L-R: French Ambassador Marc Trouyet and EU Ambassador to South Sudan Christian Bader at the Press Conference on Monday.

The European Union Delegation to South Sudan, the EU Member state France and a civil society organisation on Monday kicked-off the EU-Africa week with an interactive press conference in Juba ahead of the sixth EU-AU Summit on February 17 and 18. 

This year’s Summit aims at building two unions of shared vision that creates a future oriented space of solidarity, security, peace and prosperity for their citizens, building a new partnership that addresses both immediate and long-term opportunities and challenges and also building a prosperous and sustainable Africa and Europe. 

French Ambassador Marc Trouyet making remarks as the EU Ambassador to South Sudan Christian Bader looked on during the Monday Presser.

The EU and AU Heads of States and Government would discuss how both continents could build a greater prosperity by launching an ambitious Africa-Europe Investment Package taking into account global challenges. 

“The reason we want to have this new alliance is because we have a lot of challenges. We have trade issues that we would like to improve and we have other issues related to movement of people, completely legally unwanted immigration. We want to fight it,” Christian Bader, EU’s Ambassador to South Sudan said during the press conference.

His French colleague Ambassador Marc Trouyet weighed in, saying the two continents are interlinked and interdependent. “We definitely see that the future of Africa and Europe are linked. What is going to be good for Africa is going to be good for Europe and vice versa. We want to build a common future,” Trouyet said. 

L-R: French Ambassador Marc Trouyet, EU Ambassador to South Sudan Christian Bader, AIWE's Ruth Nyaleel and her colleague Katie at the Press Conference on Monday.

The leaders of the two continents are also expected to adopt a joint declaration on a joint vision for 2030.  

In the run-up to the summit, the first edition of the Africa-Europa week brings together young people, civil society, local authorities and the private sector from African and Europe to discuss aspects of the Africa-EU partnership. 

African Indigenous Women Empowerment (AIWE), a women-led community-based organization presented a policy paper for reshaping the entrepreneurial structures in South Sudan. 

AIWE’s Executive Director Ruth Nyaleel cited high taxes, difficulty in accessing loans from financial institutions, high cost of internet services, absence of international payments gateways, poor infrastructure and corruption among others as main factors hindering young entrepreneurs in the country. 

“With the above challenges, AIWE, on behalf of women and young entrepreneurs is therefore, calling upon the international committees, International Organizations, Embassies and willing bodies to help contribute in reshaping the entrepreneurial structure in South Sudan for a better economic growth and empowered future generation through free and fair economic systems and policies,” Nyaleel appealed

AIWE's Executive Director Ruth Nyaleel and her colleague Katie at the Press Conference on Monday.