Two years have passed since the last European Union (EU)-African Union (AU) Summit took place, a moment where European and African leaders agreed on a joint vision for a renewed partnership. This joint vision identified health as high priority. Whilst it is still too early to fully capture the impact of different health initiatives announced at the Summit, we consider it important to take a closer look at how they are being designed and operationalised to ensure that effective development cooperation principles are being respected. The lack of publicly available information made this exercise challenging.
With that objective in mind, Global Health Advocates (GHA) has developed a series of three policy briefs, based on analyses of official European Union action documents, literature reviews, information gathered during relevant events, and informal exchanges with relevant stakeholders.
As the EU has framed its Africa-Europe Investment Package as forming part of its Global Gateway Strategy to be implemented through a Team Europe (TE) approach, we dedicate the first brief to the understanding of these concepts and the health commitments announced during the EU-AU summit, in particular the five regional health Team Europe Initiatives (TEIs).
In our second brief, we take a closer look at how TE is engaging with African partners and how it could best support African health sovereignty and equity.
In our third and final brief, we delve into the challenges and opportunities of working in a TE approach to deliver health for all, and also question how accountable it truly is.
Through this policy brief series, we have identified four key elements to ensure the success of the health TEIs. Firstly, Team Europe will need to ensure that its health priorities are in line with those of African partners. Secondly, TE must be able to allocate sufficient financial resources to deliver on its commitments, in a coordinated and effective way. Thirdly, it must communicate and share timely information about the initiatives and their impact, to demonstrate the added value of such an approach. Finally, TE must be able to keep global health high in its agenda, with equity at its core.
Check out below the recording of our series launch event:
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