Ms Emily Wigens:

There are a couple of areas where there is a little bit of tension between Europe and its partners at the moment. There have been accusations of double standards on a number of areas, such as the treatment of migrants from different regions. During the pandemic European member states pumped unprecedented, historic amounts into their economies to prop them up whereas the corporate global financial response to help lower income countries to respond to the economic aftershocks of the pandemic were underfunded. That, coupled with vaccine nationalism, means there is a tension and, frankly, a trust issue between Europe and some of its partners. I would agree that credibility is not only about resources but is also about delivering what you have said you will do. Europe talks a good game and rightly focuses on the need to work together with Africa to tackle some of the greatest challenges facing citizens on both continents, whether it is the climate crisis or pandemic preparedness but at the same time, there are cuts to these very programmes. All that fuels the fire and damages trust. That is what I was getting at with my point about needing credibility in order to bring partners along to prioritise the issues that really need to be addressed. Europe is very good at that but there is work to be done in ensuring that it has the resources and can work on that trust deficit that exists.