As Africa enters the 21st century, it faces mounting challenges as well as new opportunities. Unlike in the 1980s and the 1990s, however, the conditions for Africa's sustained growth and development are more favourable today than ever before. As a result of economic reforms the overall growth has been in excess of 4.5 percent annually since the mid 1990s. There is ...

The contributions to this compilation add in various ways to the ongoing discussion on China’s role in Africa. They offer a blend of general overviews on the new scramble for Africa’s resources, the Chinese expansion into Africa and case studies on Uganda and South Africa. They present reflections on and insights to a current theme, which is widely and controversia...

The negotiations for Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) between African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries and the European Union (EU) were launched in 2000. The talks are carried out in terms of the Cotonou Agreement, which seeks to replace the non-reciprocal export preferences ACP countries have had with the European Community (EC) with reciprocal free tra...

The India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) Dialogue Forum is a trilateral development initiative to promote South-South cooperation and exchange. The forum was launched with the adoptionof the Brasília Declaration in June 2003. Each of the three countries has ambitions to play a leading role in regional and global affairs. The role of the Group of Twenty (G20) in re...

The Joint Africa-EU Strategic Partnership and Action Plan was adopted in Lisbon in 2007. This new strategy, which is often referred to as a ‘people-centred partnership’, was launched with the purpose of scaling-up political dialogue between the African Union (AU) and the EU in the interests of building a solid and sustainable continent-to-continent partnership. It ...

The EU and the ACP countries aim to conclude the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) by the end of December 2007. All parties agree that these trading arrangements are meant to be first and foremost “development instruments”. However, their positions differ greatly on how the EPAs will impact on theultimate goal of poverty reduction. In this policy note Marikki ...