HAQAA3 Presents Its Analytical Framework at the AfriquEurope Conference on African-European Integration

HAQAA3 participated in the AfriquEurope International Conference on Regional and Continental Integration, African and European Perspectives, hosted by Bujumbura International University. This high-level event gathered diplomats, scholars, and policymakers to discuss 25 years of AU-EU relations and seek new ways to enhance regional integration in a complex global landscape.

Kibrome Mekonnen Haile, Project Manager at Obreal and representative of HAQAA3, presented in the opening panel on Africa-Europe Dialogues: Bridging Models and Futures. His talk, titled “An Innovative African-European Approach to Regional Integration,” introduced the HAQAA Analytical Framework. This multidimensional model, developed by Obreal and the AAU under the HAQAA initiative, aims to better understand and support integration in African higher education.

The Framework challenges traditional linear integration theories offering a more realistic, flexible, and evidence-based way to examine continental processes. It captures integration across four key dimensions, and highlighting the roles of preconditions, objectives, and instruments. This approach provides a clearer and more adaptable means to understand how integration unfolds in Africa and how various sectors contribute to it.

In his presentation, Haile explained how the Framework has evolved within HAQAA3 to include the higher education sector. It shows how quality assurance, qualifications recognition, mobility schemes, and data systems play both direct and indirect roles in Africa’s integration goals. The Analytical Framework helps close the gap between the higher education community and regional integration stakeholders, showing how these two areas depend on each other.

During the two-day conference, participants discussed topics such as governance, digitalization, mobility, regional justice, peace and security, and the geopolitics of EU-AU cooperation. HAQAA3’s input connected deeply with these discussions by providing a structured, policy-focused viewpoint that recognizes Africa’s unique conditions and the strategic role of higher education in achieving Agenda 2063 goals.

The AfriquEurope conference highlighted the need for renewed dialogue between Africa and Europe in both intellectual and policy realms. HAQAA3’s involvement aided this effort by demonstrating how strong analytical tools, created in collaboration with African partners, can foster more cohesive, development-focused strategies for regional integration.