Sir,
Of Simon Maxwell’s six suggestions for reforming EU aid, I can unhesitatingly support only two; expansion of the Peace Facility and combining all EU development policies under one Commissioner.
I have some doubts about the two proposals concerning our cooperation with the ACP countries. Some steps in the direction proposed by Maxwell are in any case going to be taken when reviewing the Cotonou agreement.
The other two proposals I cannot accept. The EDF should be brought into the EU budget, not the other way around. And the share of Commission-disbursed funds should not be increased.
But what I missed in Simon Maxwell’s article is the substance of our development policy and its links with other policy sectors. I myself have a relatively long personal history in Finnish development policy, as I became responsible for it as Foreign Minister back in 1977, when we still spoke about development aid. I remained in charge of it almost continuously until 1987, when we had moved on to the concept of development cooperation.
During my last period as Finland’s Foreign Minister from 1991 to 1993 we already had another minister for development cooperation. But I nevertheless led the Finnish delegation to the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio, where the principles of sustainable development were accepted as the common basis. Then, from 1995 to 2007, I served in the European Parliament as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and followed development policies only from a distance. When I returned to the Finnish Government in the Spring of 2007 as Minister for Foreign Trade and Development, I was astonished by the almost total absence of the Rio principles of sustainable development.
After careful preparation, our government accepted in October 2007 a new Development Policy Programme based on the idea that poverty reduction can be effective and bring fast and lasting results only if it is sustainable ecologically, economically and socially. On the basis of our experience, we emphasised the role of the private sector in effective poverty reduction.
At EU Council meetings I have met another kind of policy thinking and that’s why I am not eager to increase the EU’s role in development policy. Instead of increasing EU aid, possibly as general budgetary support, I would favour triangular cooperation with developing countries and delegated cooperation with the Union’s member states.
Too much emphasis has been given, in my opinion, in EU aid to direct poverty reduction through the public sector, while infrastructure and the productive private sectors, agriculture in particular, have been neglected. This kind of unbalanced policy is not economically and socially sustainable and it is ineffective in poverty reduction.
But there are some signs of change in EU development policy.
Both in Accra and when preparing for Accra, I got some support for my proposals to include the principles of sustainable development and the role of the private sector in the Agenda document. The EU negotiators, however, concentrated on strengthening the Paris Declaration’s commitment to a narrower aid effectiveness. Then, after Accra, we had an open and critical discussion in Development Council meetings. In the negotiations on the Doha declaration, the EU had a leading role not only in ensuring firm commitments of the quantity of aid but also in improving the quality and effectiveness of development cooperation. The importance of the private sector and the principles of sustainable development in all of its three dimensions are there.
We have to continue internal discussions on our development policy guidelines, and there might be a need for an early review of our 2005 Development Policy Consensus.
I support the idea of having only one Development Commissioner in the next Commission, and I also support Simon Maxwell’s proposal on forming a special Commission to prepare the wider coordination of the EU’s external activities, and I think it should make its proposals before the new EU Commission takes office.
We need a well coordinated and coherent development policy, but we also need a comprehensive global policy for the EU. As Finland’s Development Minister I participated, in the spirit of Rio, in all possible environment-related meetings, such as the UN Commission of Sustainable Development meetings and Climate Change fringe gatherings. As I am also my country’s Minister for Foreign Trade, I have been able to look at the links between development, environment and trade from a wider perspective. We are simultaneously negotiating global agreements in all these areas, and others too. We Europeans do not have proper coordination between these negotiating fora, yet everywhere we meet a united front of the developing countries led by emerging economies like China, India and Brazil even though the circumstances and interests of the developing countries are very different.
We Europeans therefore have to promote convergence in development policies. Northern donors should allocate more resources for infrastructure and the productive sectors. Southern donors which have been the most active in developing infrastructure and the resource based productive sectors, should make greater use of their invaluable experience in developing primary education and health care. We all should follow the principles of ecologically, economically and socially sustainable development. In climate change negotiations the principles of development policy should be followed fully. In trade policy, emerging economies should follow our example and give the Least Developed Countries (LCD’s) a quota and duty-free access to their markets. China and India have already indicated their willingness to do so, and the others should follow suit.