It is no news that much of the world has been undergoing significant geopolitical realignment in recent years. One manifestation of this realignment is that the post–Cold War consensus that underpinned development cooperation is weakening. We have also witnessed that as political priorities shift in donor countries, foreign aid is increasingly becoming vulnerable to domestic pressure. In the context of EU-Africa relations, official development assistance (ODA) from EU member states is contracting, while many African governments face intensifying fiscal stress and rising development needs.
Even though these pressure are likely to cause considerable disruptions in the immediate future, they might also present an opportunity to rethink the Europe–Africa relationship by encouraging a move away from short-term, aid-driven engagement to long-term cooperation rooted in mutual interests and shared prosperity. The upcoming EU-AU summit represents one of those opportunities to chart a new path for the partnership.
Why the old model no longer works
The OECD estimates that planned cuts by 11 DAC members, most of whom are EU member states, could result in a 16–28 percent decline in ODA to sub-Saharan Africa in 2025. Given these cuts are being carried out simultaneously across multiple donors, they may have serious near-term consequences, particularly in lower-income countries with limited fiscal space and rising debt burdens.
But the current decline in aid is set against a backdrop of longstanding debate about the effectiveness and sustainability of foreign assistance. Modern development aid is partly the result of postwar geopolitics and the Cold War, in which Western governments used development cooperation to secure alliances and deepen their spheres of influence. Once the geopolitical reasoning for development aid weakened after the end of the Cold War, the rationale turned instead towards moral justifications ranging from the unacceptability of poverty to the injustice of heavy debt burdens. This shift gave impetus to major international efforts in the 1990s and 2000s and helped frame development as a shared global responsibility, culminating in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
However, this moral narrative has not withstood recent political pressures to protect development aid budgets in many donor countries. As popular discontent grows in richer countries and scepticism of globalisation deepens, foreign aid, which is perceived as distant from domestic priorities, has become an easy target for massive cuts.
This does not mean cooperation will fade, even as political pressures in Europe and the United States erode the already fragile consensus around ODA. But it does mean the rationale and modalities must evolve.
Positive public sentiment in Africa offers a foundation for building a stronger partnership
Despite shifting geopolitics, African citizens continue to see the EU as a relevant and constructive actor. Recent Afrobarometer surveys, covering 34 African countries, show that Africans express some form of opinion about the EU at nearly the same rate as they do about the African Union (see Figure 1). This suggests that people see the EU, positively or negatively, as more consequential in their national affairs than nation states such as India or Russia. Encouragingly, the ratio of Africans holding positive views of the EU is roughly three to one. This level of favourability is surpassed only by China and the AU. Moreover, favourability varies less across the 34 surveyed countries for the EU than for China, the United States, or Russia. This suggests that views of the EU are more consistent or less polarised across the continent than views of other major powers.
Figure 1: Public opinions of global powers in Africa
Note: The surveys were conducted in 2024 or 2025. The countries covered include Angola, Benin, Botswana, Cabo Verde, Cameroon, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Eswatini, Gabon, the Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
This reservoir of goodwill gives European leaders a real opening to build a more resilient partnership with Africa, if they resist the pull of short-termism. As the EU seeks to secure critical minerals, stabilise energy supply chains, and curb irregular migration, it may be tempted to pursue narrower, transactional deals: trading investment or budget support for access to resources or outsourced border control. These arrangements might seem politically expedient or even mutually beneficial in the short term. But they may eventually undermine the principles necessary to build long-term partnerships. There is a risk that transnationalism could ultimately damage Europe’s standing by breeding perceptions of extractive intent.
From projectised aid to long-term strategic partnership
The current environment calls for a critical review of the underlying assumptions and conventional practices in development cooperation between Europe and Africa. There are a few starting points to motivate this conversation.
- First, aid should focus on strengthening domestic capabilities of recipient countries.
In more stable and middle-income African countries, ODA should lay the groundwork for deeper economic engagement in trade and investment rather than financing service delivery indefinitely. When there is a credible plan for deliberate graduation for these countries, ODA can be used to build institutional capacity and crowd in investment. - Second, donors must make strategic choices about their investments.
ODA tends to be spread too thin across many small activities that are not large enough to achieve transformative impact. As my colleagues Rachel Glennerster and Siddhartha Haria argue here, concentrating support on a narrower set of proven and scalable interventions is likely to deliver better value for money and stronger systems. But this also does not mean that some menu of interventions should dictate strategic priorities. - Third, development cooperation should maintain a moral core.
Despite the difficulty of sustaining development cooperation solely on the basis of moral arguments, donors should retain certain priorities, such as protecting those without political voice through basic health and nutrition services and the foundational learning of children in poor countries.
Time for principled reorientation
The era of expanding aid budgets is likely over, but this need not signal the end of development cooperation between Europe and Africa. Instead, it could prompt overdue reform aimed at moving from a donor-recipient model shaped by Cold War geopolitics to a more equal, strategic partnership. The historical ties and geographic proximity between Europe and Africa make this especially important.
Three principles could guide a renewed EU–AU relationship:
- Anchor cooperation in long-term mutual interests: Resist the temptation to pursue reactive, transactional deals driven by short-term pressures such as migration management or resource competition.
- Use ODA to build capabilities: focus on scalable interventions and systems strengthening.
- Retain a moral core: protect the most vulnerable, even as strategic priorities shift.
Public opinion in Africa remains broadly favourable towards Europe. This goodwill is a strategic advantage that the EU and African governments could use to chart a new path fit for purpose in an era of geopolitical realignment.
This blog post was updated on 27 July 2026.
