October 21, 2011
Posted: 11:49 AM UTC
by Jan Vanheukelom on October 21, 2011
++ SERIES: ECDPM ANALYSIS OF NEW EU DEVELOPMENT POLICY REFORM PROPOSALS ++ EU Development Commissioner Piebalgs presented the EC’s Communication on budget support on October 13. This is amidst drastic changes in some of the EU member states’ attitudes and policies towards this aid modality. The Commission takes a strong position to improve budget support so it can deliver development results more effectively and efficiently. For different reasons this new budget support policy merits more attention. How to make aid more effective? Budget support as it evolved from the beginning of the new millennium tried ...
October 19, 2011
Posted: 17:27 PM UTC
by Bruce Byiers on October 19, 2011
Does the current financial crisis simply imply fiscal challenges across-the-board, or does it also present some development opportunities? ECDPM has prepared a Discussion Paper to examine the range of issues relating to taxation and development to feed into this area of the development agenda. The issue of domestic resource mobilisation has become the focus of increasing attention in developed and developing economies alike with the onset of the financial crisis. Only last week, the European Commission released its Communications on Development Policy and Budget Support both of which prominently featured the issue of the need ...
October 14, 2011
Posted: 15:09 PM UTC
by Niels Keijzer on October 14, 2011
++ SERIES: ECDPM ANALYSIS OF NEW EU DEVELOPMENT POLICY REFORM PROPOSALS ++ One year ago, the European Commission published a Green Paper titled ‘EU development policy in support of inclusive growth and sustainable development – Increasing the impact of EU development policy’. This Green Paper, the first promise of a major policy reorientation under the political leadership of Development Commissioner Piebalgs, provided a basis for a public consultation in which concerned stakeholders could share their own views on the future directions of EU development cooperation. ECDPM was one of over 230 organisations who responded to ...
July 29, 2011
Posted: 12:10 PM UTC
by Melissa Julian on July 29, 2011
At its meeting on 13 July, the European Parliament’s Development Committee held an exchange of views with EC and civil society representatives to feed into the emerging EU position for the international High Level forum on Aid Effectiveness being held in Busan in November. The committee has prepared a draft report for adoption by the Parliament in the autumn calling, inter alia, for continued support for the aid effectiveness agenda, EU leadership and a focus on democratic ownership and accountability. EC proposals will be published in the first half of September. EU Development Ministers are ...
July 15, 2011
Posted: 16:31 PM UTC
by Melissa Julian on July 15, 2011
Last week, with little fanfare, not even a press release, the European Commission’s 2011 Annual Report and accompanying staff working paper annex on the European Union’s development and external assistance policies and their implementation in 2010 and the 2011 EU Donor Atlas were posted online. The 196-page annex to the annual report provides detailed information on the delivery of EU commitments, a geographical and thematic overview of implementation and an assessment of the management of aid for results. The EU Donor Atlas provides a detailed mapping of EU donor activities to facilitate planning and programming ...
June 27, 2011
Posted: 12:28 PM UTC
by Bruce Byiers on June 27, 2011
On a recent visit to Pakistan the UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, said that the Pakistanis would have to work on improving their tax system if they were to justify the 650m pounds aid package being offered. As the FT reported, “Mr Cameron admitted it was difficult to justify such aid when British taxpayer saw “waste” in a country where “too few people pay tax”. Although he importantly left out any mention of the role of UK and other developed country tax havens in depriving developing countries of much-needed revenues (something examined in detail in ...
June 17, 2011
Posted: 15:51 PM UTC
by Paul Engel on June 17, 2011
Over the past couple of years, new global players underscored their ascendance in the world order. Emerging economies leveraged their strong economic recovery with a rapid expansion of global trade and finance, including to developing countries. By contrast, many traditional global powers struggled to make ends meet. Countries that have been prominent donors for decades fell back on their development cooperation commitments. Many, moreover, continued to integrate their development support with responses to a host of other concerns – such as peace and security, climate change, economic recovery and growth, and food security. They now ...
May 20, 2011
Posted: 10:27 AM UTC
by Geert Laporte on May 20, 2011
(Version française ci-dessous) When it was signed in 2000, the Cotonou Partnership Agreement between the 79-member African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States and the European Union was widely viewed as offering an ambitious and innovative agenda that would enhance political dialogue, encourage the participation of non-state actors and result in a more effective development cooperation framework. It therefore went beyond the narrow trade and aid focus that was the hallmark of earlier ACP-EU treaties, right from the first post-independence framework agreed in Yaoundé in 1963 through the four successive Lomé conventions implemented between 1975 and ...
April 29, 2011
Posted: 13:40 PM UTC
by Melissa Julian on April 29, 2011
On 12 April, EU Development Commissioner, Andris Piebalgs, presented the priorities he plans to focus on for European development policy in 2012 to the European Parliament’s Development Committee in order to have their views on these (you can click here to watch a recording of the meeting). This Talking Points blog post provides the only detailed written summary available of discussions at this meeting. Commissioner Piebalgs said that a major focus will be the negotiations for the post-2013 EU Multi-Annual Financial Framework (MFF) and the amounts of financing that will be made available for external ...
March 21, 2006
Posted: 14:07 PM UTC
by ecdpm on March 21, 2006
