World Bank vice-president Kristalina Georgieva, Bulgaria's new Commissioner-designate gave a confident performance at her parliamentary hearing on Wednesday 3 February. Georgieva was nominated to become Commissioner for International Co-operation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response following the withdrawal of the controversial candidate Rumania Jeleva. Georgieva faced questions on how she would respond to humanitarian crises in Haiti, Sudan, Burma, the Congo, Afghanistan and Gaza among others. Her responses were largely well received by MEPs.

Despite the head of the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) comments last week that he wished to see the cancellation of all Haiti's debts, including its new $102 million loan to the country, no official move towards transforming the loan into a grant has been made. The devastated country now owes the IMF over $250 million, a burden that campaigners are denouncing as scandalous.

White House officials have allegedly confirmed that US President Barack Obama is not planning to attend the EU-US summit in Madrid this May, which is being hosted by the Spanish presidency. Obama travelled to Europe six times in 2009, but reportedly intends to concentrate more on the domestic agenda this year.

A new report has been published entitled New Challenges, New Beginnings: Next steps in European development cooperation, the result of a collaboration by 25 researchers from four major European think-tanks on international development: The Overseas Development Institute (ODI), the Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE), the Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior (FRIDE), and The European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM).

The 14th summit of the African Union (AU) was held last week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, attended by Spanish President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero representing the EU. Zapatero stressed the necessity of achieving a "united and democratic Africa, sure of itself and working for prosperity".