The current EU Commission has prioritised renewing the partnership with African countries as African partners have been emphasising the need for building mutually beneficial relations. At the same time, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia have expressed an interest in intensifying relations with African countries recently, and new partnerships are already emerging.
Durable partnerships require quality expertise in Africa and EU-Africa relations. Yet, the challenge of gaining access to such knowledge locally in the Baltics is ever-present, given the historical relations and upon recently the non-priority status of the topic.
In this context, OSMOS is a bridge-builder between the Baltics, Europe, and Africa. The Baltic-Africa Academy is the first initiative of its kind. It aims to increase Baltic expertise in EU-Africa relations to boost Baltics’ in the EU-Africa agenda and to create a platform of practitioners from the Baltics with expertise in EU-Africa relations.
The first iteration of the Baltic Africa Academy convened fourteen expert participants from the public sector, NGOs and academia of all three Baltic countries on May 22–24 in 2023 for a series of tailored workshops on the issues of migration, security, digital and green transformations in the EU-Africa agenda.
The workshops were provided by experts of the European Centre of Development Policy Management (ECDPM), a leading think tank on EU-Africa relations, and hosted at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science of Vilnius University.
The white paper building on the insights gathered by participants of the Academy, as well as OSMOS’ experience of connecting the Baltics and Africa was produced focusing on the current geopolitical context and the urgency for new informed global partnerships brought by the russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
The Baltics-Africa Academy benefits from a grant under the Active Citizens Fund from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, through the Norway Grants.
