DEVELOPMENT: New Bridge to the South Offered

DEVELOPMENT: New Bridge to the South Offered
By Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, Sep 23 (IPS) - Fresh challenges and opportunities for EU development policy will be explored at a critical meeting next week.

The issues will come up at a conference in The Hague organised by the Society for International Development (SID), a Rome-based international non-governmental association of individuals and organisations with members and activities in 125 countries.

The conference on 'European Development Cooperation: towards policy renewal and a new commitment' to be held Sep. 27 and 28 will mark a "historic opportunity in the future of the EU's development policy," Jos van Gennip, SID president in the Netherlands and member of the Dutch Senate for the Christian Democratic Party (CDA) told IPS.

"This is an extremely important moment for the EU and its development policy," he said. "There is the new European Commission, the new European Parliament and an enlarged European Union."

Further, the EU's new Financial Perspectives 2007-2013 to be adopted before the end of next year will be a "real test" of European Union (EU) commitment to development, he said.

The next six months will mark a particularly significant period for the transatlantic partnership and will determine whether the EU and the United States continue with their unilateral approach to development or make "a new start", he said.

The conference has been organised by the SID Europe programme in association with the European Association of Development Training and Research Institutes (EADI) in Bonn, a network of 150 organisations engaged in development research, training and information, along with Europe's Forum on International Cooperation (Euforic), an independent group that hosts debates on Europe's international cooperation through its electronic convention centre.

The conference marks the second milestone in a three-year SID programme to examine the role and responsibility of EU development cooperation.

The first conference of the SID European progamme in Vienna last November considered development cooperation questions in light of EU enlargement from May 1 this year. The Hague conference will explore "opportunities for policy renewal and lay the foundations for a new commitment from politicians and from civil society towards the development agenda."

Parliamentarians from the 25 EU member states, members of the European Parliament, policy makers, academics and representatives of civil society will gather to debate the consequences of changes in EU development cooperation over the past three years.

Some of the main developments have been the signature and ratification of the Cotonou Partnership Agreement between the EU and 77 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, the approval of a new European development policy, and the restructuring of the European Commission, the EU executive, in 1999/2000.

This year has brought significant changes to the development agenda with the enlargement, approval of a new European constitution in June, and the appointment of Belgian Louis Michel as new commissioner for development and humanitarian aid.

SID Europe programme coordinator Gordana Stankovi says the conference aims to "bridge the gap between the worlds of academia, parliaments and civil society" working for EU development policy.

"This conference aims to get everyone concerned with the EU's development policy together so that they can work together," Stankovi told IPS. "The EU is the world's biggest donor but this is not being portrayed in its role in the world today."

Sven Grimm, research fellow for the London-based International Economic Development Group (IEDG) and co-author of a briefing paper prepared for the SID conference says "definite progress" has been made in development policy but that "new and diverse" issues are emerging.

"The most important issues are the role of development vis-à-vis foreign policy objectives, enlargement and its implications, the future of the EU-ACP relationship and the architecture of EU development cooperation," he told IPS. The IEDG engages in economic analysis of development issues and also advises governments and international institutions.

Grimm adds that underlying these questions are "debates in the wider development community" such as the new security context, poorly performing countries, financing for development, global public goods, global governance institutions, trade liberalisation and development, and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

"Core questions arise for the EU about its comparative advantage in relation to other bilateral and multilateral development bodies. How can the 'unique selling point' of the EU be defined?" he asks.

SID says such fundamental shifts in EU policy call for a "new foundation" for international and development cooperation, including a "meaningful and identifiable global involvement and engagement" of the EU.

"What is needed is a fundamental, multi-polar, cross-border debate on the role, content and identity of the development programmes of the EU in which a key challenge will be to find a new and broader meaning of the concept of development," it says in its scoping paper for the conference.

SID also stresses that the EU must consult with a broad sector of civil society when taking its development policy forward.

"The new policy needs to emphasise the distinct profile and identity of an enlarged Europe's external responsibilities; it should involve a broad participation of society in the dialogue required; and it should involve new patterns of a sustained communication with the civil society and the governments of interested nations," it says.

The organisers want the conference to serve as a "catalyst" for building a community of people promoting development issues in their respective fields.

Van Gennip says the conference will mark a "starting point" for the next five years of EU development policy.

"With this meeting we want to bring back the sentiment of a shared responsibility," he said. "We have to prove that development cooperation is not just about national or European policies but a combined interest."

Huub Mudde from Euforic is looking for two principal outcomes. "First, a strong statement on the importance of a European development policy, also underlined by the representatives of the new member states, and secondly a few concrete action points in particular addressed to the new commissioner, in which countering the huge red tape should be one." (END)

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