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The importance of Africa for Europe was highlighted in the 1950 Schuman Declaration. Although the overarching framework for relations between the European Union and Africa is embedded in the 2000 Cotonou Agreement, cooperation between the European Union and Africa became increasingly institutionalized through the European Union–Africa Summits of 2000, 2007, 2010 and 2014, during which political leaders from both sides made strong rhetorical commitments to a strategic partnership. Yet, for the wider public, the relationship between the European Union and Africa appears to be both obscure and complex. The fifth European Union–Africa Summit is scheduled to take place in Ivory Coast in November 2017. This article will provide an overview of the development of European Union–Africa relations that coincided with the emergence of the African Union, the successor of the Organisation of African Unity. The so-called ‘strategic partnership’ between the European Union and the African Union represents the most comprehensive partnership the African Union has with any non-African actor. By highlighting current challenges affecting both, such as irregular migration, this article will, however, demonstrate that cooperation between the two is limited and somewhat lacking in strategic direction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the challenges faced by the Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) Group of States with its future perspectives. It discusses the seventh summit of Heads of State and Government of the Africa, ACP Group of States, which was held in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea on December 13?14, 2012 and led to the adoption of the Sipopo Declaration. It also reflects on the partnership of ACP Group of States with the European Union (EU).

Via partnership agreements like the Cotonou Partnership Agreement, the EU provides African countries with access to its markets and asks for compliance with a given set of good governance norms and procedures. While the EU markets are significant for African countries, African markets are not significant for the EU. This asymmetric relationship should give the EU the power to "convince" the African countries to adopt better governance practices. Results from panel data regression analyses indicate that for 34 African countries, an increase in the intensity of trade and imports from the EU over the period of 1984-2009 reduced the level of corruption, but not always the intensity of exports to the EU. These findings do not provide strong evidence in favor of the idea that the EU has effectively used its asymmetric trade relationship in convincing African countries to adopt better governance practices, but they consistently support alternative-rival-hypotheses, namely trade openness and imports-as-market discipline hypotheses. Further research needs to takes into account the increasing influence of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the Africa-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) European Union (EU) Joint Parliamentary Assembly. It states that the Cotonou Agreement has created a partnership between EU and its Member States, and 78 countries of ACP. It mentions that parliamentary dimensions have grown in importance within the framework of EU-ACP.

Since the year 2001, Kenya’s copyright regime has extensively been shaped by Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement; World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty; Africa Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA); and The Cotonou Agreement, which have advocated for effective copyright administration and management structures in addition to stiffer penalties for those who violate copyright laws. Despite better administrative structures being put in place, copyright infringement in Kenya has persisted. Being able to balance the needs of rights owners and information consumers becomes a critical role librarians have to play. Knowledge about copyright, thus, becomes critical. Despite the fact that librarians in Kenya are not a homogenous group, how knowledgeable the different librarian cadres are concerning copyright issues is least understood. The raison d’être for this study is to find out whether different cadres of librarians based on academic qualifications differ in the level of knowledge on copyright issues. A questionnaire was used to collect data. Results indicate no statistically significant difference in self-reported knowledge of copyright among the five librarian cadres based on their education level and neither is there a statistically significant difference based on librarians’ years of service. Statistically significant differences among the five librarian cadres exist when we compare “tested knowledge” of copyright issues. Evidence of insufficient mastery of provisions in the Kenyan copyright law does exist. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The Cotonou Partnership between the states of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) and the European Union (EU) provides a case in which the human rights approach to development is being put into practice. This article uses the partnership to address broader questions regarding the effectiveness of the new approach to development. The EU-ACP partnership is innovative because it reflects the changing international consensus on development, but it is not clear if the norms used in the Cotonou Agreement have achieved the consensus needed to comprise any real shift in development policy. Moreover, it can be argued that what diminishes the efficacy of the human rights approach in the EU-ACP relationship is political conditionality as this mechanism may lead to interventions that are counterproductive to the establishment of stable democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The WTO-sanctioned waiver for the extension of the Lomé system of preferences to the African, Caribbean Pacific (ACP) countries expired in December 2007. This deadline coincided with the scheduled conclusion of the EU-ACP Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations, initiated in 2002. The origins of the EU-ACP relationship stretch back to the early days of the European Community, and were formalised in 1975 with the signing of the Georgetown Agreement. However, there has been a notable `cooling' of the relationship since the signing of the Cotonou Partnership Agreement in 2000. For many, the new EPA framework is perceived as a diktat rather than a true partnership agreement. This article reviews the culmination of six years of talks between the two sides and the EU's apparent `rationalisation' of a decades-old partnership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the forces impacting the longstanding relationship between the European Union and African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states that are altering the fundamental nature of the relationship. Signing of the ACP-EU Partnership Agreement in Cotonou in 2000; Exogenous and endogenous forces of change; Effectiveness of the Lomé model; Differences between the contents of the Lomé and Cotonou agreements; Experiences with the fundamental changes and their impact on cooperation between the countries involved; Superiority of the Cotonou agreement over the Lomé Conventions.