EU/Africa — Tripoli Declaration 3rd Africa EU Summit

(Tripoli, 29/30 Novem­ber 2010)
We, Heads of State and Gov­ern­ments of Africa and the Euro­pean Union, rep­re­sent­ing more than 1.5 bil­lion cit­i­zens have gath­ered in Tripoli on 29 – 30 Novem­ber 2010 deter­mined to seize togeth­er new oppor­tu­ni­ties for broad­er and mutu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial ini­tia­tives.

The Part­ner­ship between Africa and the Euro­pean Union is one of the most endur­ing glob­al rela­tion­ships and is of strate­gic sig­nif­i­cance to both sides. We will con­tin­ue the work launched at the Cairo Sum­mit in 2000 and Lis­bon Sum­mit in 2007, where we decid­ed to put our rela­tions on a new, equal and strate­gic lev­el. We con­firm the Joint Africa –EU Strat­e­gy as the frame­work for our future coop­er­a­tion and adopt the Action Plan 2011 – 13 as our new com­mit­ment to the real­i­sa­tion of this Partnership.

With many states cel­e­brat­ing fifty years of inde­pen­dence, Africa is more than ever on the eve of a fun­da­men­tal evo­lu­tion offer­ing new oppor­tu­ni­ties and per­spec­tives towards enhanced inte­gra­tion and improved sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, with­in the frame­work of the African Union that aspires for a unit­ed, peace­ful and pros­per­ous con­ti­nent. At the same time, the Treaty of Lis­bon marks a new phase for the Euro­pean Union. Both devel­op­ments fur­ther enhance and strength­en the Africa –EU partnership.

Since we met 3 years ago, the world has under­gone an accel­er­at­ed process of glob­al­i­sa­tion and faced an unprece­dent­ed finan­cial and eco­nom­ic cri­sis. This requires our Part­ner­ship to be more respon­sive and to take an increas­ing part in the reform of the glob­al gov­er­nance sys­tem, includ­ing avail­ing wider oppor­tu­ni­ty for Africa and the EU to be fair­ly rep­re­sent­ed. Our part­ner­ship should guide the trans­for­ma­tions the world needs: tack­le the effects of cli­mate change, con­flict pre­ven­tion, good gov­er­nance, achieve a sus­tain­able ener­gy mar­ket includ­ing invest­ment par­tic­u­lar­ly in renew­able ener­gy resources, devel­op infra­struc­ture, pro­vide food secu­ri­ty, achieve the Mil­len­ni­um Devel­op­ment Goals, com­bat HIV/AIDS, address the real­i­ties and chal­lenges of migra­tion and its links to devel­op­ment, as well as to pro­mote gen­der equal­i­ty. We step-up our joint efforts espe­cial­ly in encour­ag­ing invest­ment growth, cre­at­ing employ­ment and work for the young gen­er­a­tions enter­ing the labour mar­ket, notably in Africa.

Spread­ing the suc­cess of entre­pre­neur­ship, we are com­mit­ted to pro­mot­ing the pri­vate sec­tor as a key dri­ver of inclu­sive and sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth and an impor­tant actor in pro­vid­ing for more equal and bal­anced devel­op­ment. To flour­ish, this pri­vate invest­ment needs, a trans­par­ent and well–governed busi­ness envi­ron­ment, part­ner­ships with the pub­lic sec­tor, bet­ter pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, social pro­tec­tion of work­ers both in for­mal and infor­mal economies, togeth­er with rein­forced efforts of edu­ca­tion and tech­nol­o­gy transfer

in order to pro­mote a knowl­edge based Soci­ety. We rec­og­nize the equal­ly impor­tant dimen­sion of region­al inte­gra­tion for growth and devel­op­ment and com­mit to con­clude Eco­nom­ic Part­ner­ship Agree­ments (EPAs) that sup­port socio-eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment, region­al inte­gra­tion and the inte­gra­tion of Africa into the glob­al economy.

Mind­ful of the addi­tion­al efforts need­ed to reach the Mil­len­ni­um Devel­op­ment Goals in Africa by 2015, we will rein­vig­o­rate our con­cert­ed efforts to address all MDG tar­gets, tak­ing account of those coun­tries and tar­gets most off track and pay­ing par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to the most vul­ner­a­ble and mar­gin­alised peo­ple. We con­sid­er that all avail­able financ­ing for devel­op­ment, both domes­tic and exter­nal, tra­di­tion­al as well as inno­v­a­tive, need to sup­port sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth and employ­ment in Africa which are key for achiev­ing the MDGs.

2010 being the African year of peace and secu­ri­ty, we attach utmost impor­tance to all efforts of con­flict pre­ven­tion, rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, jus­tice and post con­flict recon­struc­tion and devel­op­ment for the sake of peo­ple under­go­ing con­flict. As the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty marks the 10th anniver­sary of UN Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil Res­o­lu­tion 1325, both sides and stressed the role of women in efforts to achieve sus­tain­able peace and secu­ri­ty. Peace and secu­ri­ty remain a cor­ner­stone of our coop­er­a­tion. We are com­mit­ted to mak­ing the African Peace and Secu­ri­ty Archi­tec­ture ful­ly oper­a­tional in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with the region­al orga­ni­za­tions. As regards AU lead Peace oper­a­tions, it was agreed to work towards ensur­ing flex­i­ble, pre­dictable and sus­tain­able funding.

We will con­tin­ue our con­cert­ed efforts to bring the Soma­li con­flict to an end, to sta­bi­lize the inter­nal sit­u­a­tion and to pro­mote time­ly post-con­flict recon­struc­tion and devel­op­ment efforts. To these ends, we will con­tin­ue work­ing togeth­er in sup­port of a strength­ened AMISOM, as well as of the Soma­li Secu­ri­ty Forces, extend­ing sup­port to the TFG in the frame­work of a rein­vig­o­rat­ed com­pre­hen­sive polit­i­cal strat­e­gy. On Sudan, we empha­sise the urgency and impor­tance of ensur­ing that all ele­ments of the CPA, includ­ing those con­cern­ing Abyei, South Kord­o­fan and Blue Nile, are imple­ment­ed in a time­ly, peace­ful and cred­i­ble man­ner, in par­tic­u­lar the ref­er­en­dum on South Sudan whose results should be accept­ed by all. Fur­ther­more, we encour­age all par­ties to progress with the post ref­er­en­dum issues. In this con­text, we wel­come the lead­er­ship of the AU in close coop­er­a­tion with the UN as well as the sup­port pro­vid­ed by the AUHIP led by Pres­i­dent Mbe­ki, and by IGAD. We wel­come in par­tic­u­lar the progress made and agree­ments reached on the frame­work regard­ing out­stand­ing CPA issues.

Our coop­er­a­tion will con­tin­ue to build on our com­mon val­ues and goals in pur­suit of good gov­er­nance, democ­ra­cy and the rule of law. We firm­ly con­demn all uncon­sti­tu­tion­al changes of gov­ern­ments which, along­side bad gov­er­nance, are one of the main caus­es of insta­bil­i­ty. We are unit­ed in the fight against impuni­ty at nation­al and inter­na­tion­al lev­el and the pro­tec­tion of human rights on both con­ti­nents. We empha­size the need to strength­en nation­al legal sys­tems and the inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion in the pur­suit of jus­tice, peace and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, includ­ing the pros­e­cu­tion of the most seri­ous crimes of con­cern to the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, tak­ing into cog­nizance the posi­tions of the African and the Euro­pean Union. We con­demn all forms of ter­ror­ism and will coop­er­ate close­ly in address­ing this inter­na­tion­al threat and its var­i­ous sources of financ­ing. We also con­demn intol­er­ance in all its forms and will address this phe­nom­e­non as well as coop­er­ate close­ly, includ­ing in the UN, in address­ing trans-nation­al threats of, inter-alia, pira­cy, dump­ing of tox­ic waste, orga­nized crime and ille­gal traf­fick­ing, includ­ing human traf­fick­ing. We joint­ly agree to address Mar­itime secu­ri­ty chal­lenges of par­tic­u­lar con­cern to both con­ti­nents includ­ing pol­lu­tion of seas and oceans.

Africa and the EU will work togeth­er to ensure more effec­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion and improved coop­er­a­tion in inter­na­tion­al bod­ies, includ­ing the Unit­ed Nations Gen­er­al Assem­bly, and the G20. We will fur­ther strength­en our high lev­el polit­i­cal dia­logue aim­ing at a bet­ter coor­di­nat­ed approach and joint posi­tions in inter­na­tion­al nego­ti­a­tions. We empha­size the impor­tance of an effec­tive mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism and reaf­firm our deter­mi­na­tion to ensure that mul­ti­lat­er­al insti­tu­tions are the main fora for inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion on peace and secu­ri­ty, human rights and democ­ra­cy and on glob­al gov­er­nance. In this con­text, we rec­og­nize the need to pur­sue the reform of the main UN bod­ies with a view to mak­ing the over­all UN sys­tem more effec­tive and trans­par­ent and which should be reflec­tive of the sub­stan­tial changes the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty and UN mem­ber­ship have undergone.

We wel­come the results of the numer­ous side-events which have con­tributed to the suc­cess of this Sum­mit and which demon­strate the dynam­ics of our Strate­gic Part­ner­ship and the effec­tive involve­ment of a broad range of stake­hold­ers. We also take care­ful note of rec­om­men­da­tions from these events.

We pos­i­tive­ly note that the EU accounts for more than a half of glob­al ODA and reaf­firms its com­mit­ment to increas­ing its aid spend­ing to reach the col­lec­tive tar­get of 0.7% of Gross Nation­al Income by 2015. We also wel­come, based on the aver­age flow of EU ODA for Africa per year, both by Mem­ber States and the EU, and fol­low­ing exist­ing com­mit­ments for the peri­od of the next three years, that more than € 50 bil­lion of ODA will be made avail­able to sup­port the over­all objec­tive of this Partnership.

We express our grat­i­tude to the Leader of the Rev­o­lu­tion and peo­ple of the Great Social­ist Peo­ples’ Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for the care, hos­pi­tal­i­ty and atten­tion extend­ed to the par­tic­i­pants of this Summit.

We decide to recon­vene in Brus­sels in 2013. 

Source:
Coun­cil of the Euro­pean Union 

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