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Introducing Eurostep
Eurostep seeks to influence the development co-operation policies and practices of the European Union such that they contribute to building a global community based on principles of sustainability, justice and equity. Eurostep believes that as a global player the European Union has the capacity, together with the responsibility, to work towards this objective.
Established in 1990 Eurostep brings together 22 European NGOs collectively working in some 100 countries worldwide. With a combined annual budget of 750 million Euro Eurostep's member organisations work with local NGOs, women's organisations and peoples movements to support and encourage development policies and practices that draw on people's own experiences.
Eurostep provides a framework through which member organisations and their partners in developing countries can work together to use these experiences to influence the policy and practice of the European Union.
With a secretariat in Brussels, and members in 15 European countries, Eurostep is able to engage in dialogue and debate with the Institutions of the European Union and national governments in Europe. Eurostep sees this as a contribution to developing common strategies for global sustainability, justice and equity in partnership with networks and organisations all over the world.
Statement from the Chair
Eurostep welcomed the appointment of Mr. Poul Nielson as Commissioner for Development in the new Prodi Commission towards the end of 1999. His outstanding track record as Danish Minister for Development, and his open and critical assessment of EU development policy and practice in that position, suggested that new and fresh winds would soon be blowing through the corridors of the Development Directorate as well as the halls of the Commission.
New winds certainly have been blowing from the office of the European Commissioner for Development in 2000. Although not always in exactly the direction that Eurostep advocated would be useful, nor with the stormy strength we suggested would be necessary.
However, we do conclude that the new Commissioner has made a positive difference, although much more could have been achieved if Mr. Nielson had chosen to dialogue more openly, directly and rigorously with those forces in civil society that are potentially among his strongest supporters and allies.
From the Eurostep point of view, the most important achievement of the new Commission has been the adoption of the development policy statement. For the first time in the history of the EU development programme, poverty reduction has been defined as the principal objective of the programme. While in our view the Commission's overall position was in many ways disappointing we recognise that this has much to do with the resistance within the Commission from interests other than development. The Commission statement also helped the Development Council to take positions on development policy even further.
Another achievement was the finalisation, after years of extensive negotiation, of a new agreement with the ACP countries. The Cotonou agreement is not as far-reaching as Eurostep had advocated for in our position papers during the past two years. But we recognise that the agreement puts poverty as a central objective, and also that it formally recognises the important role that non state actors should be making, not only in implementation but also in helping to identify appropriate strategies for pursuing development within ACP countries.
On the important issue of coherence, we had hoped that the Commission would have been able to achieve more than we understand is the case. The Commissioner and the policy statement are frank about the need to address this problem in a rigorous manner, and a structure for doing so has been established. It is also true, however, that incoherence remains a political reality of the EU policy towards the South, because of very real economic and political interests that conflict with poverty reduction being the primary objective.
In all of the three areas mentioned above, Eurostep has certainly been able to make a difference through our position papers and dialogue with various parts of the EU structure. Not least because the members of Eurostep have been able to push our positions into the national arenas.
In looking forward towards 2001, I hope it will be possible to establish an ongoing, open, reflective and critical dialogue with the Commissioner and his staff. A dialogue based on the understanding that the struggle against global poverty deserves a united effort.
Chair of Eurostep
Secretary General of Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke
A vision for the EU's relations with developing countries
The European union has given much focus to re-shaping its future co-operation with developing countries. New policy approaches have been adopted and a major reform has been initiated in the way the Commission manages its external relations. Eurostep produced its own vision of the EU's future relations with developing countries, which it set out in The European Union: A Potential Global Force for Change.
Eurostep not only argues that poverty eradication should be the central objective of all of the EU's external policies, but that for this to be credible development policy must remain an equal element of the EU's external policies, along side its political and trade policies. In addition a strategy needs to be identified that clearly identifies how the EU - including its member states, the Commission and the Parliament - could contribute towards achieving the international development targets.
For Eurostep a core element of this is to establish a viable and transparent mechanism that ensure Commission policies and practices - whether they be in trade, agriculture, fisheries or whatever - are coherent with the EU's policy objectives towards developing countries. Eurostep's proposals were set out in a paper entitled Coherence and Consistency of EU Policies: Proposed Mechanisms for Implementation.
While welcoming the Commission's Development Policy statement as an important step forward Eurostep was disappointed that it did not identify how the policies already adopted by the EU would be put into practice. The outcome of the Development Council in November provides more optimism, but the real test will be the way in which these policies are implemented.
For Eurostep this remains a central concern. The re-organisation of the Commission's external services and the establishment of an independent EuropeAid office are intended to increase efficiency and effectiveness in implementing the EU's development programme. While recognising that the current reform agenda does seek to address necessary political questions, as well as managerial and administrative ones, these will not in themselves necessarily lead to greater effectiveness.
While welcoming the intention to decentralise its decision making, increase capacity and review cumbersome procedures that were often instigated by member states, Eurostep believes that there is a real danger that development policy is marginalised.
In 2001 Eurostep will work to prevent this, and to press for a coherent external policy in which development policy is an equal partner with trade and the EU's political foreign policy interests.
Social Development
Eurostep has consistently argued that ensuring the provision of social services is central to development. Since the European Union collectively provides some 60% of all aid to developing countries it has a responsibility to ensure that it contributes effectively to achieving this goal. In 1995 the EU and its member states, together with other governments of the World, made commitments at the Copenhagen World Summit for Social Development and at the Beijing World Conference on Women that set targets on social development.
In June 2000 the United Nations General Assembly reviewed the implementation of these commitments. Eurostep saw these review processes as an opportunity to re-focus attention on the central importance of the commitments. For the New York review of the Beijing Women's Conference Eurostep focused its attention on calling for poverty eradication to be unequivocally and unambiguously at the heart of all EU policies. For this to be viable gender dimensions have to be central to every aspect of these policies, whether they are social, political or economic.
Towards the Geneva Review of the Copenhagen Social Summit Eurostep worked actively as part of Social Watch, a global collaboration of civil society organisations monitoring the implementation of the commitments made by governments at the UN conferences and summits during the 1990's. Eurostep urged that for the development commitments to be realised more resources needed to be directed towards social sectors through increased aid and the writing off of debt. The international trade and financial systems have to be controlled so that they do not prevent effective social development. This should include the introduction of a tax on international capital transfers. In addition the global legal framework should be strengthened by establishing a Convention on Eradicating Poverty.
While the outcome of the review was disappointing in that few new initiatives were adopted, civil society organisations once again demonstrated their determination to monitor the actions of governments and the multilateral organisations, and to press them to implement the commitments that they have made.
For Eurostep the European Parliament's initiative that led to the establishment of targets in the EU's 2001 budget covering EC support for social development was an important victory. This will allow clearer assessments to be made on the real contribution being made to achieve the international targets. It is an initiative which needs to be built on in future.
Basic education
Eurostep's activities on social development included a focus on basic education and the role that the EU can play in seeking to ensure universal access in all countries. Taken forward by an Advocacy Team led by ActionAid UK, this work promoted free, compulsory and quality education, designed in a participatory way with local communities.
The campaign focused on the Dakar Education for All conference in April, as well as the Beijing and Copenhagen Reviews. It also sought to increase the proportion of the EU's aid budget supporting education, and to establish a Global Action Plan to ensure that no government committed to providing free education would be prevented from doing so through a lack in resources.
EU co-operation with African, Caribbean and Pacific countries
In June the EU and the countries of the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group signed an agreement that will govern co-operation between them for the next 20 years. This agreement replaces the Lomé Convention which has been a central part of the EC's development programme over the past three decades. While the EU's external relations have broadened during that time to cover all parts of the world, and has been given an increased political dimension through the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the EU remains the largest donor and trading partner for most ACP countries.
The new Cotonou Agreement is important not only because it will lead to changes in the trade relationships between ACP countries and the EU, but also because of new innovations within the agreement. This includes identifying civil society actors as partners in the agreement who should be consulted in defining the programme as well as in its implementation.
Eurostep worked during the two years of negotiations for the new agreement to have poverty eradication as its main objective and for the inclusion of strategies for achieving the international development targets. Working with other European NGOs within the Cotonou Monitoring Group Eurostep has sought to strengthen the ability of civil society, particularly in ACP countries, to engage in shaping the co-operation programmes between the EU and ACP countries.
Eurostep's assessment of the agreement welcomed many of the new aspects that have been introduced. However, it noted that the strategies and most mechanisms for implementing the agreement still needed to be developed, and the success of the agreement would depend on these as much as on the agreement itself. Eurostep made a number of proposals on how this might be done.
For Eurostep, an important element of the new agreement is an enhanced role for non state actors. How this is to be achieved in practice still needs to be determined. While this depends much on the principal partners of the agreement - the ACP states and the EU - civil society actors have a key role to play in helping define the mechanisms for their involvement.
Eurostep has therefore been one of a number of organisations giving focus to the role of Civil Society. An emphasis has been put on pursuing dialogue between Civil Society actors from Europe and ACP countries. This has been done both through meetings and an electronic conference looking at ways in which civil society collaboration could be organised to promote participation in implementing the Cotonou Agreement and to produce proposals for the issues on which this might be based. The electronic conference, which started in October, involved participants from civil society organisations in Europe and ACP countries. It will conclude in April 2001.
Trade and investment
In 2000 trade and investment were introduced as a focal issue of the Eurostep programme. The EU is a major trading bloc in the global economy, and the European Commission plays a primary role in negotiating global trade rules and individual trade agreements with other countries on behalf of the EU and its member states as a whole.
A principal activity of Eurostep in this area was to define an initial common position. This was done with the publication of a position paper in June entitled Market Access, Agriculture, Food Security and reform of the World Trade Organisation. In this paper Eurostep urged that there must be a comprehensive review of the impact of WTO rules on marginalised countries. It argued that this should precede any new global round of negotiations. Eurostep made some specific proposals for actions that the EU could take in the four areas covered by the paper.
During the year Eurostep has also been involved in the dialogue process that the European Commission has been pursuing with civil society. This has involved a regular series of meetings, mainly on sectoral issues. Representation from Eurostep in these meetings has been both through individual member organisations and by the secretariat. The secretariat has also been involved in moves to assess the value of dialogue process as well as in the co-ordination of a number of NGOs involved.
Towards the end of the year the proposals from the Commission for complete market access for LDC country products to the EU except for arms has been a focus of Eurostep's activities on trade. Eurostep supported the proposal, urging Member States and MEPs to give it their approval. Eurostep is also calling for it to be accompanied by a strategy to help LDCs make use of the increased market access. In addition Eurostep called for assessments to be made of the potential impact that these changes would have on the vulnerable economies of small island and landlocked countries, so that any detrimental consequences can be compensated.
Eurostep's Partners
India Partner consultation
In September 2000 the third Eurostep partner consultation took place in Haryana, India. Bringing together some 57 participants, including 44 from civil society organisations in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan and India, the meeting focused on Poverty Eradication and the Quality of Aid. The aim of the discussions was to identify development strategies for the South Asian region, and the way that the European Union could constructively support these. A central element was the role of civil society in this process.
The meeting concluded with a declaration which acknowledged that the process of development is inherently political. It stated that inequitable and non-participatory development can actually create poverty. The objective of eradicating poverty can only be achieved through struggle in which people living in poverty are empowered to take control of their own lives and resources.
The meeting also called for civil society to be involved in developing the Commission's Country Strategy Papers for the countries in the region, as well as a regional strategy. It sought the establishment of a multi-dimensional, democratic and comprehensive dialogue between South Asia and Europe.
The Reality of Aid
Eurostep has been involved in the Reality of Aid since it was established in 1992. A review of the EU has been included in each annual report since 1994. In 2000 an interim report was published in November. The next full edition will be published at the end of 2001.
Social Watch
Social Watch was established in 1995 out of the collaboration of NGOs around the World Summit for Social Development and the Beijing World Conference on Women. Since then an annual report has been produced to which Eurostep has made a regular contribution about the development policies of the EU towards social development. The 2000 edition of the Social Watch Report was published in April and focused on the preparations for the official reviews of the 1995 UN meetings in Copenhagen and Beijing.
European NGOs
Co-operation with other NGO networks has been an important part of Eurostep's work to implement its programme. At a general level there has been co-operation through the NGO EU Liaison Committee, with Eurostep being an observer on the Committee. Five Eurostep member organisations also provide the national delegate to the Committee.
Eurostep has worked with others on specific aspects of the programme, including trade through CENNT and the Brussels based Trade Co-ordinating Group. On the relationship between the EU and ACP countries the Cotonou Monitoring Group has played a central co-ordinating role bringing together the Liaison Committee, Aprodev, Cidse, Wide, the European Research Office and Inzet.
Communications
As a network communications are central to the implementation of Eurostep's work. The main mechanisms for communicating Eurostep's messages to MEPs, Commission officials, Ambassadors and representatives of EU Member States has been through position papers, letters, and dialogue. A weekly news bulletin, the ProActive File (PAF) also provides a regular update on developments around the issues of the Eurostep programme.
Within Eurostep's membership the PAF provides the main means of communication. The PAF also incorporates a members’ section. An increased use of the internet is being developed with the establishment of a members site on the Eurostep Web pages.
Eurostep is also a member of Oneworld international and of Euforic. Euforic is a European internet based co-operative whose objective is to bring together on-line information about European international development policies and its co-operation with developing countries.
Eurostep Papers and Publications
Publications:
§ EU Global Player: The North South Policy of the European Union (November 1999)
§ The Social Watch Report 2000 (April 2000)
§ Eradication of Poverty
Eurostep South Asia Partner Consultation (September 2000)
§ The Reality of Aid 2000 - Interim Report (November 2000)
§ Eurostep Statement on a new EU-Africa Partnership (January 2000)
§ The new ACP-EU Agreement - An assessment and recommendations for implementation (May 2000)
§ Report on Workshop on Enhancing Civil Society Involvement in the Implementation of the New ACP-EU Agreement (June 2000)
Positions and briefing papers on Social Development
§ Eurostep Position Paper Geneva 2000 World Summit on Social Development: An Agenda for further Initiatives (April 2000)
§ Statement on priorities for Geneva 2000: World Summit on Social Development (June 2000)
§ Realising the right to education (June 2000)
§ Meeting the EU's commitments to education in developing countries:
Implications for the 2001 budget (August 2000)
Positions and briefing papers on trade and investment
§ The EU-South Africa Trade, Development and Co-operation Agreement: Analysis of the Negotiating Process, the Agreement and the Economic Impact (March 2000)
§ The EU-South Africa Trade, Development and Co-operation Agreement:
An analysis of its implications in Southern Africa (June 2000)
Other Papers
§ Eurostep’s Initial Response to the European Commission’s Discussion Paper on European Community’s Development Policy (April 2000)
§ The European Union - A Potential Global Force for Change (September 2000)
§ Eurostep letter on European Commission on ‘Every Thing But Arms’ Market Access Proposal (December 2000)
Eurostep
Eurostep was established in 1990 to co-ordinate activities of its members at the European level. Its two principal aims are:
first to influence official development co-operation policies of multilateral institution, and in particular those of the European Union;
and secondly to improve the quality and effectiveness of initiatives taken by NGOs in support of people centred development
Bjørn Førde, Chair [Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke, Denmark]
Greetje Lubbi, Vice-Chair [Novib, The Netherlands]
Folke Sundmann [Kepa, Finland]
Guiseppe Crippa [Movimondo, Italy]
Luis de França [Oikos, Portugal]
Director : Simon Stocker
Secretariat:
Address: 115, rue Stevin, B-1000 Brussels
Telephone: +32 2 231 16 59
Fax: +32 2 230 37 80
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: http://www.oneworld.org/eurostep
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