Some 5,000 people from around the world - students and civil society organisations to Nobel peace-prize laureates and presidents – discussed how to effectively ensure poverty eradication and sustainable development at this year’s “European Development Days” event held from 22-24 October in Stockholm. Full coverage is available on the event’s website, but here is my one-page summary of the key points raised and the suggestions made on what’s needed next, particularly from the European Union in the coming days and weeks, to put development cooperation on the right course. Speaker after speaker identified the heart ...
The expected introduction of the European Union’s (EU) Lisbon Treaty in 2010 will fundamentally alter how EU external action is conducted. This presents both risks and opportunities for EU development cooperation. The general expectation of EU Member States’ Senior Officials attending an informal meeting on this issue, hosted by ECDPM on 16 September 2009, was that progress in EU integration and a stronger EU profile in the world would strengthen EU development cooperation and improve policy coherence for development This would also help to ensure better cooperation with partner countries in the South. But there were varying assessments on how these aspirations might best be achieved. ...
Contribution by Andrew Sherriff and Eleonora Koeb. On the 12th of October 2009, the African Union Peace and Security Council (PSC) and the European Union Political and Security Committee also known by its French acronym (COPS) will meet in joint session for the second time in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. With Somalia, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, a number of unconstitutional changes of government in Africa, the rise of terrorism, drugs trafficking in West Africa and piracy in the Horn, the agenda is likely to be full with pressing immediate concerns. Yet it would be a missed opportunity if this joint forum ...
The challenges at the nexus between the global economy, climate and security are intensifying. Europe has a critical opportunity to emerge as a progressive force in tackling these global problems, says ECDPM’s director Paul Engel together with other three leading figures in the continent‘s development-policy arena: Simon Maxwell, Dirk Messner & Pierre Schori. Click here to read the paper.
