Events

The Policy Center for the New South and the French Institute for International Relations (Ifri) are organizing the 4th Edition of the 4x4 Directors Forum: African European Think Tank Dialogue to identify areas of cooperation to build solid bridges between the African and European continents.

Think tanks play an important role in shaping policies and agendas across the board. They provide platforms to better understand the fast-paced transformations and complex challenges on local, national, continental, and global levels by creating the bridge between governments, research and academia, as well as civil society and the media.

In today’s globalized and increasingly interconnected world, society is facing new challenges such as “fact-free” and “post-truth” zones where evidence-based contributions and knowledge are sometimes disregarded, even rejected, creating uncertainty around policymaking.

In these trying times, think tanks have the obligation to counter these trends by offering evidence-based assessments that are accessible to the public and decision makers.

Think tanks in the North and the South, Europe and Africa, face similar challenges embedded in different and difficult environments. In the digital age, the links between the African and European continents will continuously increase, and finding solutions will only be possible through joint effort. As responsible civil society actors are facing similar common challenges in values and fields, think tanks need to affirm their role as the bridges between all stakeholders and provide platforms that encourage dialogue.

It is in this spirit that the 4x4 Directors Forum came to be, as the Policy Center for the New South (PCNS) and The French Institute for International Relations (IFRI) decided to organize a conversation between 4 African and 4 European Think Tank directors to identify areas of cooperation to build solid bridges between the African and European continents under the theme “Africa-Europe Relations: Shaping the Digital Future”.