ALUE/Digital and Green Transition Support

Description What is done in the programme or project and why, what results are pursued, who benefits from the activities and who are involved in the implementation.

The support for Africa's digital and green transition is a pilot project. The aim is to explore the possibilities of using Finnish expertise to promote sustainable and inclusive digitization development in Africa in accordance with Finland's Africa strategy and development policy goals. Within the framework of the project, an external service provider commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would recruit experts, who would promote the inclusion of Finland's development policy and Africa strategy-related goals in the EU's Africa-related Team Europe projects, as well as the utilization of Finnish expertise and know-how in the projects. Possible locations for experts would be e.g. ministries and administration in Finland's key partner countries in Africa, of which at least South Africa has expressed initial interest in the matter. In addition, one expert is planned to be placed in Finland and one in Brussels in the EU's Digital for Development (D4D) secretariat. HAUS has expressed its interest in acting as a service provider for the project, and there have been discussions with it about the modalities of cooperation. With HAUS acting as an external service provider, the cooperation would be based on a mandate between state agencies. The project promotes Finland's development policy goals and the implementation of Finland's Africa strategy and the Global Gateway investment package agreed at the EU-AU summit in February 2022. It is closely related to the Data Governance in Sub-Saharan Africa project, which was also submitted for funding, and within its framework, synergies related to the SAIS innovation support program previously funded by Finland in southern Africa will also be utilized as far as possible. Both the Data Governance in Sub-Saharan Africa project and the current project represent a new cooperation concept for Finland regarding Team Europe initiatives, which involves open questions. Through the pilot project, experience is gained in the functionality of the model for expert support, incl. cooperation with the service provider, modalities of expert tasks and availability of experts, cooperation and influence within the EU, involvement of the private sector and partner countries, and human resource implications, which also involve risks from the point of view of the project.