From 9-11th October the 4th Africa-Europe Youth Summit was held in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. 120 youth delegates from both continents including the diaspora met to discuss and exchange on major common challenges and solutions.
Over the course of one and a half days delegates were focusing on six thematic areas, including education & skills, peace & security, governance & inclusion, environment & climate, business & job creation, and culture & arts. EFILs delegate Alexandra Singpiel was part of the working cluster on education & skills, where the outcome were three recommendations calling firstly for the creation and incorporation of a framework for the recognition and validation of competences gained through non-formal education, secondly the recognition of evaluation systems and formal education diplomas to enhance mobility of students and young professionals, and thirdly that member states of the EU and AU should guarantee universal access to quality and inclusive education by recognising the importance of Technical and Vocational Education and Training.
The final declaration can be found here: http://www.africa-eu-partnership.org/sites/default/files/userfiles/4th_africa-europe_youth_summit_-_abidjan_declaration_2017.pdf
These recommendations together with the other clusters outcome are building the Abidjan Declaration and will be presented at the 5th AU-EU Summit end November in Abidjan to the Heads of State and Governments, where “Investing in youth for a sustainable future” is one of the overarching themes. Further the declaration will serve as a working document for the so-called Youth Plug-In Initiative where 36 selected fellows -among them Alexandra- will work in the next weeks together with stakeholders including the African and European Union to develop a Youth Agenda for the upcoming years.
More information on the Youth Plug-In Initiative can be found here: http://www.aueuypii.org/. To include as many young people in this process the website contains a section where you can get in touch and “send your ideas” directly to working clusters.
For more information contact elisa.briga@afs.org