LUSAKA, Zambia (AN) – In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, African and European governments have built a new diplomatic bridge to promote scientific cooperation between researchers and innovators.
Co-created by the African Union and European Union, the A.U.-E.U. Innovation Agenda launched in July 2023 with 1 billion euros in backing from European sources, among others, to help researchers and innovators create products, services, businesses and jobs.
"The A.U.-E.U. Innovation Agenda is science diplomacy in practice," said Vincenzo Lorusso, a policy officer for E.U.-Africa cooperation on science, technology and innovation and E.U. chair of the A.U.-E.U. Innovation Agenda working group.
The pandemic exposed global inequities in resource sharing and Africa's reliance on external sources for most vaccines and health technologies, prompting a renewed focus on self-sufficiency and innovation.
“COVID-19 brought an unprecedented global crisis. It unmasked the need for Africa to become more self-sufficient in production, manufacturing, and supply of vaccines and health technologies,” Lorusso said in an interview with Arete News.
"Before the pandemic, Africa produced less than 1% of the vaccines it needs. This stark reality spurred African leaders to action, leading to many global initiatives, like the 'Team Europe Initiative on Manufacturing and Access to Vaccines, Medicines, and Health Technologies in Africa,' or MAV+, launched in May 2021," said Lorusso, a public health expert with a background in international development and African studies.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced MAV+ with an initial 1 billion euros from the E.U. budget and European financial institutions such as the European Investment Bank. The goal is help Africa produce more vaccines and medicines at strategic hubs in Egypt, Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and South Africa.
The A.U.-E.U. Innovation Agenda, which grew out of high-level talks in July 2020, followed three years later as a policy agreement among the A.U.'s 55 member nations and the E.U.'s 27 member nations to create "tangible positive impact on the ground."
Today, science diplomacy — leveraging science, technology, and innovation for international cooperation — takes center stage in Africa-Europe relations, driven by initiatives like the A.U.-E.U. Innovation Agenda.
"Science diplomacy in the context of Africa-Europe relations is the art and practice of leveraging science, technology and innovation to really enhance cooperation," Lorusso said. "For science diplomacy to express itself in the most effective way, it needs to focus on common issues and mutual benefits."
At the nexus of health, climate and development
The pandemic exposed an acute need for more scientific collaboration not only on public health issues, but also on other global challenges.
One of the key challenges in Europe-Africa relations is balancing Europe's climate-focused policies, which include a blueprint for climate neutrality by 2050, with Africa’s industrialization goals under Agenda 2063.
The 10-year framework for the A.U.-E.U. Innovation Agenda focuses on four priority areas – public health, green transition, innovation and technology, and capacities for science – along with "cross-cutting issues."
It helps the two continental organizations find "points of convergence in the priority domains defined together," Lorusso said.
African economies "can grow so much by leveraging green energy sources that they have within the continent while still following their own development trajectory," he said. "It is thanks to science diplomacy that we have been able to agree on those points."
A growing role for science diplomacy
Several African countries lead the way in science and innovation.
Rwanda, for instance, hosts critical pan-African institutions like the African Medicines Agency and African Development Bank-supported African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation, as well as the U.N. Development Program-supported "Timbuktoo" HealthTech Hub Africa.
Senegal’s Institut Pasteur Dakar is a pioneer in local vaccine production. Egypt is home to the African Space Agency, created by the A.U. in the past decade. Nigeria, meanwhile, invests in domestic research through initiatives like the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, or TETFund.
South Africa, with its robust research infrastructure, higher education networks, and Group of 20 presidency for 2025, plays a pivotal role in shaping continental policies.
Since 2022, South Africa's Science Diplomacy Capital for Africa, or SDCfA, has put the nation at the forefront of a growing movement that combines the uses of science and diplomacy for common agendas.
At the Science Forum South Africa in the nation’s capital Pretoria in December, South Africa’s science minister, Blade Nzimande, said scientists must confront global challenges like genocide and war. He indicated that science and diplomacy will be a central pillar of South Africa's presidency of the G-20 major economies this year.
“Science and society are indivisible, and scientists cannot be oblivious or neutral to injustices taking place around them," he told the conference. "This is especially true for Africans, given the long history of colonialism and racism, in which science itself was used as tools of subjugation and exploitation. Therefore, we will continue to use science diplomacy to foster social justice and human solidarity.”
