Last week key issues caught the attention of the development community. Notably, CONCORD, the European NGO confederation for Relief and Development, says that the EU is leaving aside anti-poverty objectives as the European External Action Service (EEAS), fails to integrate development policy. As stated by the organization, competition between the EEAS and DG DEVCO seems to prevail.

Remarkably, a new medium-term strategy for 2012-16 was adopted by a five-agency programme to reinforce coordination in a number of key areas to help developing countries meet international standards on food safety and animal and plant health. As a recent articles report, the main goal is to assist developing countries tackle pests, animal and plant diseases and contaminants so that they can expand and diversify food and agricultural production and exports. This is expected to result in economic development, poverty reduction, better nutrition, food security and environmental protection. The EU as well as some EU member states are current donors.

We cannot forget to mention the outcomes of the last elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo: The European Union (EU) might suspend cooperation with the African country. As EU election observers report, there have been several irregularities in the course of the Congolose presidential polls.  According to an EU spokesman, Maja Kocijancic, the EU could invoke article 96 of the Cotonou agreement.  
Under this article, the EU can suspend cooperation with any ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) country that has not respected democratic principles. Were the case of such an action, EU direct financial aid to the DRC would be frozen, with the exception of the humanitarian assistance.

Development community greatly talked about the recovery of Haiti, two years after the earthquake. The involvement of the International community has been unprecedented as many initiatives, the UNDP reports, have been and are still being carried out. 2011 has been not only marked by political and administrative transition but also by the transition from the humanitarian to the recovery phase. As UNDP states in its report 'Haiti rebuilds', although the recovery phase will still take some years  a series of results have been already observed  over the last year, 2011, such as  the 50% of the debris removed, more than 300,000 jobs created and 2,000 meters of gabion walls erected.
Furthermore, and as part of its support to Haiti,  the European Commission (EC) has  launched in Port-au-Prince a €23 million programme to repair and rebuild safe homes to the benefit of more than 60 000 displaced people. This new housing programme, will be implemented together with local communities, the municipalities as well as the Haitian Ministry for Public Works. “Two years after the terrible earthquake, the reconstruction of Haiti is and will remain a priority in our agenda”, Andris Piebalgs has highlighted.

Moreover, some other issues of crucial importance last week were: “Priorities of the Danish EU Presidency”, “Sustainable energy: key for Sub-saharan Africa” and “Contributions of private sector to development”. We notably suggest you to watch our video interview to Jean-Marc Bellot, Head of the Brussels representation office of the  Agence Française de Développement (AFD), who explained to us how the ICT can help farmers to get  the so-called “fair price”.

As an important point, CTA announces that the next Brussels Development Briefing will take place on the 22 February 2012 and will be organised in partnership with the African Union, the European Commission (DG DEVCO) the ACP Secretariat, Concord and various media partners.
The Briefing will provide an overview of the main challenges affecting the pastoralists, especially in the ACP countries, and the opportunities provided by existing continental and regional policy frameworks and processes. It will then focus on sharing good practices and experiences from the field across regions. We will also identify what urgent and concrete policy actions need to be in place to increase support pastoralism.
The Briefing will be fully webstreamed in English and French. To learn more, to register for the Briefing and to follow the webstream on22 February (from 8h30 a.m. to13.00 p.m. CET) please visit brusselsbriefings.

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