REFERENCE GROUP ON INFRASTRUCTURE MEETING

INVITATION TO REPRESENTATIVES OF THE MEDIA

What: The Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES) Meeting of Reference Group on Infrastructure (RGI)

Why: The RGI is mandated to steer the strategic Infrastructure Roadmap in the framework of the Joint Africa-EU Strategy. At their annual meeting, the Group will address the 2018-2020 Africa-EU infrastructure agenda across sectors (energy, water, transport, and digitalisation).

When: 17-18 May 2018

Where: Small Conference Hall 4, NCC, AUC Headquarters Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Time: Starting from 9:00 A.M.

Who: African Union Commission (AUC) in partnership with European Union Commission.

Participants:

The RGI meeting will bring together representatives of the African Union Commission and the European Union Commission; The Regional Economic Communities (RECs); NEPAD Agency; Member States of the African Union and the European Union; representatives from Ministries, sectoral agencies and institutions; Sectoral experts- and development cooperation platforms such as the African Transport Policy Programme, the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa etc.; as well as International Financing Institutions.

Notes to the Editor:

Scope and Objectives of the Reference Group on Infrastructure

The overall objective of the RGI is:

· to contribute to the implementation of the 5th AU-EU Summit of November 2017 conclusions, stipulated in its Political Declaration under Strategic Area 3: "Mobilising Investments for African structural sustainable transformation";

· to ensure overall cross-sectoral coordination of Infrastructure domains (energy, transport, water, digitalisation) for the JAES period 2018-2020;

· to guide decision-making for the C2C meetings as well as relevant other fora of JAES partners in relation to infrastructure;

· to facilitate, strategise and monitor the implementation and evolution of the 2018-2020 Abidjan Action Plan and for domains of water, the African Water Resources Management Priority Action Programme 2016-2025, thereby acknowledging the living nature of these documents;

· to examine the strategies, synergies and complementarities between the different policy responses in the above sectors, intended for issuing policy guidance and provide strategic orientations.

To this effect, the scope of the RGI is to:

· promote intra-African trade and support the advancement of greater economic integration by further developing sustainable connectivity, building on the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA), NEPAD programmes and the AU Agenda 2063 flagship projects including the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP);

· ensure policy coherence, facilitate and advice on overall PIDA implementation and its challenges linked to the on-going PIDA PAP 2012-2020, the preparation of PIDA PAP 2020-2030 from a medium-term perspective and related PIDA instruments;

· promote integrated, multi-sectoral infrastructure approaches (including orientation to gender sensitivity, climate change and resilience, energy, water, transport, information and communication technology, connection of rural areas, employment creation) as conceptual basis;

· promote the mainstreaming of Gender Equality in all sectoral response frameworks;

· promote the mainstreaming of Climate Change in all sectoral response frameworks in response to the commitments and full implementation of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the Marrakech Action Plan adopted at COP22;

· promote quality infrastructure delivery and investment in all sectoral response frameworks encompassing the need for spurring investments, for creating and entertaining conducive business frameworks to attract private sector crowding in, for enhancing project preparation enhancement, institutional capacity building and sectoral governance;

· promote "Digitalisation for Development (D4D)" and contribute to the mainstreaming of "Digitalisation as Enabler" across all sector response frameworks;

· build on the experiences of and to promote the AU-EU Energy Partnership and the African Renewable Energy Initiative towards the creation of building new opportunities for growth and job creation;

· ensure information exchange towards complementarity and coherence between the different funding instruments supporting PIDA implementation, such as the European External Investment Plan (EIP), Africa 50 fund etc.

· provide strategic orientations regarding possible initiatives, projects, programmes to be funded under the DCI-PANAF blending envelope;

· enhance information dissemination and communication of actions under the JAES visibility networks.

Media representatives are invited to take part and cover the event.

For interview requests, kindly contact:

Gamal Ahmed A. Karrar| Communication Officer| Directorate of Information and Communication, African Union Commission | E-mail: GamalK@africa-union.org

Mrs Esther Azaa Tankou | Head, Information Division, Directorate of Information and Communication, African Union Commission | Tel: +251(0) 911361185 | E-mail: yamboue@africa-union.org

For further information: Directorate of Information and Communication | African Union Commission I E-mail: DIC@africa-union.org I Web Site: www.au.int I Addis Ababa | Ethiopia

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