Major developments are taking place at Europe’s doorstep. High growth rates have led many to believe that Africa will be ‘the next China’. But its immense migration potential and demography will grow exponentially, making it difficult to eradicate endemic African poverty in the foreseeable future. This project aims to contribute to the making of sustainable societies across the African continent whilst ensuring that these evolutions will have a positive impact on Europe.First, it will concentrate on the benefits of regional economic integration with specific focus on the East African Community (EAC), in a comparative approach with the EU model. Second, it will call for a radical re-think of the partnership between the EU and Africa. It will raise awareness among European, African and Chinese elites of the potential advantages for all of launching an ambitious, tripartite strategic partnership between the EU, Africa and China to contribute pro-actively to making African economic development sustainable. It will argue that their respective comparative advantages complement each other. In EU-EAC, ‘EAC’ refers to the two core agendas of the project: first, to the East African Community as an example of regional economic integration; second, to the context of ‘Europe, Africa and China’, to foster a research agenda and develop a training programme as follows:• A training programme on regional economic integration designed for EAC officers, based on lessons to draw from the EU model in the EAC context, and linked to the research.• A research agenda with two closely interrelated strands:(1) The EU and Comparative Regionalism Studies with a focus on regional economic integration in Africa and the EAC.(2) EU-Africa-China Relations with emphasis on developmental economics and mutual trade and development partnerships; attention will be devoted to the potential for an EU-China cooperation to contribute to a sustainable African economic integration and development.