At the 1st Africa-Europe Youth Summit (Lisbon, 2007) African and European youth representatives recommended governments, the European Union, the African Union and the Council of Europe, to join efforts in order to strengthen the Euro-African Youth Co-operation by “developing an Africa-Europe Youth Forum where representatives of youth organisations in both continents have the opportunity to evaluate and monitor the efforts of Governments as well as youth organisations and the progress of the Euro-African Youth Cooperation.”

A Monitoring Group was created for this purpose, composed by the Pan African Youth Union, the European Youth Forum, the Advisory Council on Youth of the Council of Europe, the African Union Authority and the European Commission, facilitated by the North-South Centre.

The aim of the Monitoring Group was to monitor the implementation of the programme for Africa-Europe Youth Cooperation and to allow for more regular contact and exchange between the regional youth platforms and institutions from Europe and Africa. These regular monitoring meetings provided the space for updated feedback of the last activities implemented and direct participation in the preparation of different actions foreseen.

The first meeting took place on 4 February 2009 in Lisbon. As well as agreeing on the constituent objectives of the Monitoring Group, the preparations of the institutional follow-up meeting of the AEYS were also discussed.

The second meeting took place on 30 and 31 October 2009, addressing the planning of the 2nd Africa Europe Youth Summit. A steering group was created for its preparation, meeting in July, September, and November 2010.

The third meeting took place on 17 September 2010. The upcoming renewal of the founding framework instruments was explored there.

The fourth meeting took place on 16 May 2011, discussing the AEYC 2012-2015 Action Plan and the launch of the Africa Europe Youth Platform (AEYP) developed at the Youth Leaders Meeting (Addis Ababa, April 2011).

The Africa-Europe Youth Platform (AEYP) was created at the Youth Leaders Meeting on Youth Policies in the Context of the Africa-Europe Youth Cooperation (Addis Ababa, 2011) for the monitoring, evaluation and governance of the “2012-2015 Action Plan” for the Africa-Europe Youth Cooperation.

The aim was to institutionalise the dialogue and reinforce the coordinated action between all parties involved in the Africa-Europe Youth Cooperation, acting as a political body between summits and being the steering body for the preparations and implementation of the Africa-Europe Youth Summits.

The Africa-Europe Youth Platform was composed by the European Youth Forum (YFJ), the Pan-African Youth Union (PYU), the African Diaspora Youth Network in Europe (ADYNE), the Network of International Youth Organisations in Africa (NIYOA) and the Advisory Council (AC) on Youth of the Council of Europe, the African Union Commission, the European Commission, and the North-South Centre as facilitator.

In addition to these permanent representatives, 5 National Youth Councils from Europe and the PYU Vice-presidents of the 5 African Sub-Regions, as well as some INGYOs, were invited to attend the meetings.

The first meeting took place in November 2012 at the headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa. The second meeting took place in Brussels, in November 2013, setting a Steering Committee composed by the permanent members of the AEYP to organise the 3rd EU-Africa Youth Summit (to be held in Brussels in 2014). The third meeting took place in January 2015 in Nairobi (in the framework of the 6th AUYD), as well as the 4th meeting (in the framework of the 7th AUYD), organised in November of the same year.