Delivering on the Addis Ababa Declaration to Accelerate Global Climate Solutions through the Africa-Europe Partnership

Africa holds 30–40% of the minerals critical to the EU’s green, digital, and defence transitions — the backbone of future industrial value chains. To unlock this potential, Africa and Europe must shift to a new paradigm: Europe securing supply for its competitiveness and security, while Africa captures greater value through beneficiation, processing, and green industrialisation. This requires joint action to co-develop and co-invest in a venture capital fund (VCF) for transition minerals, mobilise investment into refining and processing capacity, and accelerate infrastructure that enables local value addition.

Green industrialisation offers a pathway for a sustainable and prosperous future across both continents. Early investment opportunities exist in critical sectors and value chains, including green steel and green ammonia, which can be used to demonstrate the value and impact of strong Africa-Europe cooperation on green transition. Yet, nuanced analysis is required as different critical value chains present sector-specific trade-offs and unequal distribution effects across communities. This sets a clear role for policymakers from Africa and Europe to weigh options to maximise benefits and minimise risks.

The Blue Economy offers a transformative opportunity for Africa, with the potential to generate major economic benefits while advancing sustainable development. To realize this potential, Africa and Europe must elevate and mainstream cooperation by translating policy orientations into concrete joint actions. A priority is to align the African Union’s Blue Economy Strategy with the AfCFTA and CAADP Action Plans, as well as with the European Union’s Ocean Pact, to mobilize investment and strengthen impact across food security, maritime safety, and the interlinked challenges of climate, trade, and development. One pathway could be the co-creation of an Africa–Europe Innovation and Finance Ocean Hub, designed to deepen cooperation, foster joint innovation, and promote responsible co-investment. This integrated approach will strengthen ocean governance, accelerate inclusive growth, and advance shared priorities across the partnership.

If Africa–Europe co-investment in transition minerals and green industrialisation is to succeed, ensuring economies of scale will be critical. Underlying governance, including for cross-border and regional cooperation, must go beyond transparency, accountability and financing. This includes ensuring inclusivity, traceability, social and environmental impact assessments, regulatory coherence, and risk-sharing mechanisms that foster trust and long-term resilience with co-benefits and shared interests. It will require strong guidance from institutions like the AU, RECs, and EU.

Delayed investment and action risks undermining trust and jeopardising the Europe-Africa partnership credibility to deliver. Highlighting concrete examples of investments in Africa-Europe critical transition minerals and green value chains can illustrate how the new collaboration can work in practice, thus reducing a risk profile of similar future investments. Financing these investments should take advantage of all available funding mechanisms, such as leveraging Export Credits and Guarantees to supplement what DFIs and MDBs currently offer, especially as Export Credit Agencies, which have strong experience in addressing the risk profiles of energy investments, could now apply this to renewable energy and green value chains projects.

With the #RoadtoLuanda25 underway, the EU highlighted the ongoing 25-year-old partnerships while emphasising the €150 billion mobilisation target of the Global Gateway initiative. At ACS2, a direct financial commitment of €15 million was made towards energy flagship initiatives such as the African Single Electricity Market, the Continental Electricity Master Plan, and the Africa Energy Efficiency Initiative. Additionally, a new initiative was also launched specifically for Ethiopia to coincide with the operationalisation of the Grand Renaissance Dam.