The EC-funded project ‘Access to Success: Fostering Trust and Exchange between Europe and Africa’ aims to bring together universities from Europe and Africa and explore capacity building partnerships, inter-institutional mobility and cooperation. The goal of the project is not only to map institutional and national good practices and identify case studies, but also to establish a better understanding on how institutions shape their missions in response to specific socio-economic contexts and environments.

The final policy and dissemination event for the project will take place in Brussels, Belgium, on the afternoon of 28 September 2010. The objective will be to disseminate the project outcomes and recommendations to the political community in Brussels and to multi-lateral donors. A white paper of recommendations on European cooperation and coordination in capacity building with African universities will be presented and discussed. Most of the topics addressed will be valid for cooperation with most emerging countries in higher education. However, given the project's focus, they deal specifically with capacity building in African universities, Africa-Europe university collaboration and the Africa-EU Strategic Partnership.

The recommendations are timely, given the upcoming Africa-EU Summit and the various initiatives launched in the framework of the Africa-EU strategic partnership. They illustrate how a bi-regional stakeholder contribution to such a political process can actually take shape.