European Development Cooperation: In Between the Local and the Global (Amsterdam University Press - Eadi)

336 Pages·2011·2.41 MB·English

by  Paul Hoebink

P
a Paul Hoebink (ed.)
u
l
Official Development Assistance, or foreign aid, disbursed by the eu member H
states reached record levels in 2009, when several member states raised their o
e European Development
b
assistance considerably and when some of the new member states became i
n
donors again. European Development Cooperation: In Between the Local and the k

(
Global analyses a wide range of aspects of European development cooperation, e
d Cooperation
covering, among others, some hotly debated issues such as the Economic Part- .)
nership Agreements, policy coherence and the participation of civil society or-
ganisations in negotiations with the European Union. The contributors offer
valuable new insights into the established aid instruments such as food aid,
In Between the Local and the Global
support for energy projects in Africa and security-related development assis-
tance in the programmes of some smaller European donors, as well as an over-
E
view of these new donor programmes. They also discuss the role of local and
u
regional authorities in development cooperation in the Netherlands, Germany r
o
and Spain. p
e
a
n
Paul Hoebink holds an Extraordinary Professorship in Development Coopera-
D
tion at the Centre for International Development Issues Nijmegen (cidin) at e
v
the Radboud University Nijmegen. e
l
o
p
m
“The Lisbon Treaty puts European international and development cooperation at a cross- e
n
road. Will the Union be able to keep up its strong joint record? Hoebink et al provide a t

well-chosen, inviting mix of insights in some of the multiple challenges emerging.” C
o
Paul Engel, Director, European Centre for Development o
p
Policy Management – ecdpm e
r
a
t
“Paul Hoebink and his co-authors make two important contributions in this volume. i
o
First, they bring clear-headed analysis to bear on the important question of Europe’s n
contribution to global poverty reduction. And, second, they help build a community of
scholars and practitioners whose collective effort will translate analysis into action.”
Simon Maxwell, Senior Research Associate and former director
of the Overseas Development Institute, London
www.aup.nl
9 789089 642257 Amsterdam University Press A m s ter d a m Un i ver s i t y P r e s s
Hoebink_20.indd 1 30-06-2010 15:22:18
european development cooperation
EEuurrooppeeaann DDeevveellooppmmeenntt CCooooppeerraattiioonn..iinndddd 11 2299--66--22001100 2211::0044::2244
EEuurrooppeeaann DDeevveellooppmmeenntt CCooooppeerraattiioonn..iinndddd 22 2299--66--22001100 2211::0044::2266
European
Development
Cooperation
In Between the Local
and the Global
Edited by
Paul Hoebink
EEuurrooppeeaann DDeevveellooppmmeenntt CCooooppeerraattiioonn..iinndddd 33 2299--66--22001100 2211::0044::2266
EADI – the European Association of Development Research and Training Insti-
tutes – is the leading professional network for development and regional studies
in Europe (www.eadi.org).
Cover illustration: © Paul Hoebink
Cover design: Mesika Design, Hilversum
Lay-out: V3-Services, Baarn
isbn 978 90 8964 225 7
e-isbn 978 90 4851 228 7
nur 754 / 759
© Paul Hoebink / Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2010
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part
of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or trans-
mitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author
of the book.
EEuurrooppeeaann DDeevveellooppmmeenntt CCooooppeerraattiioonn..iinndddd 44 2299--66--22001100 2211::0044::2266
Table of Contents
Some Recent Developments in European International and
Development Cooperation: An Introduction 7
Paul Hoebink
I The Hotly Debated Issues
Policy Coherence: The Newest Fad in the International
Discourse? 25
Rolph van der Hoeven
The Interim Pacific Economic Partnership Agreement 47
Stephen J.H. Dearden
Mainstreaming Non-state Actors: Assessing Participation in
EU-Pacific relations 73
Maurizio Carbone
II New Insights on Old Instruments
An Overview of European Programs to Support Energy
Projects in Africa and Strategies to Involve the Private
Sector 95
Lars Holstenkamp
Is There an Advantage to Being Small? Security-related
Development Cooperation of Four Smaller European
States 125
Jan Pospisil and Stefan Khittel
EEuurrooppeeaann DDeevveellooppmmeenntt CCooooppeerraattiioonn..iinndddd 55 2299--66--22001100 2211::0044::2266
Evaluating the Best Delivery Mode of Food Aid: Some
Theoretical and Empirical Insights from Northeast
Africa 145
Francesco Burchi and Sara Turchetti
III The New Emerging European Donors
The Emergence of International Development Policies in
Central and Eastern European States 175
Simon Lightfoot and Irene Lindenhovius Zubizarreta
Hungarian Development Policy 195
Beata Paragi
Policy Coherence for Development of the Czech Republic:
Case Studies on Migration and Trade 223
Ondřej Horký
IV From the Global to the Local
The Role of European Local Governments in Development
Cooperation: Examples from the Netherlands and
Germany 261
Mariken Bontenbal
The Role of Local and Regional Authorities in European
Community Development Policy: Beyond Decentralised
Aid 291
Jokin Alberdi Bidaguren
List of Acronyms and Abbreviations 311
About the Authors 325
Index 329
EEuurrooppeeaann DDeevveellooppmmeenntt CCooooppeerraattiioonn..iinndddd 66 2299--66--22001100 2211::0044::2266
Some Recent Developments in European
International and Development Cooperation
An Introduction
Paul Hoebink
Development cooperation by the European Union and its member states is un-
dergoing a process of rapid change. Changes in the international architecture and
within the European Union itself are contributing to this process. The first and
perhaps most important change is that a large and growing number of new play-
ers have entered the arena, while some old players have returned in new guises.
Among them are the new member states of the European Union. There is also
a wide variety of new multilateral organisations, like the Global Fund, and new
emerging donors like China and India, and – one should not forget – non-gov-
ernmental aid organisations, some of which have considerable funds at their dis-
posal. This proliferation of donors is both impressive and worrying. It is a cause
for concern because of the high transaction costs for aid recipients in dealing with
a large number of donors, often with small volumes of aid.
A second important change is not only the global compact to focus on eight
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), with 18 targets and 48 indicators, but
also the willingness to cooperate, coordinate and harmonise the effort needed
to achieve them. While the MDGs emerged from a series of UN conferences in
the 1990s,1 the conferences on financing for development in Monterrey (2002)
and Doha (2008), as well as the Paris Declaration (2005) and the Accra Agenda
for Action (2008), can be seen as expressions of the combined effort to mobilise
a wide range of resources to achieve the MDGs. The MDGs provide both aid
recipients and donors with a common goal, which leads to better cooperation
and coordination. Although some may say it is not happening fast enough, the
Paris Declaration is now rapidly changing how donors cooperate not only among
themselves, but also with partner countries.2
Thirdly, donors are coming up with new instruments that show much greater
respect for the idea of country ‘ownership’ than former instruments, like project
aid.3 A number of European and other donors still have to make this change,
but North European countries in particular have changed to instruments like
EEuurrooppeeaann DDeevveellooppmmeenntt CCooooppeerraattiioonn..iinndddd 77 2299--66--22001100 2211::0044::2266
 Paul Hoebink
Multi-Donor Budget Support (MDBS) and Sector-Wide Approaches (SWAps).
A central element of these instruments is that they take recipient governments’
plans as a starting point, and that they call for dialogue and harmonisation with
the recipient’s plans and procedures, and for coordination between donors. They
also aim to rationalise recipient governments’ budgets through Medium Term
Expenditure Frameworks and by fighting corruption.
Fourthly, political relations within recipient countries and between recipient
governments and donors are changing. Recipient governments in Asia have always
been stronger in their dealings with donors than governments in Africa.4 But re-
cent economic successes (which the global economic crisis may temper in some
way) and successful processes of democratisation in particular have given new le-
gitimacy to a number of African governments, putting them in theory in a better
position to negotiate with donors. State capacity in Sub Saharan Africa has been
growing slowly in recent decades, hindered by patrimonialism and corruption, but
several African governments have witnessed the arrival of a new generation of
politicians who are much more closely controlled by the media and civil society.
These changes are all about the aid-relationship and aid itself. Aid is an im-
portant ingredient of development cooperation, but not the only one. Relations
between Europe and developing countries are wider in scope, encompassing po-
litical cooperation and a broad variety of trade relations. Trade relations include
access to the European market and exports from Europe to developing countries.5
Both have been under scrutiny for more than 40 years. Access to the European
market, because a variety of restrictions have hampered it, ranges from export
quotas to tariffs to subsidies for European producers. The sugar campaign started
more than 40 years ago. It promoted the consumption of cane sugar from Third
World countries rather than beet sugar, which was highly subsidised by the Eu-
ropean Community. This shows that these kinds of subsidies under the Common
Agricultural Policy have been the subject of criticism in Europe itself for a very
long time. Exports from Europe were criticised because they were often highly
subsidised and had a negative impact on world markets. Meat exports to West
Africa were was a celebrated case here. The European Union is also subsidis-
ing the exportation of overcapacity. The Common Fisheries Policy and Fisher-
ies Agreements are examples of using subsidies to buy access to coastal fishing
waters in developing countries, exporting overcapacity, particularly that of the
Spanish fishing fleet.
The European Union – and this is a fifth change – has been trying to be more
coherent in changing, reducing and abandoning its export subsidies, in reform-
ing its agricultural policies and the fisheries agreements, and changing its access
policies. At the same time, however, it has been criticised for changing only after
external pressure and for trying to impose new trade relations.
EEuurrooppeeaann DDeevveellooppmmeenntt CCooooppeerraattiioonn..iinndddd 88 2299--66--22001100 2211::0044::2266
Some Recent Developments 
Not all of these changes are dealt with in this volume. It does, however, offer a
series of interesting analyses on some hotly debated issues in European develop-
ment cooperation, and a discussion of some of the instruments, old and new. It
takes a look at the policies of ‘new’ emerging European donors and, finally, pro-
vides an insight into local initiatives from regions and municipalities in the field
of development cooperation.
Th e Hotly Debated Issues
Since Maastricht’s Triple C – coordination, complementarity and coherence –
policy, coherence for development (PCD) has been one of the most hotly debated
themes in European development cooperation.6 Coherence is relatively new as an
important concept for development cooperation, being introduced by the DAC at
the end of the 1980s. It can be defined as: ‘The non-occurrence of effects of a par-
ticular policy that are contrary to the intended results or objectives of that policy’. Pol-
icy coherence can be defined either narrowly or broadly. A narrow or restricted
definition would be that the objectives of policy in a particular field may not be
undermined or obstructed by actions or activities in this same field. A wide or
broad definition would be that the objectives of policy in a particular field may
not be undermined or obstructed by government actions or activities in that field
or in other policy fields. PCD found its way into Europe in Article 130V of the
Treaty of Maastricht which reads: ‘The Community shall take account of the objec-
tives referred to in Article 130 U in the policies that it implements which are likely to
affect developing countries’. This is known in the field of development cooperation
as the Maastricht Treaty’s ‘coherence article’. It was retained in the Treaties of
Amsterdam and Nice under Title XX, as Article 178. After several Commission
documents referring to these articles and elaborating on its principles – what
Carbone (2009) calls ‘a decade of non-decisions’ – the European Consensus on
Development was signed in 2005 as an ambitious new agenda. In 2007, the Euro-
pean Council adopted the ‘Code of Conduct on Complementarity and Division
of Labour in Development Policy’ and later that year the first biannual report on
PCD appeared.
Rolph van der Hoeven, in his article, indicates that increased or improved
policy coherence is often proposed as a new and superior goal for activities by
international organisations and national actors. He sees policy coherence not as
a neutral concept but as value loaded. Achieving better results with policy co-
herence therefore depends on the national and international political context,
as discussed, for example, in the report of the World Commission on the Social
Dimension of Globalization. Van der Hoeven also reviews how different interna-
EEuurrooppeeaann DDeevveellooppmmeenntt CCooooppeerraattiioonn..iinndddd 99 2299--66--22001100 2211::0044::2266