With the support of the European Union
This website has been produced with thefinancial support of the European UnionOnly CONCORD and its members are responsible for the content of this website and does not necessarily reflect the position of the European Union.
Spring Alliance
Civil Society Contact Group
The EU Civil Society Contact Group brings together seven large rights and value based NGO sectors – environment, social, development, women, culture, human rights and public health.
Open Forum for CSO Development Effectiveness
Fair Politics - Make Development Work
EU Policies that contradict or oppose its development commitments and objectives must end. This programme identifies incoherent EU policies and brings them to the attention of the European policymakers and suggest remedies.
TRIALOG - Strengthening development NGOs in the enlarged EU
TRIALOG is in charge of raising awareness of development issues in the enlarged EU and to strengthen dialogue and partnerships between development NGOs in accession countries, EU countries and developing countries.
DEEEP - Development Education Exchange in Europe Project
DEEEP's aim is to increase the capacity of European NGOs to deliver grassroots Development Education via methodological exchange, training, improved networking, elaboration of common policies and common projects.
Euforic - Europe's Forum on International Cooperation
Euforic is dedicated to development cooperation and humanitarian aid from the civil society prospective, offering: thematic and geographic information, actors, resources, directories, projects, jobs, agendas, forum, etc.
Global Call Against Poverty (GCAP)
The Global Call to Action against Poverty is a worldwide alliance committed to making world leaders live up to their promises, and to making a breakthrough on poverty.
It is an alliance around the common cause of ending poverty: existing coalitions, community groups, trade unions, individuals, religious and faith groups, campaigners and more.
With the support of the European Union
This website has been produced with thefinancial support of the European UnionOnly CONCORD and its members are responsible for the content of this website and does not necessarily reflect the position of the European Union.
The European Union is proposing to change its trade relations with the developing world, cutting back on “aid for trade” policies by differentiating support between middle income countries and less developed countries. It comes as the EU Commission launches a new 10 year strategy for ‘Trade, Growth and Development’.
You can read the Commission's communication here
Media Reaction
CONCORD recognizes the efforts of the European Commission to focus on less developed countries but we're concerned that EU trade policy is more concerned with extracting profit than of assisting development.
“More aid for less developed countries is needed and welcome as they currently lack support, representing only 20% of current ‘aid for trade’ measures. But the EU should not see the developing world as the BRICs vs the rest. Unfortunately great inequalities and poverty levels remain and are even increasing in some richer developing countries, despite their high economic growh levels. The EU Commission must be clearer as to exactly which countries could lose out on support and show evidence that the new policy won’t negatively affect their development,” says Olivier Consolo, CONCORD Director.
“The new plan is more about how aid will support EU trade profit than about how trade policy will support development. The EU can market it as ‘tailored support’ but the real is aim is to impose its own trade standards on the developing world”, adds Marc Maes, Trade Policy Officer of the Belgian NGO coalition 11.11.11 and member of CONCORD.
CONCORD calls for a transparent, inclusive trade policy towards developing countries that is the result of a common effort to identify the trade measures that are really geared to their needs.
Policy Coherence for Development must be more present in trade policies
The European Union is marginalizing anti-poverty objectives within its new foreign policy arm, the External Action Service (EEAS), outlines our new report.
The report comes as the EEAS reaches its first year of operations.
We outline 5 reccomendations for the new service to improve on its development policy objectives.
Read the full report here
Read the press release in English here
Read the press release in French here
CONCORD PANEL @ EDDs: Beyond 2015: a citizen driven global agenda
It is crucial that the development process of a post-2015 framework is participatory, inclusive and responsive to voices of citizens all over the world, in particularly those directly affected by poverty and injustice.
The MDGs emerged at a time of relative stability, prosperity and coherence. Western economies were on the rise, the G7 was a dominant force in international diplomacy, and consensus on development issues had been building throughout the 1990s. The conditions were relatively good for forging agreement on global targets for development.
The United Nations is leading an intergovernmental process to agree on a post-2015 global framework. National and regional consultations will be organised throughout 2012, and it is likely that a High level Panel will be created after the Rio+20 meeting in June. It is this critical that the EU, Member States and civil society engage in post-2015 discussions now in order to be able to influence the process, and thus the future global framework.
The proposed European Union budget increase to €96 billion for external action, would see additional funds going to poverty programmes from the year 2014-2020.
The proposals:
- €13.7 billion would be spent on external action per year.
- 20 % increase for Official Development Assistance (ODA)
- €1 billion increase per year for the European Development Fund
19 middle income countries are set to lose out on funding.
“The European Commission must ensure that aid is focused on the poorest people and the sectors most in need in the world. An over-reliance on macro-economic data averaged at the national level hides the reality of poverty and inequality within countries. Aid should not be instrumentalised for EU strategic interests. We’re talking about public money aimed at poverty eradication,” says Sarah Kristine Johansen from CONCORD Denmark.
Read the proposals in full here:
The world’s biggest aid donor, the European Union, was sidelined at the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness taking place in Busan, South Korea from 29 November – 1 December.
CONCORD President Justin Kilcullen speaking at a press conference in Busan on 1 December said:
"The European Union failed to show leadership at the summit."
“Despite contributing €53billion to development aid a year, the EU allowed a watered down agreement on global aid reform to accommodate geopolitical agendas. European Member States were fragmented and the EU leadership suffered.
We are concerned that several important measures such as co-operation between developing countries -South South cooperation – ended up only being proposed on a voluntary basis as the final outcome document reveals. If the EU had of stepped up its game, Busan could have delivered stronger results for global development."
Oxfam spokesperson Farida Bena said: “This is a time to make the aid the EU gives better, not worse. We’ve not seen any leadership here and are hugely disappointed at the EU’s lack of leadership. The EU has not been constructive – it should have supported efforts to improve the effectiveness of European aid.”
Timo Lappalainen, of Finnish NGO organisation KEPA said: “We European CSOs now have a mountain to climb over to push the EU take an active role and live up to its vision as a responsible global force. Its performance in Busan was so disappointing.”
CONCORD launched its second report "Spotlight on EU Policy Coherence for Development" on Monday 7 November in Brussels and on 21 November in Lome, Togo.
Policy Coherence for Development (PCD) is not only a provision in the Lisbon Treaty, but also an obligation for EU policy-makers to ensure the effective implementation of Human Rights and greater progress towards eradicating poverty in developing countries. Poor people in development countries are already in acute vulnerable situation that must not be worsened by the negative impact of EU policies.
Following a first report in 2009, the new Spotlight Report assesses different EU policies in the areas of Food Security, Natural Resources, Human Security and Migration against the benchmark of PCD. A number of recommendations to redress coherence are proposed to EU institutions, which are accountable for the proper implementation of the Lisbon Treaty.
Read the report in full here
The EU's development policy was given a new 'Agenda for Change' by the EU Commission on 13 October with 75% of the world’s poorest potentially set for aid cutbacks in a new shift in development spending. The EU as the world’s biggest aid donor giving €53billion a year, should take a leading role in the fight against poverty say NGOs.
CONCORD, Europe's Development NGO Confederation, welcomes that at a time when people-led movements across North Africa and the Middle East are bringing about positive change, the EU Commission in this new Communication is recognizing the need for support to good governance and human rights. The recognition of civil society organizations and coordinated EU action at country level are also positive.
Yet Europe's development NGO's remain skeptical of self-interest policies and a lack of concrete commitments for poverty eradication.
Read more in the press release
Despite widespread support in major recent Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) dossiers to improve the policies’ impact on developing countries and the world’s poor, the Commission proposals have dropped the Lisbon Treaty legislative provision of Policy Coherence for Development.
This comes at a time when getting agricultural policy right matters more than ever: 925 million people went hungry last year according to the United Nations, that’s almost 1 out of 7 people on the planet. At the same time 1/3 of the food produced for human consumption gets lost or wasted.
Read more in the press release
EU ‘self-interest’ inflates aid by over €5bn in 2010, say NGOs
Launched in Brussels on 19th May, this year’s AidWatch report – Challenging self-interest: Getting EU aid fit for the fight against poverty says that:
• Aid is becoming increasingly dictated by domestic political agendas and tied to security, immigration and commercial objectives.
• In 2010 EU member states inflated official aid spending by more than €5bn.This is equivalent to almost 10% of the total aid provided by the EU to partner countries last year. €2.5 billion of this amount was debt cancellation, roughly €1.6 billion was student costs and about €1.1 billion was spent on refugees in donor countries.
• The EU is the world’s biggest aid donor but in 2010, only nine countries1 met their EU aid targets.
This latest analysis is based on figures released by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in April, which showed that the EU spent €54.82bn on aid (0.43% of GNI) falling short of its commitment by nearly €15 billion.
Download the full report here
Check out our new microsite dedicated to explaining the trends underpinning EU and member states’ aid decisions, including country by country reporting, from 12h (Brussels) on 19th May. http://aidwatch.concordeurope.org/
CONCORD members work together to ensure that:
- The EU and member states are fully committed to comprehensive policies and practice that promote sustainable economic, social and human development, aim to address the causes of poverty, and are based on human rights, gender equality, justice and democracy;
- The rights and responsibilities of citizens and organised civil society, to influence those representing them in governments and EU institutions, are promoted and respected.
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