To make the summit a success strong leadership will be needed on both sides of the partnership to square up to the elephants in the room, sorting out the differences to get on with making the EU-Africa relationship a success. There needs to be a fundamental change in the mentalities and mind-set of both parties to shape the inter-continental relationship and its time for the influential African and European leaders to stand up and to make this work! Rebuilding Confidence and Commitment The heads of state of both continents will meet for their 4th summit ...
Do we need a ‘data revolution’ goal to create the right demand for a data and statistics revolution post-2015? Recent calls for a ‘data revolution’ emphasise how in the dark we are on the social, economic and developmental status of developing countries, especially in Africa. Accurate, timely, relevant and available data and statistics in many cases simply don’t exist, particularly on households and individuals. With donors becoming increasingly concerned with measuring results, calls for more and better data are increasing. But efforts to improve data are mostly donor-driven and given fluctuating aid levels, they’re rarely ...
Does RIPs spell ‘Regional Integration Promise’ or ‘Rest In Peace’? The mood at the 2013 African Economic Conference was clear - progress on regional integration in Africa has been slow. The EU is an obvious candidate to support African regional organisations’ (ROs) to drive the regional integration agenda, given its historic experience and diplomatic presence in the ROs’ member states. Yet the EU did not have a strong showing at the conference. Political issues continue to hamper the effective use of EU funds to promote regional integration. Despite the insistence that “we are the regions”, ...
+++ Guest post by William Hynes+++ Official Development Assistance (ODA) has for 45 years been the global standard for measuring donor efforts in support of development co-operation objectives. There have recently been calls for the concept to be modernised. Yet the reform proposals on the table constitute modest adjustments rather a radical overhaul. The scope for reform is also bounded by some high level decisions. The 2012 DAC High Level Meeting agreed to “maintain the definition of ODA”, while investigating how to modernise and clarify it, and discussions on the post 2015 development agenda – ...
+++ Guest post - Jeroen Kwakkenbos, Advocacy Officer at Eurodad and Stephanie Colin +++ The OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) will meet in Paris later this month to discuss the ongoing process of re-examining the definition of – and reporting criteria for – aid. This review could not come soon enough as the EU, some of its largest member states and multilateral development banks, are increasingly reporting profit-making loans as aid due to outdated and ambiguous rules. Eurodad’s new report, A matter of high interest: Assessing how loans are reported as development aid finds a number ...
While the debate on Scottish independence is heating up prior to the referendum in September 2014, it is important to consider what implications an independent Scotland would have for UK and European development aid. While the UK aid would undoubtedly be affected, this new donor country would need to make an effort to minimize the effect on further aid fragmentation. Scottish independence would lead to more fragmentation of European development cooperation and a major reduction in Department for International Development (DFID) programmes as a result of an estimated GBP 1 billion cut in its budget, ...
The “EU’s comprehensive approach to external conflict and crisis”, launched jointly last week by the European Commission and the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, has been a long-awaited Communication for those following the development of the EU’s external action closely. It refers to conflict and crisis in it’s title but, in essence, goes beyond this as it aims to clarify the guiding principles for a joint EU external action across all areas, while emphasising dealing with conflict (prevention) and post-crisis recovery. The EU started discussing the need for this ...
December 19, 2013
Posted: 12:06 PM CEST
by ecdpm
in Africa Change Dynamics, Conflict, security and resilience, Cross-cutting issues, ECDPM, Economic Governance, Food security, Political economy analysis, Strengthening European External Action, Trade and Regional integration
This year a lot had happened in international development and co-operation. The EU External Action Service review was launched, the African Union celebrated its’ 50th anniversary, and dialogue around the post-2015 agenda began to take centre stage. We look back over the last year of ECDPM blogs and share the top ten of 2013. The most viewed blogs have covered topics from political economy analysis to regional integration in Southern Africa. Top ten blogs of 2013: EEAS review and development: yet another EU coordination challenge? What and who drives regional integration in Southern Africa? Le ...
+++ ECDPM Challenges blog series. Post number nine +++ 2014 is a year of institutional transition but it should not be a year for silent reflection on EU external action. The current leadership has an important role to play in maintaining momentum for the EEAS Review while leaving enough space for the 2014 intake to take ownership of the ongoing EEAS change processes. With three major international agreements to be signed in 2015, the High Representative and Vice-President will also need to excel in ensuring coherence of EU external policy with regards to sustainable ...
+++ ECDPM Challenges blog series. Post number eight +++ Institutional Changes The future role of Europe in the world, including Africa/ACP-Europe relations, will be seriously affected by the outcomes of next year’s European elections and related appointments at the top of EU institutions because they will shape EU’s foreign affairs for the rest of the decade. The current EU decision makers will negotiate the EU-Africa summit in April and post-2015 global development commitments, but the responsibility for implementation will fall to their successors. Will European diplomacy continue with a cautious President of the Commission ...
