February 26, 2013
With two years before the Millennium Development Goals expire, debates are underway about a new set of targets. Should a new action plan resemble the MDGs, or should it take a different approach? In an interview with Devex at the EU Development Days in October 2012, Simon Maxwell said poverty reduction remains the main concern and should continue to top the global development agenda.
Watch the interview here.
February 1, 2013
On 31 January, EDCSP’s Mikaela Gavas presented findings from her research on ‘Reviewing the evidence: how well does the European Development Fund perform?’ at an event in Brussels, hosted by ONE .
Read the presentation here.
January 22, 2013
On 21 January, EDCSP’s Mikaela Gavas presented findings from her latest research project on: ‘The EU and Global Public Goods: Challenges and Opportunities’ at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) in Copenhagen.
Read the presentation here.
November 6, 2012
ODI’s Centre for Aid and Public Expenditure will be hosting a conference on the future of development cooperation on 14 and 15 November. While personal attendance has been limited by invitation, this year’s conference – Old puzzles, new pieces: development cooperation in tomorrow’s world – will be streamed live online over the whole two day period.
From the rise of China and Brazil to game changing models of global philanthropy, person-to-person giving and social impact investment, the community of actors engaged in development cooperation is evolving. While the geography of poverty is changing so too are the tools available for targeting assistance.
Sign-up to participate online and tweet your thoughts, questions and links to #CAPE2012.
October 29, 2012
The European Commission’s new proposed development strategy – Agenda for Change – puts ‘inclusive and sustainable growth for human development’ at its centre. At the 2012 European Development Days conference, the European Think-Tanks Group hosted a high-level panel debate putting the word ‘inclusive’ under the spotlight, focusing specifically on the challenge to EU development policy posed by inequality in developing countries.
Read the panel report here.
October 22, 2012
The European Commission’s new proposed development strategy – Agenda for Change – puts ‘inclusive and sustainable growth for human development’ at its centre. At the 2012 European Development Days conference, the European Think-Tanks Group hosted a high-level panel debate putting the word ‘inclusive’ under the spotlight, focusing specifically on the challenge to EU development policy posed by inequality in developing countries.
Watch the debate here.
June 26, 2012
An audio recording of yesterday’s event hosted by the EDCSP at the Houses of Parliament, on “Tackling Global Poverty: where next for Brussels?” is now available here.
June 21, 2012
On 19 April, Simon Maxwell and Siân Herbert supported a brainstorming session with European People’s Party (EPP) members of the European Parliament’s Development Committee (DEVE), following an invitation by Gay Mitchell MEP (Joint Coordinator of EPP DEVE). You can listen to an audio file of the session here.
June 19, 2012
On 14 June, EDCSP hosted a private roundtable at ODI, bringing together specialists on aid effectiveness and EU development cooperation to discuss recent work quantifying the benefits of improving aid effectiveness and the information provided by indices of donor performance. Click here to read an event report.
June 18, 2012
On 19 June, The European Commission’s DG Development & Cooperation, EuropeAid and the United Kingdom jointly organise a side event to the Rio+20 Conference, on Sustainable Development Goals: From ‘silo thinking’ towards an integrated approach. Insights from the European Report on Development.
The high-level panel will provide the opportunity to discuss how the integrated thinking of The European Report on Development (ERD) could inform the development of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Keynotes speakers include Janez Potočnik, European Commissioner for the Environment and Caroline Spelman, UK Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. From ODI, Dirk Willem te Velde, ERD Team Leader will give an introduction to the European Report on Development, together with Imme Scholz from the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE).
June 12, 2012
On 14 June, EDCSP will host a private round-table on aid effectiveness with panellists from the European Commission, the University of Gothenburg and ODI. This round-table will focus on a study for the EU by Arne Bigsten, Jean Philippe Platteau and Sven Tengstam, which quantifies the benefits of measures to improve aid effectiveness. From ODI, Romilly Greenhill and Annalisa Prizzon will present their commentary on the study and Matthew Geddes will present his work on how the EU fares in donor indices. Simon Maxwell, who has examined the practical implications of the study, will chair the discussion.
Speakers include:
An event summary will be available online following the event.
May 25, 2012
EDCSP will host a public event on 25 June from 14:30 to 16:00 examining the recent inquiries into EU development cooperation by the IDC, the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee and the OECD-DAC’s peer review.
The panel includes:
To register online or for more details click here.
April 19, 2012
Four months old, the International Year for Sustainable Energy for All seems well down the road to successfully ensuring energy poverty has higher priority in development policy and programming. The EU Sustainable Energy for All Summit this week, brought together development ministers from the EU and Norway, energy ministers from developing countries, the Commission President, the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, and three or four hundred others, to express support for the three objectives of the Sustainable Energy for All Initiative: to achieve by 2030, universal access to modern energy services, a doubling of the rate of improvement in energy efficiency, and a doubling of the share of renewables in the global energy mix.
ODI Research Fellow Andrew Scott analyses the initiative in this EDCSP blog.
March 5, 2012
As discussions over Denmark’s new international development policy continue, Siân talks to Danish development news site U-landsnyt about the EU’s proposed policy of ‘differentiation’ and future cooperation with MICs. Read the interview here (in Danish).
February 20, 2012
The EU is the most open trading bloc in the world, around three quarters of EU imports from developing countries are duty free – this is a much larger share than imports to the US and China. However, Least Developed Countries (LDCs) continue to account for a low share of global trade, experiencing an increase in their share of global trade of just 0.4% (from 0.8% to 1.2%) over the last decade. In the view of recent trends, the European Commission has decided to review its traditional trade and development tools, in a bid to tailor them to those countries that are getting left behind.
On 7 February 2012, the European Commission held a public consultation meeting on its latest trade strategy – ‘Trade, Growth & Development: tailoring trade and investment policy for those countries most in need’, which was released at the end of January.
ODI’s Jodie Keane reports back in this meeting report.
February 14, 2012
The International Development Committee recently called Simon Maxwell and Siân Herbert to give oral evidence at a session for the inquiry into EU development assistance.
The session covered a vast array of issues including:
Click here for a transcript of the session.
February 10, 2012
On 2 February, Siân Herbert gave a presentation at a workshop in Copenhagen, discussing the EU’s new policy on ‘differentiation’ (‘Differentiation’ means reassessing aid to middle income countries). The workshop was hosted by Concord Denmark, the Danish NGO platform for EU development work, and attended by a variety of Danish NGOs.
The objective of the workshop was to define a common position on differentiation. The NGOs present were open to the changes proposed by the European Commission, and support revaluating aid to MICs. At the end of the workshop, the decision was taken that Concord Denmark will not engage with the debate regarding the proposed criteria for aid allocation, but will instead focus on where the funds should be redirected. Concord advised that they are engaged in discussions with the European Commission, ahead of the release of a communication on CSOs later this year.
The EU’s policy on differentiation has also been discussed recently by Andy Sumner, Andris Piebalgs and Simon Maxwell.
Siân’s presentation is available here.
December 19, 2011
On 16 December, EDCSP jointly hosted a panel debate, as part of the European Think-Tanks Group and with French research institute Ferdi, looking at ‘Modernising European Development Policy’, at the European Development Days conference in Warsaw.
To watch a video of the debate, click here.
December 8, 2011
The EDCSP team is now all set for next week’s European Development Days.
On 16 December from 14.15 until 16.00, we will jointly host a panel debate, with our European Think-Tank Group partners and with French research institute FERDI. Our debate will look at ‘Modernising European Development Policy’ and boasts a high-level panel including:
If you are attending the EDDs too, please come along!
December 5, 2011
On 29 November, EDCSP, as part of the European Think Tanks Group (ETTG), together with Thijs Berman MEP, hosted a roundtable debate in the European Parliament on the development aspects of the proposals on the EU’s Multi-Annual Financial Framework.
To see the ETTG’s presentation, click here.
November 25, 2011
Ahead of the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness at Busan, read the EU’s common position here.
October 25, 2011
On 19 October, the EDCSP’s Simon Maxwell was invited to speak on the panel at Commissioner Andris Piebalgs’ launch event for the European Commission’s new development strategy – An Agenda for Change. Simon welcomed the document and the new directions it signals, noting that it is still work in progress, with seven more months of negotiations ahead. He also identified some key points of unfinished business that the strategy uncovers.
To watch the panel discussion, click here.
To watch Simon’s speech, click here.
To watch Simon’s interview by Capacity4dev, click here.
October 3, 2011
From 19 to 22 September, the EADI and DSA hosted a conference in York looking at “Rethinking Development in an Age of Scarcity and Uncertainty”. The EDCSP team held a panel discussion, jointly with its partner think tanks, as part of the European Think Tanks Group (ETTG), which explored the subject of “Modernising European Development Policy in a Changing World”, and posed the question, ”What can Researchers bring to the Table?”
Click here to read our reflections on the conference, and for some insights from our panel discussion.
September 15, 2011
If you have ever found yourself questioning what EU development aid should be for, then you should have been at our recent event hosted by the EDCSP team and Open Europe in London on 13 September 2011.
Around 120 government officials, academics, consultants, journalists and NGOs representatives turned up to grill our panel of experts, which included Baroness Glenys Kinnock (opposition spokesperson for the Department for International Development (DFID) in the House of Lords), the EDCSP’s Simon Maxwell (Senior Research Associate at ODI), Chris Heaton-Harris MP (Member of Parliament for Daventry), Stephen Booth (Open Europe’s Research Director), and Liz Ford as chair (Deputy Editor of the Guardian’s Global Development website).
To catch up on the event, read a summary here, or watch it on video here.
