EU-Africa Reference Group on Infrastructure (RGI)
The RGI is composed of representatives from the African Union Commission and the European Commission; representatives from the AU and EU Member States are also invited to participate in meetings. The RGI’s remit is to
- examine the strategies, synergies and complementarities between the different policy responses in the transport, energy, ICT and water sectors, intended for issuing policy guidance and provide strategic orientation to the Partnerships;
- exchange information amongst its members as regards the needs of infrastructure and the planned regional or national action plans;
- share experience between its members on the sectoral regulatory frameworks
- structure information exchange with other international initiatives supporting infrastructures, such as the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa or the Sustainable Energy for All;
- enhance visibility, information dissemination and communication of actions under the Joint EU-Africa Strategy (JAES)
At the RGI meeting in Brussels, on 24-25 March 2015, the following statement was issued:
“On the way to greater economic integration, we re-iterate our joint commitment to develop transport, access to drinking water and to sustainable and affordable energy, with a particular focus on renewable energy and energy efficiency. We recognise the strategic importance of promoting interconnections in the areas of energy and transport between the two continents. We also recognise the important and strategic role of the 'virtual' infrastructures enabled by the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). This will include strengthening the capacity of stakeholders to develop public-private partnerships and extending the number of projects financed by mixing grants and loans (blending mechanism) to enhance the development impact”.
“Strategic priorities for cooperation in the fields of energy, transport, water and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have been developed by the Reference Group on Infrastructure (RGI) through Sector Strategy Papers in coherence with the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA), the EU Development Policy and other guiding policy frameworks, such as the UN Sustainable Energy for All Initiative. We consider the Reference Group on Infrastructure as the sole and functioning cross-sectoral coordination mechanism for steering the infrastructure agenda under the 2014-2017 JAES Framework”.
(Extract from the Statement for the College to College (C2C))
