Preparations for the EU-Africa Global Health Partnership/ EDCTP3 have been underway since 2018 through a consultative process with EDCTP’s stakeholders. This included a series of high-level dialogue events held on 9-10 July 2018 in Ghana, 30 August 2018 in Senegal, and 17 September 2018 in Portugal. These were followed up by a dedicated session at the Ninth EDCTP Forum on 18 September 2018, a side event at the World Health Assembly in Switzerland on 27 May 2019, and various meetings with EDCTP partners.

In 2019, the European Commission launched an Impact Assessment process for the candidate partnership, in order to know which type of partnerships would be the most convenient policy option for the follow-up programme. In parallel, the EDCTP Association Members and the EDCTP Scientific Advisory Committee jointly developed a draft Proposal and Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda for the envisaged Global Health Partnership/EDCTP3. Numerous EDCTP 

The scrutiny and final selection of candidate European Partnerships, with the EU-Africa Global Health Partnership/EDCTP3 as one of these candidate partnerships, is being carried out, with the final selection of partnerships to be announced by the end of 2020 at the latest.

EDCTP’s stakeholders have voiced broad and strong support for the EU-Africa Global Health Partnership as the EDCTP successor programme. As early as 2018, statements of support were made by several European member countries, including Portugal, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Sweden. So far, 14 European countries and 11 African countries have expressed interest to participate in the new partnership. More countries are expected to step forward in the coming months.

stakeholders, including political leaders and public health policymakers, research communities, European and African universities and global health institutes, regulatory partners, product development partnerships, private sector partners and the World Health Organization, contributed with their thoughts and views to this draft proposal and research agenda. In December 2019, the draft proposal was submitted to the European Commission. Moreover, an online consultation involving African EDCTP Association members and other AU member countries not yet part of the partnership was launched to capture additional African views.

The Impact Assessment of the EU-Africa Global Health Partnership has now been reviewed by the European Commission’s Regulatory Scrutiny Board. To continue with the legislative approval process, the revised EU-Africa Global Health Partnership/EDCTP3 proposal will undergo the European Commission’s Inter-Service Consultation in the autumn.

We are happy to share here a short video with informal interviews conducted at the 11^th European Congress on Tropical Medicine and International Health held on 16-20 September 2019 in Liverpool, the United Kingdom. This video is a snapshot of how partners interviewed see EDCTP and its contribution to global health. 

EDCTP looks forward to continuing to work for and take the final steps towards setting up this ambitious future programme, the EU-Africa Global Health Partnership/EDCTP3.