Rethink EU development: The good news is the EU aid works. It’s supporting some of the most progressive and long-term programmes out there from Zambia to Haiti to Myanmar; on justice for women who are victims of violence; on building peoples’ resilience in the face of nature disasters related to climate change; on getting girls a quality education. But that commitment to aid by the EU cannot cannot be a smokescreen for tackling the root of the problem, the structural causes of poverty. We need aid. But we also need more than aid.
The sustainable development goals (SDGs) give the EU the chance to do this. To make this a global deal for fairness. For human rights. For equality. Laura Sullivan, regional director: Europe and the Americas, ActionAid International, Brussels, Belgium, @ActionAidEU, @laura_sullivan
Realise that European aid can’t solve all the world’s problems: There needs to be an increased awareness that EU aid, while important, will not solve all the world’s development problems on its own for at least two reasons.
First, as we have argued in the European Report on Development 2015, developing countries increasingly attract a wide variety of financial flows, of which international public finance from the EU is only a small part. This means the EU needs a step up in its thinking on how aid links to other finance flows (both in terms of mobilisation and effective use).
Second, many problems can and should be solved by better policies (including in the EU). The context of aid is important. It means a different approach towards development, moving away from a finance-supply driven approach towards a problem-driven approach where finance and policies together can address the problems. Dirk Willem te Velde, senior research fellow, ODI, London, UK, @dwtevelde
Make the most of next month’s Addis Ababa summit: The EU has a very, very important role to play during the Financing for Development Summit in Addis Ababa in July. After years of financial and economic crisis, we finally have a chance to change the global discourse and start fixing the broken system. But it’s important that the EU is ready to engage with the developing countries and commit to taking on our part of the responsibility. Tove Ryding, policy and advocacy manager, Eurodad, Brussels, Belgium,@toveryding
Dedicate more than 0.7% of GNP to overseas aid: European governments first promised to deliver 0.7% of their national income to support poor countries when Richard Nixon was President of America and the Beatles were topping the charts. In the 45 years since only a handful of EU countries have delivered on this promise. Yet with some one billion people still living in poverty and climate change posing huge new development challenges the need for overseas aid is greater than ever before. As flat overseas aid is also increasingly used to pay for climate preparedness and low carbon development in developing countries, it’s clear that Europe is using the same pot of money to pay for multiple purposes, and hence robbing Peter to pay Paul. Hilary Jeune, EU policy advisor, Oxfam International, Brussels, Belgium,@hilaryjeune
Understand the limitations of private finance: We know that private investors are more attracted to middle-income countries than to the poorest countries, for the simple reason that there are better opportunities for profit in middle-income countries. Therefore, there is a risk that aid will be driven away from the least developed countries. The attempt to integrate private profit making with development also risks promoting tools such as user fees for infrastructure, or health and education services. Since the poorest people are often not able to pay user fees, we risk excluding the people who need aid the most. Tove Ryding
Create trade policies that don’t hurt developing countries: There is no development without fairness. There are two sides to the coin here. One is the reinforcing positive change agenda. The other is the stopping the bad stuff agenda. We are so far behind here. The EU promised to change all that back in the Lisbon Treaty. It included a commitment to policy coherence for development. That terribly boring put-you-to-sleep-in-a-second concept amounts to something incredibly important: the EU cannot give poor countries aid with one hand, only to undermine it all via other policies that nullify the good. Policies like trade, investment and energy do have negative impacts on people in developing countries that need to be addressed. Laura Sullivan
Use the SDGS as a rallying point for progressive forces: The SDGs apply to all countries not just those least developed, so once they have been agreed they can be used as a framework for progressive forces (NGOs, social justice campaigners) both to push for progress within and out with the EU. We need to win the interdependence argument, what hurts someone in Latin America or Africa will ultimately have a negative effect on the rest of us. Climate change is the most obvious example as the tangible effects of global warming do not stay within a defined area. Julie Ward, MEP, European Parliament, Workington, UK, @julie4nw
Show leadership on the SDGs: The EU must show leadership by putting clear policies in place for its own plans for the SDGs. One clear example is building strong mechanisms to measure policy coherence for development, basically making sure any policies the EU makes are not detrimental to the lives of those in developing countries. Tax rules, especially for multinational companies, are a good example of this. Hilary Jeune
Treat developing countries as equal partners: We need new voices and we need to remember that we have a responsibility for the past as well as the future. The old paternalistic models of imperialism were about power and control. As long as the developed nations continue to think of themselves as somehow pre-eminent and exclude least developed countries in a respectful equal dialogue progress will be slow. Julie Ward
Stop letting domestic concerns dwarf international issues: On the governmental front, domestic issues à la Europeene are definitely dwarfing the global social justice agenda. It shouldn’t have to be a case of either or. Citizens across the EU understand very well the links between these issues. Poverty and inequality are not something that happens somewhere else. The economic contraction has hit people all over, and it is all part of the same failing system. The upside of this is that European citizens and civil society are really connecting the dots. It was really interesting when the Starbucks/Google tax-dodging scandal broke in the UK, that a lot of people linked that back to tax-dodging scandals in the developing world. At a forum of 100 civil society organisations from the EU, Latin America and the Caribbean in March the key message was: we are all suffering from the same issue of a system that is obsessed with growth, that is pushing austerity and that is breeding inequality and poverty. Laura Sullivan
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