What is the Cotonou Partnership Agreement (CPA)? Signed in June 2000, the CPA is a treaty between the European Union (EU) and 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. Its main objectives are poverty reduction, sustainable development and economic integration of ACP countries into the global economy through development cooperation, political cooperation and economic and trade cooperation.

The European Commission and African Union set up a joint rural Africa taskforce in May, after agricultural co-operation was one of the key topics as the EU-Africa summit in Abidjan in November 2017. The task force and its 11 experts were tasked with making recommendations in January 2019, with a mandate that focuses on promoting food security, transferring skills, climate change adaption and investment in agri-business.

Today the EU and 79 countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) group will begin negotiations on the future of their cooperation after 2020. The ambition is to transform today's partnership into a modern political framework geared to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals. The countries in the EU and the ACP represent more than half of all UN member countries and unite over 1.5 billion people.

CTA, in collaboration with PAFO and AgriCord, will hold a presentation on Benefits of digitalisation for smallholder farmers at the Prize Digital for Development (D4D) organised by the Royal Museum of Central Africa with the support of the Belgian Directorate-General for Development Cooperation (DGD) on 4th October 2018.