May 16, 2012
Posted: 15:05 PM UTC
by Jan Vanheukelom on May 16, 2012
++ SERIES: ECDPM ANALYSIS OF NEW EU DEVELOPMENT POLICY REFORM PROPOSALS ++ On 14 May the EU Council of Ministers adopted a new policy on providing budget support – a composite aid modality that involves financial transfers to partner countries’ treasuries, capacity development, policy dialogue and a results focus. This policy introduces a fundamental shift in the use of budget support. In contrast with the former policy, budget support will no longer be exclusively linked to poverty reduction and growth objectives, but also to the promotion of human rights and democracy. The European Think-Tanks Group ...
May 16, 2012
Posted: 14:05 PM UTC
by Niels Keijzer on May 16, 2012
++ SERIES: ECDPM ANALYSIS OF NEW EU DEVELOPMENT POLICY REFORM PROPOSALS ++ European Development Cooperation Ministers adopted a five-page statement on Monday entitled ‘Increasing the Impact of EU Development Policy: an Agenda for Change’. The journey towards this political statement started in November 2010, when the European Commission (EC) published a green paper that formed the basis for an extensive public consultation which led to the adoption of the EC’s proposal for the Agenda for Change in October 2011. Last year ECDPM analysed the policy reform proposals on this blog. EU Member States’ discussed the ...
May 11, 2012
Posted: 16:23 PM UTC
by Frauke de Weijer on May 11, 2012
Coming Wednesday, on the 16th of May, the new European Report on Development 2011-2012, authored by ODI, DIIE and ECDPM, will be launched. This report looks at increasing scarcity and how it is likely to affect the prospects of furthering inclusive and sustainable development. Increasing scarcity of land and water has already led to large changes in ownership and usage of these natural resources, and emerging evidence is clearly pointing to negative outcomes for the poor. In addition, the changes in land use patterns in developing countries are not contributing to a transition to a ...
May 11, 2012
Posted: 15:53 PM UTC
by Jeske van Seters on May 11, 2012
On 3-4 May, around 200 delegates came together in Nairobi for the annual Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Partnership Platform meeting. CAADP, endorsed by African leaders in 2003, is the agricultural component of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development. Contrary to what the name may suggest, CAADP is not a (donors’) programme, it is a common and Africa-led framework for stimulating and guiding national, regional and continental initiatives to enhance agriculture productivity and food security. Forging partnerships is at the core of CAADP. In that spirit, the 8th Partnership Platform meeting brought together a ...
May 4, 2012
Posted: 11:30 AM UTC
by Bruce Byiers on May 4, 2012
While “good governance” has been on donors’ agendas for some time now, development practitioners realise more and more that all reforms require an understanding of governance contexts. As a result, they increasingly consider governance as a cross-cutting element of all development policy with a subsequent rising interest and demand in political economy analyses. In this context – and with its mandate expiring in December this year – the OECD-DAC’s Governance Network (GOVNET) , a donor platform, met last week to discuss a “new focus and strategy” with ECDPM in attendance as an observer. Participants discussed a wide ...
April 27, 2012
Posted: 16:12 PM UTC
by Simone Gortz on April 27, 2012
The Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES) is quite the opposite of what Herman van Rompuy, President of the European Council, warned of in his now famous speech on the EU’s strategic partners. In the case of the JAES, a policy framework in place since 2007, the strategy is spelled out in Action Plans. Yet the process and political direction of the strategy could be optimized. The JAES is meant to be the EU’s strategy towards Africa as much as Africa’s strategy towards the EU. This concept would mean that the partnership reflects both partners’ priorities. This, ...
April 20, 2012
Posted: 14:04 PM UTC
by Niels Keijzer on April 20, 2012
Water, energy and land belong to the most under-pressure resources today. This year’s European Report on Development, to be launched in mid-May 2012, focuses on these 3 key natural resources and analyses how the ways they are managed affect development objectives. The Report examines the constraints on each, the interrelationships between them and considers how water, energy and land can be managed together to promote economic growth in the poorest developing countries – growth that is both socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable. While the Report’s layout and formal launch are being prepared, this blog post, ...
March 30, 2012
Posted: 15:41 PM UTC
by Dolly Afun-Ogidan on March 30, 2012
In 2003, African Heads of States launched the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), as an effort to renew interest in and prioritize the continent’s agriculture agenda, as well as put food security objectives at the fore of national, regional, continental and global processes. Progress on CAADP has been reviewed every year since 2006 at the CAADP Partnership Platform meeting. During the Platform meeting, various stakeholders who contribute to, have vested interest in or are associated with the CAADP process, have an opportunity to coordinate collective and mutual responsibilities for CAADP implementation. This year, the ...
March 16, 2012
Posted: 13:56 PM UTC
by Bruce Byiers on March 16, 2012
That the private sector is important, if not key, to economic development is nothing new. However, with the increasing rhetoric on the need to “enhance the role of the private sector in development”, events around this topic are mushrooming. BusinessEurope organized a seminar in Brussels on March 15th, with the European Commission, the European Investment Bank, as well as business federation and private sector company representatives present. While we have commented before on the need to distinguish “which” private sector we are talking about, here we were very much discussing how the EU private sector ...
March 9, 2012
Posted: 11:04 AM UTC
by Frauke de Weijer on March 9, 2012
Fragility, as a concept that refers to weak institutional capacity, poor governance, political instability, and frequently conflict, has moved up the international agenda in recent years. As none of the ‘fragile states’ have reached any of the MDGs, these are typically the countries where developmental progress has shown persistent weakness or failure. In an interesting article on his aid on the edge of chaos blog, Ben Ramalingam refers to state fragility as a “wicked problem”, and explores how ideas from complexity theory can help identify new ways of approaching this difficult issue. To me, having worked ...
