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 ...
November 16, 2011
Posted: 16:16 PM UTC
by Bruce Byiers on November 16, 2011
“Policies for Promoting The Private Sector’s Role in Development” was the subject for debate at a high-level roundtable event organised by the Development Policy Forum of Friends of Europe on November 8 in Brussels. ECDPM attended, given our interest and work in economic governance, and in particular in issues relating to business facilitation, taxation, trade facilitation and the Economic Partnership Agreements. The discussions raised some interesting issues and thoughts regarding the role of the private sector in development, but also highlighted the need for more clarity - and perhaps different terminology - when looking at ...
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 ...
March 25, 2011
Posted: 13:40 PM UTC
by Paul Engel on March 25, 2011
After the public consultation, high-level European debates on the future of EU Development Policy now focus on the Communication expected from the European Commission (EC) in June. The Communication will lay out a modernised European Union (EU) development policy that will propose new policy guidelines on development aimed at improving EU support to developing countries to speed up their progress towards the Millennium Development Goals and beyond. The communication will also inform EU negotiations that will be launched in June on the bloc’s post-2013 Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF). As part of the process towards formulating ...