. The current pandemic poses even more challenges to democratic freedoms. However, EU democracy promotion is often criticized as being quite technocratic and inflexible.

The current programming of the new Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI) may offer the opportunity to change this. The idea of NDICI is to increase coherence between the different external funding instruments by taking a more holistic approach. This webinar will hence try to find answers to the question of what’s the offer in the context of this new instrument and what does it imply for the new partnership between the two continents in terms of democracy (promotion)?

The webinar is part of the FES series "What’s the offer? A new partnership between Europe and Africa”

Contact: Marco.Schwarz(at)fes-europe.eu