Development Policy Archives

German Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged on Tuesday (30 November) a new development fund to tackle unemployment in Africa, a problem spurring the mass migration that has shaped her long premiership as it nears its end.

Less than a month after Jean-Claude Juncker’s State of the Union talked of the need for a ‘partnership of equals’ between Africa and the European Union, migration control was once again the main prism through which the EU views Africa …

EU aid spending fell for the first time in 5 years in 2017, according to the CONCORD AidWatch Report 2018 published on Wednesday (17 October).

Decentralised cooperation has been a pillar in international development for the past 10 years but stakeholders fear the new EU long-term budget might threaten the role of local authorities in the field. 

The UK will keep to its 0.7% aid spending commitment but plans to dramatically scale up its private sector investment in poor countries, its development minister Penny Mordant  said on Tuesday (9 October).

European paranoia about Chinese dominance on the African continent was one of the underlying themes at the Financial Times’ Africa summit this week.

The 'missing middle' of the financial services spectrum in much of sub-Saharan Africa means that start-ups are unable to find the investment they need to grow. But venture capital firms are looking at companies that target the low-income mass market.

The European Union is considering trade sanctions on Myanmar over the Rohingya crisis, potentially stripping the country of tariff-free access to the world’s largest trading bloc, three EU officials said.

‘Eat, sleep, code, repeat,’ is the mantra in Andela’s Nairobi campus, home to a network of Africa's brightest coders. Taking the inspiration for its name from the late South African President Nelson Mandela, Andela invests in Africa’s software engineers.

Mayotte, one of the EU’s least developed regions, lies in the middle of the Indian Ocean. EU cohesion policy supports the French department by encouraging local production and trade. EURACTIV France reports.

Kingsley Moghalu is a confident man. He needs to be. The former UN official and deputy central bank governor turned politician will take on President Muhammudu Buhari in Nigeria's presidential elections next February, and the odds are stacked against him.

The European Commission and African Union set up a joint rural Africa taskforce in May, after agricultural co-operation was one of the key topics as the EU-Africa summit in Abidjan in November 2017.

The Ethiopian economy is cash-dominated. But mobile money services are slowing starting to reduce people's reliance on carrying cash.

Multilateralism is the most effective mechanism to deal with climate change, said, participants of the 10th Asia-Europe Parliamentary Partnership Meeting held in Brussels on 27-28 September.

In Senegal, the dairy sector is facing competition from cheap European exports - that makes its development much harder, EURACTIV France reports.

Mobile phone technology made landlines obsolete in sub-Saharan Africa years before Europeans began to give up their home handsets. Will off-grid solar do the same in the energy sector?

Cashew nuts: They are not only meant to make you happy but also to strengthen the heart. On average, every European consumes an average of one kilo of this nut per year. EURACTIV Germany reports.

EU countries lead the way when it comes to development policy, according to a new report by a US-based think-tank. Eleven EU countries dominate the top-12 of the Commitment to Development Index published by the Center for Global Development on Tuesday (18 September).

Whether or not Jean-Claude Juncker’s plans for a "partnership of equals" with Africa becomes reality any time soon, the Luxembourg-based European Investment Bank will have an ever-increasing role in the continent.

After several months of different European leaders beating a path to the African continent, Jean-Claude Juncker’s European Commission has got in on the act. But for the moment, Brussels is not offering anything new on either trade or investment.

European states warned the United Nations that more than 800,000 people are cut off from aid and may be starving in northeast Nigeria, contradicting government assertions that a crisis has abated and rebuking the world body for failing to secure access.

China is helping Africa develop, not pile up debt, a top Chinese official said on Tuesday (4 September), as the government pushes back against criticism it is loading the continent with an unsustainable burden during a major summit in Beijing.

Increasing trade between the EU and the ACP (African-Caribbean-Pacific), particularly African countries, lay at the heart of the ambition of the Cotonou Agreement. That was supposed to be embodied by regional Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) with the EU.

The issue of how to control migration from Africa may have exorcised European leaders in recent years, but it could also derail the EU's main political agreement with the continent.