Team Europe visits Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to strengthen Africa EU cooperation on health - Amharic Daily - Latest Ethiopian News and Videos

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Team Europe visits Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to strengthen Africa EU cooperation on health

A Team Europe health mission including Belgian Minister for Development Cooperation and EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety as well as other high-ranking officials from eight European Union member states is visiting Addis Ababa from 5 to 7 February 2024.

The mission, organized by the Belgian presidency of the Council of the European Union and the EU Delegation to the African Union, symbolizes the ambition of the Belgian presidency of the EU and the European Commission to strengthen the partnership between Africa and the EU. The mission will follow up on the EU–AU summit of 2022 and identify building blocks for an even stronger health partnership between our two regions, implementing the EU’s new Global Health Strategy.

Belgian Minister for Development Cooperation Caroline Gennez and EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides will visit Ethiopia and the African Union, together with high-ranking representatives from Croatia, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Spain and the European Commission.

The mission will include high-level meetings on health and humanitarian aid at the African Union Commission and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).

Building on the Africa-EU partnership on Global Health, it will kick-off the Belgian presidency’s ambition to accelerate equal access to health, the foundation of societal well-being.

Currently, less than half of Africa’s citizens – some 615 million people – have access to the healthcare they need. Only 3% of pharmaceuticals is produced on the African continent, despite the fact that it bears 24% of the global disease burden and accounts for 11% of the world’s population.

The EU offers added value as a partner in health, based on its expertise and experience. EU and Member States institutions and agencies are already working closely with African counterparts on a wide range of health topics. These collaborations will be codified further during this mission and at the AU-EU dialogue in March 2024 in Brussels. Together, the EU and Africa are working to deliver better health for millions of citizens, to better prevent and tackle health threats, and to shape the global health agenda in areas like the pandemic agreement.

This high-profile mission will acknowledge the health sovereignty aspirations of both Africa – in alignment with the call for a new Public Health Order for Africa – and the EU and its new Global Health Strategy. Bringing into sharp focus the added value of the “Team Europe approach” and its cooperation with the African Union, it will seek to identify novel areas of cooperation, expanding the strategic health partnership between the regions. The trip will set the stage for joint work in the run-up to the Belgian EU presidency high-level event on an AU-EU partnership on global health, which will take place in Brussels on 20 March 2024.

The AU-EU humanitarian dialogue will explore ways in which the EU and AU can further work together on humanitarian policy and action. In particular, the AU and the EU will discuss the establishment of the African Humanitarian Agency, health crises in humanitarian contexts, challenges facing International Humanitarian Law, access and protection, as well as forgotten crises on the African continent. These priorities will also be at the top of the agenda of the European Humanitarian Forum on 18-19 March 2024 in Brussels.