Unlocking a Shared Future: How Africa–EU Cooperation Can Deepen the Green Transition

 

When I met Amina, a young solar technician in Garissa, Kenya, she stood on a tin rooftop tightening bolts on a newly installed solar panel while her daughter slept gently on her back. “This work is my future,” she said. “But it’s also how we build a better Africa—clean energy, good jobs, less worry.”

Her hopes echo the ambition of Agenda 2063, the African Union’s roadmap for a prosperous, climate-resilient continent. And they illuminate why Africa–EU cooperation is central to accelerating a people-centred green transition.

Europe’s Global Gateway Africa–Europe Investment Package, aiming to mobilise €150 billion for sustainable infrastructure and clean energy, has opened opportunities for renewable projects, climate-smart agriculture, and digital tools for resilience. Yet cooperation must evolve to address real constraints in Africa’s transition—energy poverty, technology gaps, high debt burdens, weak grids, and limited climate finance.

Across the Sahel, farmers are restoring degraded soils through agro-ecological techniques supported by EU programmes like AgriFI and DeSIRA, proving that partnership can strengthen resilience and food security. In Nairobi, Kigali, and Accra, young innovators are transforming waste into new value—plastic into construction materials, textiles into innovative fabrics, and organics into biogas—supported by the EU–AU Circular Economy Agenda. Circularity offers a powerful pathway for job creation, emissions reduction, and resource efficiency.

However, friction points in Africa–EU relations are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

African leaders and businesses have raised concerns about the EU’s unilateral trade mechanisms, particularly the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).

For many exporters—from steel manufacturers in Egypt to coffee growers in Uganda—CBAM is seen as a de facto barrier, introduced without adequate transitional support or recognition of historical responsibility. Producers fear increased compliance costs, reduced competitiveness, and the risk of being priced out of EU markets.

Similarly, the EUDR, while rooted in legitimate environmental goals, has created anxiety among smallholder farmers who lack the digital tools and geolocation systems required to prove their products—coffee, cocoa, rubber—are deforestation-free. As one coffee farmer in Eastern Uganda put it, “We want forests protected. But don’t shut the door while we are still learning how to comply.”

These concerns underscore a broader principle repeatedly emphasised in UN Climate negotiation processes: climate action must be just, differentiated, and supportive of development needs. African negotiators at the annual Conference of the Parties (COP) meetings, including the recently concluded COP30 in Belem, Brazil, underscore the need for transition periods, capacity-building, and finance to ensure that climate-related trade measures do not intensify inequality or erode livelihoods.

The way forward is cooperation, not conditionality. The EU can support Africa by investing in traceability systems, providing technology transfer for low-carbon industrialisation, and aligning CBAM and EUDR implementation with Africa’s realities. Joint Africa–EU platforms need to ensure policies are co-designed, not imposed.

As the sun sets over Amina’s village, her daughter wakes and reaches toward the glowing solar panels. Amina smiles. “By the time she grows up,” she says, “I hope our whole region will run on clean energy—and thrive doing it.”

Her hope is a blueprint. With equitable partnerships, shared innovation, and policies that uplift rather than exclude, Africa–EU cooperation can drive a green transition that is resilient, fair, circular, and true to the vision of Agenda 2063.