- #RoadtoLuanda25
- Youth
AEF at MONDIACULT 2025: Culture Collab Lab High-level Dinner
- The Africa-Europe Foundation
A high-stakes creative lab where diplomacy meets disruption: Can AU & EU Rewrite the Rules?
Hosted by: Africa Europe Foundation (AEF) & UNDP
Date: 29 September 2025 | Time: 90 minutes
Location: TBC
By 2050, one in four people will be African, yet today the continent claims just 1.5% of the $2.3 trillion global creative economy—a staggering gap when compared to Asia’s $438 billion in creative exports or Europe’s 55% stranglehold on creator royalties. While AU-EU partnerships pay lip service to cultural heritage and youth empowerment, they systematically exclude the creative economy’s transformative potential, despite clear evidence that Africa’s creative industries could drive employment, innovation, and equitable growth.
The data is undeniable: from Africa’s paltry 0.6% share of global royalty collections to the political inertia that treats culture as a checkbox rather than an economic catalyst, the system is rigged. But the tide is turning—Afreximbank’s $1B+ investments and grassroots creative movements demand a reckoning. Today, we convene not to debate, but to disrupt: to dismantle extractive frameworks, hack inequitable distribution models, and forge radical alliances that position Africa not as a cultural pawn, but as the protagonist of its creative future. The question isn’t whether change is possible, but who has the courage to act.
CONTEXT AND RATIONALE
The side event at MONDIACULT 2025 will launch the groundbreaking report "Skills Foresight: The Creative Economy and Untapped Potential of Cultural Cooperation for Africa-Europe Youth"—co-authored by Culture Solutions and the South African Cultural Observatory under the Africa-Europe Foundation (AEF) Research Consortium. As Africa’s creative economy remains vastly underleveraged despite its potential to drive youth employment and cross-continental collaboration, this report provides actionable insights to bridge skills gaps, amplify equitable partnerships, and align policies with the realities of a rapidly evolving cultural sector.
Hosting this launch at MONDIACULT, UNESCO’s premier global culture forum, ensures direct engagement with policymakers, creatives, and investors to translate research into transformative action—advancing the AU-EU partnership beyond rhetoric toward measurable impact.
OBJECTIVES
• Launch the Skills Foresight report
• Diagnose systemic barriers using the report's data
• Prototype solutions through creative collaboration
• Pressure-test ideas with real decision-makers
FORMAT
This two-part event begins with a 90-minute participatory workshop, where stakeholders dissect the Skills Foresight report’s findings and co-create actionable recommendations. The workshop is designed to be solution-oriented, with structured discussions and rapid prototyping of ideas. Immediately following, a 60-minute high-level dinner convenes key decision-makers to review the proposals, debate feasibility, and secure commitments. The goal is to bridge research and policy by ensuring concrete next steps emerge from the dialogue.
Duration: 90 minutes | Participants: Creatives from Africa and Europe, policymakers, investors, researchers