Transcript In the wider context of the discussion of EU-Africa relations and ahead of both the European Think Tanks Group conference and the EU-Africa summit it 2014 we asked some people at ECDPM what they thought were challenges for EU-Africa relations. Dr James Mackie, senior advisor on EU development policy: I think EU-Africa relations can be frustrating in that they… take time. That’s not just because the political processes are slow and there are a lot of actors involved etc. But the protagonists on both sides are quite demanding of each other. The Europeans tend ...
Aiichiro Yamamoto, the Japan International Cooperation Agency’s (JICA) EU representative, talks about how the North-South aid paradigm (rich countries giving aid to poor countries) is transforming it to a partnership model where emerging countries are also becoming donors. These three parties can work together – through triangular cooperation - to solve the common global issues such as climate change and poverty he says. In these two videos, he also outlines the strengths and weaknesses of the European Union’s international development cooperation, and how Japan is keen to work with the EU institutions and Member States ...
Visibility, everyone wants it, but how well are they achieving it? The EU is consistently criticised for low visibility on its external action, and now the European Parliament is calling for the issue to be dealt with in the on-going Review of the European External Action Service. This blog asks: what has actually been learned from efforts to promote EU visibility in external action? Surprisingly in 2010 the European Commission tasked what was formerly the Joint Evaluation Unit for External Relations to provide an answer to this very question.. ECDPM, along with DRN, led the ...
The EU’s “comprehensive approach” in external action policy has provoked a range of responses - but the most widespread seems to be confusion. Ask 10 people from across the EU institutions to define the comprehensive approach and chances are you’ll get 10 different answers. While the basic premise is simple enough to grasp, it’s hard to find consensus, common language or any sense that the EU is actually acting comprehensively. Current developments in Mali have made the necessity for clarity even more pressing. This blog seeks to explore the key questions needed to frame the ...
Andrew Sherriff co-authored this article. As EU budget negotiations are moving to the concluding phase (Figure 1), the ultimate outcome for development and EU external action spending is still unknown. Clarity on key questions, such as an indication of the amount of development funding available, remain clouded by the impasse and posturing in the wider negotiations. The Cyprus EU Presidency, in its role as “honest broker”, is currently lowering expectations, by saying that if agreement cannot be found on the overall level of the EU budget then all elements inside and outside the budget “will ...
Organisational charts in general can’t tell you much about what happens behind the scenes in a company or an institution. They don’t show who is in or out of favour, they don’t map influence and informal lines of communication dictating priorities. However, when looking at previous versions and updates, they help to understand how an organisation is evolving, or at least the formal thinking about how it should. Last week the EEAS published a new version of its organisational chart (dated 1st of May 2012), displaying its internal structure and stating the names of key ...
This post was published in Spanish on the El Pais blog ’3500 Millones‘. Andrew Sherriff co-authored it. Despite repeated (re-)commitments to provide 0.7% of Europe’s collective Gross National Income as aid (i.e. Official Development Assistance), ODA budgets are going down across Europe, the cuts in Spain being an extreme example. Yet in this rapidly changing world the question arises whether ODA remains the most important thing for the poorest in developing countries. Is there anything else Europe should be doing more? Some see the decrease in aid as wilful neglect undermining European credibility given the ...
Andrew Sherriff co-authored this article. ++ SERIES: ECDPM ANALYSIS OF NEW EU DEVELOPMENT POLICY REFORM PROPOSALS ++ Fragility is notoriously and closely related to human suffering, volatile security situations and to ineffectiveness of traditional aid. The continuum of fragility – conceptualizations which characterise the relative strength or weakness of states on a continuum with state failure and collapse at one extreme and states characterized by serious vulnerabilities at the other - is high on the global political agenda. EU Foreign Ministers acknowledged that some countries are “facing increasing fragility” and committed to target their resources ...
In the various analyses of the European External Action Service (EEAS) one year on, those who view the glass “half empty” (mostly independent analysts, journalists and think tanks) seem to have the upper hand on those who view it as “half full” (the official report). Key questions for assessing the EEAS’ performance in relation to Africa are: has the EEAS helped to upgrade the political dialogue between the EU and Africa, and increased the coherence of EU policies, while also furthering development commitments? Africa as a whole, like many other regions and issues, has struggled ...
++ SERIES: ECDPM ANALYSIS OF NEW EU DEVELOPMENT POLICY REFORM PROPOSALS ++ When it comes to violent conflict, the common mantra is that prevention is better (and cheaper) than cure. This is also illustrated by the findings of a recent evaluation of support to conflict prevention and peace building. In Georgia, for instance, the contracted amounts to be spent by the European Commission increased from €19 million in 2007 before the escalation of a conflict with Russia, to €72 million in 2008, the year of the clashes, and €116 in 2009 as a result of ...
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