MACKIE James - The EU and International Development (25h)
The European Union is a major player in international development cooperation that, as a bloc of countries, mobilises around 50% of global ODA (official development assistance). From small beginnings as a side programme to ‘associate’ a group of overseas states and territories to the new Community of the six signatories of the Treaty of Rome, European development cooperation has evolved into an increasingly integrated assembly of bilateral and EU partnership programmes covering all regions of the developing world and with a particular focus on cooperation with Africa. With the growing scale and widening scope of this common effort has also come increased influence in the OECD DAC, the UN and other international development fora where the EU is now a major driver of policy debate and reform. Going forward, the new EU budget cycle starting in 2021 introduced a number of institutional changes that are likely to have a major impact on the way EU international cooperation is implemented.
First, the new post-Cotonou agreement signed in late 2023 by the EU and its partners in ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) countries is substantially different from its predecessors. The expectation of a new departure that it creates is also reinforced by a second key change: the European Development Fund (EDF) which has provided the bulk of EU aid funds for over 60 years has ceased to exist and EU-ACP development cooperation is now funded from a single EU budget instrument: the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI or NDICI-Global Europe). A third change is the refocussing of the mandate of the Commission service responsible for aid policy and management, DG DEVCO, on ‘international partnerships’ as reflected in its new name: DG INTPA.
Another major reason why this period is likely to be remembered in EU international development cooperation are the series of global systemic shocks it has had to contend with: the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the Israel-Palestine conflict and the increasingly hard-hitting impact of climate change. On top of the health crisis that the pandemic created, it also engendered a major global recession that increased poverty levels and set back the cause of international development by many years. In a post-COVID world, it has become increasingly urgent to re-think radically the way international development cooperation operates. The war in Ukraine is more recent, but it precipitated a food and fertiliser crises for the EU’s development partners and a significant drain on EU external budget resources. The conflict in Gaza is a further major drain on international aid resources, but alarmingly has also seriously undermined international humanitarian law and practice. The impact of climate change for its part, has become far more immediate and dramatic with increasingly frequent extreme weather events such as drought, intense heat and severe flooding that destroy livelihoods and displace millions of people. Over and above these external challenges, the growing international debate on decolonising development is increasing pressure on the EU to rethink its approach and give its partners a greater say in the management of development cooperation.
The EU’s record on international cooperation is however solid and going forward it has a lot to build on, to adapt effectively to these major changes. The sector is an important element of EU external relations and a core component of what is often referred to as the EU’s ‘soft power’. Yet the full realisation of this potential power has often been elusive as Member States have traditionally been reluctant to give up sovereignty in this sector and the integration process has been slow, though the pandemic did encourage progress on this with the new Team Europe approach.
Inside the EU, development cooperation as a sector has also had to find its place in the increasingly complex world of EU external action, working hand in hand not just with the common commercial policy, but, also with other areas of concern such as humanitarian assistance, foreign and security policy or migration policy. With the agreement in 2015 of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals another important threshold moment in the debate on international development cooperation occurred which prompted policy changes in the EU. More recently, the new NDICI single instrument gives the Commission an unprecedented ability to deploy development cooperation funds more flexibly and the European Parliament full oversight that it never had over the EDF. However, it remains to be seen how this will affect the nature of the partnership with the ACP after decades of co-management. The course will therefore explore the main emerging strands of thinking in these wider global and European debates and the impact these are likely to have on European international cooperation.
This optional course thus seeks to introduce students to the role of the European Union in international development cooperation, give them an appreciation of the contribution that the EU makes to this important area of global affairs. It is also intended to help them develop an understanding of how the internal organisation and dynamics of the sector have evolved to give European development cooperation its status as an area of competence shared between the EU institutions and Member States. A central thread running through the course will be to explore whether or not further integration in this field of Union external action would improve performance and serve the best interests of developing countries.
Professor: James MACKIE