The European Union has taken some fresh steps towards revamping its development policy. European leaders have this week signed a “New European Consensus on Development”, thus giving an impetus to the EU’s new strategic vision for European development policy with the aim of alleviating poverty and achieving inclusive and sustainable development.
The new strategy is a roadmap for a comprehensive common framework for European development cooperation and, for the first time, it applies to all EU institutions and member states, which all commit to collaborate more closely across an integrated framework of economic, social and environmental dimensions of development.
The new action plan reinforces the main objective of the EU development policy – poverty eradication – and introduces three steps toward this goal. EU leaders have recognized the strong linkage between different elements of development, such as development, peace and security, humanitarian aid, migration, environment and climate as well as crosscutting elements such as youth, gender issues, mobility or migration.
The second step includes combining the traditional development aid with other resources such as policy coherence or innovative forms of development financing. The third step of the new strategy will create better-tailored partnerships with a broader range of stakeholders, including civil society and partner countries at all stages of development.
The EU is the world’s biggest provider of Official Development Assistance (ODA) and as such a global leader in development. The new Consensus is the EU’s response to global challenges, and aligns EU external action to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which includes the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
