The role of think tanks between Africa and the EU

What are the challenges when discussing the current state of cooperation between Africa and the European Union (EU)? This chapter focuses on the strategies and synergies developed by European and African think tanks in the light of the cooperation framework between Africa and the EU. There exists substantial evidence to demonstrate that policy knowledge, when developed outside traditional governmental frameworks, improves policymaking and helps strengthen cooperation at the international level among states, organizations, and non-state actors. While scholarship on European and American think tanks developed substantially over the last decades, African think tanks still remain an understudied phenomenon. In this light, a first priority here is to balance these gaps in the international relations/think tanks literature. Furthermore, due to difficulties to assess African think tanks direct impact in the public and foreign policy domains, a second priority is to show how they occupy a ‘special niche’ in the African policy process, but more specifically, vis-à-vis the EU-Africa cooperation framework.