New directions in EU-Africa development initiatives

This chapter analyzes the European Union's (EU) development initiatives in Africa. The relationship between the EU and Africa dates back to the inauguration of the EU in the 1950s and has since undergone different iterations as a paragon of Global North and Global South development interactions. The analysis includes the Joint Africa-Europe Strategy, because of its sui generis approach as a framework for development. In addition to normative power Europe theory, the discourse employs neoliberalism and neorealism to explicate the enduring relationship. The chapter demonstrates that the relationship between the EU and Africa is still profoundly asymmetrical, notwithstanding the rhetoric to the contrary, and that the EU’s development policies toward Africa are positioned somewhere between its normative ideals and the realities of competing emerging alternative frameworks.