Development Policy Archives

The European Commission will set out its plans to dramatically increase spending on migration control on Thursday (14 June), as part of its overhaul of EU development spending between 2021 and 2027.

European expertise agencies, the kingpins of solidarity policy, want to work more together in order to establish themselves as true competitors in the face of United Nations agencies, especially in the field of security. EURACTIV.fr reports.

Women and girls are too often forgotten in development policy, despite being in the front-line. A mere 2% of total overseas development aid is spent on policies related to gender equality, panellists heard at the European Development Days in Brussels.

After stoking expectations among Liberia's voters for rolling back poverty, President George Weah is facing the twin pressures of time and money to carry out his promises. On 22 January, Weah became president of the one of the world's poorest countries …

Despite France’s commitments it is struggling to get its aid to the poorest countries as well as for gender-equality programmes, according to an assessment by the OECD. EURACTIV.fr reports.

The EU’s External Investment Plan (EIP) is the latest addition to the increasingly cluttered landscape of public-private development finance. The EIP's future shape and the role it can play was one of the hot topics at the European Development Days on 5-6 June.

The issue of how the EU's External Investment Plan can help empower women and girls dominated the agenda at the European Development Days on Tuesday (5 June), as some panellists voiced concern that it might be marginalised in the final big picture.

As far as global development goes, few events can match the reach of European Development Days, whose Brussels edition will gather 8,000 development policy professionals this week.

Due to a lack of consensus on the issue of migration, member states cannot come to an agreement  on a mandate to begin negotiations on the future partnership agreement with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. EURACTIV.fr reports

Following a new Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo early May, the World Health Organisation (WHO) decided it is not yet an international public health emergency but is deploying an action plan to contain the disease, a move which proves particularly challenging this time

A group of leading development NGOs have urged the European Commission to halt plans to expand its External Investment Plan (EIP), which seeks to leverage private investment in developing countries, according to a letter seen by EURACTIV.

Poverty has risen sharply in Afghanistan since the departure of NATO's combat troops in 2014, with more than half of the population now living below the poverty line, according to a national survey.

Development NGOs were united in criticising the European Commission’s proposed changes to the bloc’s external spending on Wednesday (2 May), warning that it effectively downgraded aid policy.

The development policy community is anxiously awaiting an overhaul of the EU’s development budget and the instruments used to spend it, when the European Commission publishes its communication on Wednesday (2 May) for the bloc’s next seven year budget.

One of the main causes of food insecurity for farmers in rural areas is limited access to agricultural inputs. Donors, NGOs and governments are using a variety of new tools to improve access to basic products.

The popular image of humanitarian aid in public consciousness is of trucks loaded with essential foods being handed out to refugees.

Combating Islamic terrorism in the Sahel region has united Europe and the wider international community. Most attention has been focused on the G5 Sahel joint military operation which has been tasked with combating jihadist groups in the region.

To fight corruption in the poorest countries, the European Parliament is proposing a code of conduct that makes the granting of loans conditional on monitoring by national parliaments. But the idea has not gone down well in Brussels. EURACTIV.fr reports.

To the generation brought up on the LiveAid and Live8 concerts, development aid is a moral obligation as well as a policy tool.

The French Development Agency (AFD) has financed over €10 billion in projects in 2017, an 11% increase compared to 2016. However, the share of grants in the development bank’s balance sheet is still very small. EURACTIV.fr reports.

Migrants staying in Serbia are in a difficult situation and their integration into society should be enabled through education for minors and job opportunities for adults, a representative of the EU delegation to Serbia told EURACTIV.rs.

Starving children are the glaring face of Congo's humanitarian crisis, but millions more people are suffering slow onset malnutrition which could have harmful effects for generations, the United Nations said on Thursday (12 April).

France's development spending increased in 2017, but after years of successive decline, that has only returned it to 2012 levels. EURACTIV.fr reports.

Development aid to countries in the Global South stagnated in 2017, according to new figures published by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) on Monday (9 April). It also showed a declining share of aid spent on refugees.