To boost private sector development and encourage European investors to consider opportunities in Africa.

The EU-Africa Business Forum is an integral part of the EU Strategy for Africa, which was adopted in December 2005. Like the EU Strategy for Africa, the overriding vision of the EU-Africa Business Forum is to support Africa's efforts to achieve the UN millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and a gradual integration of their economies into the global economy. In line with the MDGs, the EU-Africa Business Forum is strongly committed to three areas where EU-African business can make a difference, namely:

• Good governance, development and poverty reduction;
• Developing further an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory; and, in cooperation with the private sector,
• Making the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications, available.

The EU-Africa Business Forum has structured these three targets into four priority themes :

1. Interconnectivity - infrastructure

2. Interconnectivity - ICT

3. Trade

4. Entrepreneurship

The EU-Africa Business Forum's mission is to establish a platform for fostering mutually beneficial trade and investment between the EU and Africa.

The objectives of the EU-Africa Business Forum are three-fold:

1. To improve the enabling environment for business and investment in Africa through good governance, entrepreneurship and policy coherence.

2. To work in partnership to facilitate business opportunities in Africa and thereby make trade and investment easier, transparent and more attractive.

3. To strengthen the voice and position of the EU-African private sector through closer tripartite cooperation (private sector, public sector and civil society) and effective dialogue on key issues of major concern to business.