4.5 Country, multi-country, regional and global levels
TEIs can be developed at country, multi-country, regional and global levels. For regional and global TEIs, it is important to ensure that regional TEIs respond to challenges that are regional and/or global in nature and that cannot be (solely) addressed at the country level. Regional and global TEIs should therefore operate at regional and global levels to provide collective regional or global responses. These should include regional/ global policy dialogue with the relevant partners (i.e. a regional organisation for a regional TEI). They should not duplicate country-level TEIs but complement and ideally work in synergy with and reinforce national-level TEIs. It should be remembered, however, that regional TEIs should be more than a collection of country-level actions grouped together. Global and regional TEIs, in particular, should maintain efficient and lean governance and management structures to facilitate the collaboration of TEI participants.
The African European Digital Innovation Bridge (AEDIB) is a part of the regional TEI Digital Economy and Society in Africa (D4D Hub Africa), which was initiated by Belgium, France, Germany and the Commission. It brings together 14 partners from Europe and Africa with experience in building innovation ecosystems in both continents. The AEDIB establishes a network of African and European Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs) to create and strengthen a common African-European digital innovation ecosystem.
On global TEIs specifically, there have been lessons learned in the past years from global initiatives that were led by the EU which can be used to inform the way global TEI can be better operationalised. For example, a recent audit done for the Global Climate Change Alliance(+) has shown that, when it is apparent during implementation that sufficient funding is not available, the participating members should go back to the originally-agreed objectives, and revise and tailor them to suit the new conditions.
⇒ Also see the methodological note on the design of TEIs in Annex 3.1.