Africa Partnership Forum › About APF

(About APF fact sheet - pdf)

What is the Africa Partnership Forum (APF)?  

The Africa Partnership Forum (APF) was established following the Evian G8 Summit in 2003 as a way of broadening the existing dialogue between the G8 and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) to include other African institutions and Africa’s major bilateral and multilateral development partners. 

The objective of the Forum is to catalyze and support action on both sides of the partnership in support of Africa’s development.  Its role is:

1. to make recommendations to leaders on decisions which need to be taken in key regional and global processes, including the G8 and G20, the African Union and the UN, in support of Africa’s development. The themes of the Forum should be strongly aligned to the main themes of these regional and global processes;
2. to monitor the delivery of commitments by both sides of the partnership.

APF members

The APF is comprised of:

• Personal Representatives of Heads of State or Government of the members of NEPAD;
• The Chairperson of the African Union Commission;
• Heads of the eight African Union recognized regional economic communities;
• Head of the African Development Bank;
• Heads of State or Government of Africa’s principal development partners;
• The President of the European Commission;
• Heads of selected international institutions (e.g. the United Nations and its United Nations Development Programme and Economic Commission for Africa, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, and the OECD).

Africa’s principal development partners have been defined as those with official development assistance programmes to Africa exceeding US$100 million a year. This list has been recently reviewed by co-chairs in light of the latest available statistics, and invitations to join the APF have been extended to a number of additional countries.  A further group of countries are also being invited to attend the next APF meeting.

Nature and format of meetings

The APF meets twice a year, with the first meeting focusing primarily on the main political issues to be discussed in key regional and global processes, and the second focusing primarily on the monitoring and evaluation of commitments. The conclusions of each meeting are recorded in Joint Statements.

There are four co-chairs: two from Africa, and two from development partners. The current development partner co-chairs are United States (as G8 presidency), and Belgium (as chair of the non-G8 constituency).

African members

 Development partner members