2010 will be a busy year by any standards. A recently ratified Lisbon Treaty is expected to reshape the way in which the EU deals with its external action. Negotiations for the revision of the Cotonou Agreement are expected to be concluded in March 2010 and European and African Heads of States are due to meet in a continent-to-continent Summit in the last quarter of the year. But 2010 will also be clouded by many questions. Will European institutions, and the new faces behind them, seize the opportunity offered by Lisbon Treaty to embark on ...
January 25, 2010
Posted: 07:32 AM CEST
by ECDPM Editorial Team
in ECDPM
Since its inception in 2002, the African Union (AU) has launched a number of governance instruments and has created institutions to support their implementation. It has also paid attention to the need for coordination and an integrated approach to governance by these institutions through the framework of the so-called African Governance Architecture (AGA). In December 2009, the AU Commission convened a meeting in Nairobi with key stakeholders and discussed how, in very practical terms, to create the basis for elaborating, consolidating and implementing a common vision and the objectives of the governance architecture. The meeting ...
January 21, 2010
Posted: 09:37 AM CEST
by ECDPM Editorial Team
in ECDPM
To maximise the benefits from aid and minimise the risk of doing harm, donors need to take into account the partner country’s political and economic realities. To do this, a number of donors have decided to invest more energy in governance and political economy analysis. In a contribution to capacity4dev.eu, EuropeAid’s interactive platform that supports the European Commission’s efforts to make technical cooperation more effective, ECDPM’s Jan Vanheukelom outlines donors’ efforts to develop models for the systematic analysis of power and its impact on policy change and reform processes. The added-value of this analysis is ...
January 21, 2010
Posted: 09:36 AM CEST
by ECDPM Editorial Team
in ECDPM
In the newly published annual Challenges Policy and Practice Insights paper, ECDPM researchers and partners from African institutions preview some of the debates on EU development cooperation that are expected to unfold in 2010. Rather than predict outcomes, the paper seeks to frame the key issues, and the broader backdrop against which they are situated, enabling as wide a group of stakeholders as possible to follow and participate in them. Drawing on an ECDPM opinion survey on EU-ACP relations conducted in 2009, the paper covers a broad landscape of issues including: the repercussions of the ...
January 21, 2010
Posted: 09:35 AM CEST
by ECDPM Editorial Team
in ECDPM
The Africa, Caribbean and Pacific-European Union (ACP-EU) Partnership Agreement includes an article on migration which sets out the principles for dialogue, fair treatment, return/readmission and development support to regions from which migrants originate. The article is currently under revision, with agreement by both parties to strengthen its development dimension. There is a perception, however, that the EU’s main goal is to tighten requirements for ACP countries to readmit illegal migrants. An ECDPM briefing paper on the revision, prepared in consultation with ACP and EU stakeholders, contends that readmission requirements should be reasonable, keeping in mind ...
January 21, 2010
Posted: 09:35 AM CEST
by ECDPM Editorial Team
in ECDPM
The African Union’s (AU) Peace and Security Protocol encourages non-governmental organisations to participate in efforts aimed at promoting peace, security and stability in Africa and feed information into the official decision-making processes of the AU’s Peace and Security Council (PSC). The Addis Ababa-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS) recently launched a monthly Peace and Security Council Report which seeks to provide independent, publicly available and informative analysis on the work of the PSC with a view to increasing capacities to be able to effectively engage with the PSC’s work. Peace and security issues in Africa ...
January 21, 2010
Posted: 09:33 AM CEST
by ECDPM Editorial Team
in ECDPM
The most substantial goals of the Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES), adopted in December 2007, are enhanced political dialogue on peace and security issues and the realisation of a professional, African-led military infrastructure by June 2010. Progress towards this so–called Africa Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) is critical to the overall success of the entire Africa-EU partnership, given the threat that continuing conflict poses to achieving fundamental political, economic and social development goals. In order to explore what has been achieved so far and assess remaining challenges for meeting the 2010 APSA deadline, the Europe-Africa Research ...
January 21, 2010
Posted: 09:32 AM CEST
by ECDPM Editorial Team
in ECDPM
Africa has a new continental body, the African Governance Institute (AGI), based in Dakar, Senegal. In a brief interview with the Weekly Compass, AGI interim Director, Prof. Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja explained that the main ‘added-value’ of the Institute is “to institutionalise African reflection on governance in Africa […] because we think that it is important that the people who live the realities of African societies and African states are better placed to understand what is going on and to propose solutions for a better future.” He announced that AIG will convene a series of Conferences in ...
January 21, 2010
Posted: 09:31 AM CEST
by ECDPM Editorial Team
in ECDPM
In recent years the EU has demonstrated a greater commitment to respond to fragility, and has at its disposal an adequate policy ‘toolkit’ to help it apply lessons from experience, research and emerging international norms. The fundamental problem, as ECDPM’s Fernanda Faria and Andrew Sherriff argue in their recently published background paper for the European Report on Development 2009, is not better articulated policy, but better implementation. The EU has yet to overcome “the considerable political, financial and institutional challenges to implement these policies creatively in practice.” They note that the issue is political and ...
January 21, 2010
Posted: 09:13 AM CEST
by ECDPM Editorial Team
in ECDPM
It has already been on a momentous journey, but the Lisbon Treaty’s entry into force on 1 December is likely to be marked by even more uncertainty, both for Europe’s internal cohesion and its place in the world. The traditional understanding of the relationship between development and other policy areas - including foreign relations and security policy - is shifting, which will necessitate further adaptation to the institutional changes that the treaty introduces. With the publication of the second European Union (EU) report Policy Coherence for Development (PCD) and a Communication titled “Policy Coherence for ...