Sector focus

The Joint Africa-EU Strategy ("JAES"), the political and policy framework for Africa-EU relations, identified infrastructure in general and the increased interconnectivity within Africa in particular, as key areas for Africa-EU cooperation. In parallel the Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD) study was launched after the G8 Summit of 2005 at Gleneagles recognising that sub-Saharan Africa suffers from a very weak infrastructure base which is a key factor for failing to realise the Continent’s full potential for economic growth, international trade, and poverty reduction.

Therefore the EU-AITF was originally designed to focus exclusively on regional projects in the Transport, Energy, ICT and Water sectors in Sub-Saharan African, with the aim to facilitate continental integration through improved regional infrastructure.

In April 2012 the European Commission President, José Manuel Barroso announced the EU commitment to the Sustainable Energy for All Initiative (SE4ALL) launched by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and added that “The link between energy and development is fundamental”. The SE4ALL initiative aims to double the share of renewables, to double the global rate of improvement of energy efficiency and to achieve universal access to modern Energy services. Following the EC President’s announcement, the EU-AITF Donors, under the lead of the European Commission, decided to dedicate a special envelope of funds to the EU-AITF to support renewable energy projects, energy efficiency projects and energy access projects. Such projects need not fulfil the regional impact criteria and can be purely national projects.