ACP Secretariat
26-28 March: Intra ACP GCCA+ Coordination Meeting
29 March: Special session of the Committee of Ambassadors: revision of the Georgetown Agreement
European Parliament
26-28 April: European Parliament Committee Meetings
European Council
28 March: Coreper I and II
The next Brussels Development Briefing no. 50 on “Growing food in the cities: Successes and new opportunities” will take place on 10 April 2018 from 09h00 to 13h00, ACP Secretariat, Brussels 451 Avenue Georges Henri, 1200 Brussels. This Briefing is organised by the ACP-EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), in collaboration with the European Commission / DEVCO, the ACP Secretariat, and CONCORD .
SourceUnilever Tea recently signed an agreement with Cross-Boundary Energy for the installation and operation of a 600kW solar power plant at the company’s Kericho tea plantation in Kenya. The plant is expected to start producing power in mid-2018 with Unilever to pay monthly power bills generated by Cross Boundary Energy who will finance and operate the plant for 15 years. The solar plant is the first commercial and industrial power purchase agreement for the company in Africa and is expected to deliver substantial savings on power costs and reduce its carbon emissions by over 10,000 tonnes over the plant’s 30-year lifetime.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Development Cooperation and Digital Agenda Alexander De Croo will be heading on a two day mission for Kenya, Africa’s “Silicon Savannah” . He will be accompanied by Startups.be and Close the Gap. Nairobi is one of the most important tech hubs in Africa with a thriving start up scene. Under De Croo’s tenure, Digital for Development (D4D) has taken a central place in Belgium’s Development Cooperation policy, leveraging digitalization for development. Alexander De Croo will be accompanied by 40 Belgian startups, companies and NGOs. Together, they will get to know better the Kenyan tech ecosystem and explore new opportunities for cooperation.
A one-day workshop and regional business-to-business strategic networking, which focused on the CARIFORUM-EU Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), was held March 28 following CARIFORUM’s Council of Ministers Meeting March 26-27. Both engagements were held at the St. Kitts Marriott Resort. Minister of International Trade the Honourable Lindsay Grant said that the training comes at an opportune time as the region prepares for the fallout after the United Kingdom’s (UK) withdrawal from the European Union (EU), also known as “Brexit.