— ToolsPractical resources from our research

Research is only useful if it leads somewhere.

Alongside our research and podcast, Meridian17 builds practical tools that help businesses, policymakers, and organisations navigate the Africa–Europe partnership in practice — not just in theory.

01 —LiveGlobal Gateway Africa Tracker
Live

Global Gateway Africa Tracker.

The EU's Global Gateway Initiative has committed over €300 billion to infrastructure projects worldwide, with a major focus on Africa. This tracker maps every confirmed project across the continent — sourced directly from the EU Commission's official project database and enriched with pillar classification, phase assessment, and location data.

  • Interactive Africa map with project markers sized by investment scale and coloured by pillar
  • Five GGI pillars: Digital, Energy, Transport, Health, and Education & Research
  • Five-stage phase tracking from Announced through to Completed, with filter controls
  • Official EU source data — every project links to its EU Commission detail page
Explore the tracker →
Global Gateway Tracker — filter rail, project map of Africa with markers coloured by GGI pillar, and selected-project callout
02 —Concept — seeking fundingAfrica–Europe Business Navigator
Africa–Europe Business Navigator concept brief — the three questions the tool answers
Concept · seeking funding

The Africa–Europe Business Navigator.

African businesses looking to engage with European partners face a complex landscape — regulatory requirements, due diligence standards, entry points that vary by sector and by country. Most of the information exists, but it is scattered, technical, and written for specialists rather than practitioners.

The Africa–Europe Business Navigator is our response to that challenge — a guided, interactive concept being designed to help African businesses understand what European partnership actually requires in practice, and where to start. We are actively seeking funding to develop it into a fully functioning resource.

  • Sector-specific guidance on the European regulatory environment most relevant to your business
  • A branching questionnaire that tailors the information to your specific situation and objectives
  • Plain language explanations of EU standards, due diligence requirements, and entry points for partnership
  • Practical next steps — not just information, but a clear sense of what to do with it
Explore the concept →
03 —Live — pilotAfrica–EU Trade Pulse
Live · pilot

Africa–EU Trade Pulse.

An interactive visualisation of annual export flows from ten leading African economies to individual EU member states, sourced from the UN Comtrade database. Select a country on the map, explore its EU export destinations, and drill down into product-level data. An early prototype demonstrating the kind of data tools Meridian17 is developing.

Explore the data →
Africa–EU Trade Pulse — reporter list, Africa–Europe map with EU27 highlighted and flow arcs from a selected reporter, and ranked destinations panel
04 —Live — pilotAfrica–Europe FDI Tracker
Africa–Europe FDI Tracker — EU sources rank, Africa–Europe map with bilateral position callouts, and selected-source portfolio panel
Live · pilot

Africa–Europe FDI Tracker.

European investment in Africa is often cited but rarely mapped in detail. This tool draws on Eurostat's bilateral foreign direct investment position data to show which EU member states hold the largest investment stakes in which African economies, and how those positions have shifted over time.

Select a year, explore the maps, and click any country to see the full picture of its investment relationships across both continents.

  • EU-to-Africa view showing which member states have the largest outward FDI positions in African economies
  • Africa-from-EU view showing which African countries attract the most European investment, and from where
  • Historical trends from 2013 to 2024, with bar charts and trend lines for each bilateral relationship
  • Honest data caveats on routing effects, reporting gaps, and the limits of the immediate-counterpart methodology
Explore the data →
05 —Our approachTools built from research

Tools built from research, not alongside it.

Most think tanks produce research and leave it to others to turn it into practice. We do not think that is good enough. Every tool Meridian17 builds grows directly out of our research — it is a practical expression of what the evidence shows and what businesses actually need.

The Navigator is the first example of this. It is built on our research into the barriers African businesses face when engaging with European partners, and on direct input from businesses who have navigated — or tried to navigate — that landscape themselves.

More tools will follow, each rooted in a specific research question and designed for a specific user. If you have a need that you think a Meridian17 tool could address, we would like to hear from you.

Get in touch →
06 —What comes nextFuture tools we are exploring

What comes next.

The Navigator is our first tool. As our research programme develops, we will build additional tools that translate findings into practical resources. Below are the areas we are exploring for future development.

Exploring

Investment risk explorer

A tool helping European investors understand and contextualise risk perceptions around African markets — comparing perceived risk with actual investment performance data.

Exploring

Business sentiment tracker

An interactive dashboard drawing on our Beat of Business annual data, allowing users to track how African business sentiment toward European partnership evolves over time.

Exploring

Partnership matchmaker

A structured resource helping African and European businesses identify potential partners based on sector, geography, and strategic objectives.