Almost ready for the kick-off meeting of the CIDRA Project in Marrakech

On Monday 17 and Tuesday 18 the kich-off meeting of the CIDRA Project will start at Cadi Ayyad University in Marrakech. The event is meant to discuss and approve the first joint documents on the agenda and working of the initiatives and discuss the scehdule of the coming activities.

The two-days meeting will see the attendance of two persons per partner, the 13 Universities involved, with scholars coming from South Africa, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Somalia, Ethiopia, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Greece, France, Sweden and Italy, with the University of Roma Tre leading the consortium. The two subcontractors (CesUE and Robert Triffin International) will follow online.

“It will be an extremely fascinating and challenging project”, argued Prof. Fabio Masini, academic coordinator, “It is not easy to establish an infrastructure for dialogue, research, and advocacy between EU and African Universities, but we have many challenges in common to address that this project is just the right initiative we need in the current international political and financial fragmentation and turmoil”. “We are aware”, he added, “that the task is difficult, both for reasons related to different understandings of economic categories such as growth, development, progress, etc and for external influences that might impact the smooth dialogue among the partners. But we are committed to make it successful”.

The agenda of the meeting is the following:

1. Presentation of the project (rationale, WPs, deliverables, events, monitoring, reporting, etc)
2. Approval of the following documents:

• Project Management Guidelines (Roma Tre)
• Project Monitoring Guidelines (Roma Tre)
• Project Logo and website (Aristotele)
• Communication and Dissemination Plan (Aristotele)

3. Agreeing on the syllabus and recording of the didactic modules on regional EU and African integration
4. Defining research priorities
5. Establishing advocacy networks
6. Setting the schedule for next months and forthcoming tasks

And it will be accompanied and followed by socialization events and informal meetings among the partners. Updates will follow.