African Union – European Union Partnership

The European Union is investing in people, education, science, technology and skills development in Africa under the Africa Union – European Union Partnership. Multiple partnership projects and initiatives, such as AfricaConnect3, AU-EU Skills for Youth Employability Program are being co-funded by the EU to support African regions. Under the joint strategic priority areas, Africa and the EU acknowledge the importance of youth, especially girls and young women, and those living in disadvantaged or vulnerable environments.

In every country, higher education contributes to socio-economic development and brings economic growth with the gained knowledge of skilled graduates. Building on that idea, the AU-EU Higher Education Programme was presented in the light of the Africa-EU Partnership. The programme has received a total budget of 13 million euro, which is fully financed by the European Union. The direct management (procurement of services) will fall under the supervision of the Directorate-General for Education and Culture (DG EAC) through cross-sub delegation.

Goal of the AU-EU Higher Education Programme?

By contributing to the development of human capacities, higher education plays a critical role in driving economic and social development. African education often suffers from a mismatch between the skills which are being taught through higher education and those needed in the working environment of the region.

African higher education institutions therefore need to modernize their education offer and innovate to regain their competitiveness in the labour market. The best way to operationalize this is by increasing the cooperation between institutions and the involvement of young people, students and alumni to improve the relevance of academic programmes.

Objectives of the Programme

The general objective of the action is to promote human capital development in Africa and to support the education goals in Africa. The programme exists out of three components which each pursue complementary specific goals:

1. Tuning Africa 3 seeks to improve the quality and harmonization of African higher education and support students’ employability and mobility across the continent
2. Harmonisation, Quality Assurance and Accreditation 2 (HAQAA2) aims at improving the quality standards of higher education systems and programmes, the transparency and recognition of qualifications in Africa
3. African Students and Alumni Association aims at promoting young people’s insights into educational processes/policies and innovative practices

Concrete Activities

Under the three components of the programme, the following activities will be implemented:

• For “Tuning Africa 3”, the activities will involve the strengthening of academia and students’ capacities for the development and acquisition of generic competencies, the  training on the Tuning Methodology and the establishment of a network of experts that provides support for the harmonisation process in Africa.
• For “HAQAA 2”, the activities will focus on enhancing the quality assurance culture in higher education and the strengthening of capacities of quality assurance agencies to implement African Standards and Guidelines for quality assurance and of the African Union to  implement the Pan-African Quality Assurance and Accreditation Framework
• For the “African Students and Alumni” component, activities will focus on strengthening participatory and leadership skills of young people, facilitating the inputs of student and alumni associations in educational processes in universities and raising awareness on EU mobility programmes.

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