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MACKIE J. - 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 initialled in 2021 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 henceforth EU-ACP development cooperation will be funded from the EU budget from a single instrument: the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI or NDICI-Global Europe). A third change is the designation of the Commission service responsible for aid policy and management, DG DEVCO, renamed as DG International Partnerships (DG INTPA). Finally, 2021 was the first year of the post-Brexit era and the UK’s absence may be felt not just in terms of the funds it contributed, but also in terms of its development expertise.

Another major reason why this period is likely to be remembered in EU international development cooperation are the global systemic shocks that have hit the world: the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the growing 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. The highly unequal global distribution of COVID vaccines is also a major new source of imbalance between the EU and its partners that still needs to be fully resolved. In a post-COVID world, it will be essential to re-think radically the way international development cooperation operates. The war in Ukraine is more recent, but it is already precipitating a rising food and fertiliser crises for the EU’s development partners and a wider financial crisis. The impact of climate change is also becoming more immediate and dramatic with events like the floods in Pakistan displacing millions of people. In addition, the growing international debate on decolonising development is likely to mean increasing pressures for the EU to give its partners a greater role 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, so as 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. 

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. The Lisbon Treaty opened up a new chapter with the European Commission having to share its responsibility for development cooperation with the European External Action Service. 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. Most recently, the new NDICI single instrument gives the Commission an unprecedented ability to deploy development cooperation funds flexibly as the need arises 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 and help them develop an understanding of how the internal organisation and dynamics of the sector have evolved to give European development cooperation its current status as an area of shared competence 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

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