The Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Dr Naledi Pandor, will undertake an Official Visit to Denmark to participate in the 2024 Nordic-African Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, scheduled to take place from 2-3 May 2024, in Copenhagen.

The two-day annual meeting will be held under the theme, “Multilateralism&increasing Trade and Investment”.

Several African Ministers of Foreign Affairs or their representatives have confirmed their participation.

The Nordic-Africa Foreign Ministers Meeting was established in 2000 with engagements between five Nordic countries and ten African countries. Its objective was to emphasise the political importance of Africa and to demonstrate that Africa-Nordic relations went beyond development cooperation.

The Meeting provides an opportunity for the African countries to exchange notes with countries of the North on key global issues and developments. It also serves as the developing mechanism for improving trade and investment between African and Nordic countries.

The Nordic-African Foreign Ministers Meeting will include two closed plenary sessions, one on Partnerships in the African Century and the second plenary on Global Governance and International Financial Architecture.

In addition, the meeting will have two sessions of separate roundtables each co-chaired by the Ministers from Africa and Nordic countries to discuss the topic, “Peace and Security will take place”.

Also included in the programme are two-panel sessions:

(i) an Africa-Nordic Youth Panel which will discuss the theme – Youth and Economic Partnerships – five youth representatives will be joined by two Foreign Ministers (one from Africa and one from the Nordics).

(ii) An Africa-Nordic Research-Policy Roundtable, which will discuss Economic Partnerships in an Age of Complexity: sustaining Peace and fostering Prosperity through Africa-Nordic cooperation.

The African-Nordic Business Meeting aimed at exploring opportunities to strengthen trade and investments between African and Nordic countries is on Friday, 3 May 2024.

Three-panel discussions, comprising African and Nordic Foreign Ministers as well as African and Nordic Country Trade representatives and business organisations will be held during the business meeting. The three panels are a High-level Session on increased Cooperation and Trade; a High-level Session on Green Transition and Digitisation; and a High-level Session on Food Value Chains.

Minister Pandor will use the opportunity of her visit to Denmark to also have bilateral discussions with some of her counterparts both from the Nordic and African countries.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Republic of South Africa: Department of International Relations and Cooperation.