Support programs for performing arts professionals in Africa and Europe
Connect & Create is the Sub-Saharan Africa component of the Africa–Europe Partnerships for Culture program, funded by the European Union. This ambitious project, led by the Goethe-Institut and Expertise France, in partnership with the Institut français, aims to renew and strengthen cultural ties between Sub-Saharan Africa and the European Union in a spirit of equity, inclusion, and sustainability.
Connect & Create embodies the spirit of Team Europe: a partnership between three institutions—the Institut français, Expertise France, and the Goethe-Institut—that combine their expertise to achieve a shared goal.
Launched in 2025, Connect & Create is part of a collaborative approach and builds on previous exchanges and projects carried out with local artists and cultural actors, with the aim of building sustainable and interconnected cultural ecosystems.
Support programs
The Institut français and Expertise France have joined forces and are playing a key role in implementing Connect & Create, particularly in the fields of performing arts and music, by offering programs that support mobility, international coproduction, and exchanges for artists and professionals based in one of the 48 countries in sub-Saharan Africa or in one of the 27 member countries of the European Union.
Between 2025 and 2028, several calls for projects will be published to encourage and support:
- The development of cooperation projects led by Euro-African partnerships;
- The organization of professional meetings bringing together stakeholders from both continents;
- The dissemination and tours of African artistic creations;
- The capacity building of culture professionals based in Africa.
Over the course of three years, Connect & Create will support several hundred artists and professionals in the performing arts and music through four strategic areas:
- distribution of live performances;
- career mobility;
- capacity building;
- creative duos.
