Brussels, 08/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - The long-running debate on increasing Member States' public development aid has held back the Development Council's activities, but its conclusions have been presented at the biggest breakthrough this season. The President of the Council, Eddy Boutmans, said that they had asked the Commission to launch discussions with the Member States to reach agreement on the approach to be taken in the future to reach the target of development aid of 0.7% of GDP, and also to ask them to draw up a timetable. He felt that the decision boded well in terms of the Union taking an active role at the UN conference on funding aid (Mexico, March 2002) and also for the World Sustainable Development Summit (Johannesburg, September 2002). Commissioner Poul Nielson said it was the clearest and most salient sign of political victory. He was pleased that the EU was getting organised to find ways of meeting the target set for industrialised countries. The informal exchange of views on the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan confirmed the Council conclusions after its extraordinary meeting on 10 October. Messrs Boutmans and Nielson said that the criticisms of the first report on the Community's foreign aid had been "constructive" and should help improve the document that was "far from perfect" but indispensable for assessing projects. The exchange of views with the President of the World Bank, William Wolfensohn, the day before the meeting had provided the opportunity for the Council to say that it shared his concerns that the world economic crisis and aftermath of 11 September would have the greatest impact on the poorest countries of the world. The Council made useful progress in all the other issues on its agenda. A summary of the first results follows (EUROPE will be reporting on the rest of the results in a future issue):
Implementation of development policy
Annual Report 2000: The Council discussed the first Commission annual report on external EU aid in the context of aid management reform. Ministers appreciated the fact that the document had been published although it still has some shortcomings (mainly its late presentation and the lack of a sector-specific approach to development: education, health, etc.). Its conclusions call on the Commission to remedy these failings in the next report and to propose indicators pointing towards a more qualitative evaluation of aid.
Aid challenges relating to the current situation: The Council held a long exchange of views on the financing of public development aid with a view to the UN conference in Mexico, in March 2002. A dividing line has been drawn up between the delegations that hope to fix a timetable forthwith for Member States to achieve the 0.7% objective set (Sweden, NL, Denmark, Luxembourg have already achieved it, while Ireland has indicated that it will do so in 2007 and Austria states it will come close to doing so in the next few years), and the delegations that support the idea of first referring to their finance ministers (France, Spain, United Kingdom, Germany). Conclusions adopted are a compromise. They reiterate the commitment to reach the target set (confirmed by the Gothenburg Summit) and stress that the Council will explore every means possible to make progress before the summit on sustainable development (Johannesburg, September 2002).
Specific aspects of development policy
Measures taken and yet to taken by the Commission to satisfy the goal reducing poverty: The Council adopted conclusions welcoming the Commission's document, stressing the role to play by the beneficiaries of aid and urging the Commission to: - improve the method of allocating resources, integrating the objectives of reducing poverty in the country-by-country strategy documents; - maximise the effect on poverty in Community programmes in the six priority intervention areas identified in November 2000; - focus the Commission's intervention on poverty reduction.
Education into development and raising the awareness of European public opinion: the Council adopted a resolution which welcomes the discussion paper put forward by the Presidency, encourages the EU to pursue its support for NGO activities, stresses the importance of "fair trade", invites the Commission to strengthen its information actions and carry out regular opinion polls among Union citizens and in candidate countries, so as to direct education into development towards groups less aware of the issue. The Commission is invited to see whether awareness-raising measures could be provided for in the framework of the budget item on co-funding NGOs and its programmes in developing countries.
Integration of gender equality in development co-operation: the Council adopted conclusions which welcome the strategy for action proposed by the Commission and asks the latter to base itself on data by sex and on verifiable indicators to monitor the progress made.