Brussels, 26/09/2008 (Agence Europe) - The informal meeting of EU development ministers in Bordeaux on 29 and 30 September will focus on the current global world crisis and the ambition to improve the European and international development architecture in order to provide more effective aid to poor countries. Such aid should be better adjusted to meet the global challenges of food security, health and climate change. The meeting is expected to allow the Union to provide a response to meet these challenges that are undermining the French EU Presidency's ambition to reduce poverty.
The ministerial meeting is organised at a key time in the global development agenda as it will take place shortly after the high level Accra Forum on the effectiveness of aid from rich countries (held in September), in the wake of a United Nations General Assembly that tackled the needs of Africa and the relaunching of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and ahead of the UN Doha conference on development financing, devoted to the follow-up of the Monterrey process (29 November-2 December).
Alain Joyandet, French Secretary of State for Development Cooperation and French-speaking countries, who is to chair the session, takes the view that the meeting will give ministers an opportunity to “fine-tune practical solutions to two major challenges: the challenge of responsiveness by providing a European response to the food crisis, and the challenge of coherence, by reconciling the human, economic, social and sustainable chapters of development”. It is in these terms that he sums up the stakes of the meeting in his letter of invitation to the ministers. Louis Michel, Development and Humanitarian Aid Commissioner, will represent the European Commission. Participants will also include experts on agriculture in Africa and the financing of the sector, as well as MEP Gay Mitchell (EPP-ED, Ireland).
Ministers will be invited by the Presidency to exchange their points of view and confront their analyses on the following questions: What is the best European response in order to be able to tackle the structural causes of the food crisis, beyond emergency measures? How can one best meet the needs of developing countries when it comes to adjusting to climate change and strengthening health systems, and how can one be better organised to prevent a number of developing countries becoming “aid orphans”?. What is the EU's vision for development architecture in the run up to 2020 and how can official development aid be made a lever for lasting social economic development?
The preparation of the Doha conference on development financing, which will require close European cooperation, will get ministers rallying to the task. The contribution by Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, German minister and special envoy for the United Nations secretary general for this conference, and that by Erik Solheim, Norwegian minister and co-facilitator of the Doha process, will be invaluable. (A.N./transl.jl)