In October, CONCORD launched the annual AidWatch report analysing both the quantity and quality of EU ODA. The report finds that while reported figures are at a record high, 22% of all recorded ODA did not meet the most basic criteria to qualify as such. 

As well as AidWatch, in October CONCORD published a study on EU development cooperation funding for CSOs, marked World Food Day on our social media channels, and our Director spoke at the event ‘Tackling Inequalities: Paving the Way for a Sustainable Future’ at the European Parliament. 

Discover these highlights and more in the October edition of CONCORD’s newsletter!

 

Everyone deserves an affordable, healthy, and nutritious diet. Achieving this requires just, sustainable, and resilient food systems rooted in food sovereignty and planetary boundaries. The dominance of a corporate and industrial globalized food model hinders the potential of family-based, small-scale, diversified food systems that feed most people, especially in Africa.

Climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and conflicts highlight the globalized system’s oligopolistic nature, unsustainability, and inequalities. Small-scale producers, local systems, and indigenous knowledge offer the roadmap to end hunger, poverty, achieve food sovereignty, climate resilience, restore the environment, and improve social justice.

The current global food system, driven by economic interests and speculation, perpetuates food crises. The EU should address global food insecurity through its policies, programs, AU-EU Partnership, and influence in international forums.

The new partnership agreement between the European Union and the members of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States marks the formal conclusion of their negotiations of the Post-Cotonou Agreement, and sets the framework for political, economic and sectoral cooperation for the next twenty years.

The role of civil society in the dialogue and in the implementation of the Post-Cotonou Agreement is clearly outlined in the text. However, the procedures and conditions for ensuring structured and effective participation of CSOs still remain unclear. Like the previous agreement, it offers a promising framework for participation by civil society actors, but it does not create mechanisms for translating this aspiration into practice.

In order to engage in transformative partnerships in EU-OACP relations, the Agreement must go beyond promising frameworks with concrete mechanisms for effective participation of civil society to ensure transparent, inclusive and participatory implementation.

This guide, addressed to CSOs in the EU and in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, pinpoints the crucial sections in the negotiated text of the Post-Cotonou Agreement. Particularly focusing on the role of civil society, the Insider’s Guide aims to show why CSOs must engage with the Agreement and what they can do in terms of advocacy to influence its implementation.

The new partnership agreement between the European Union and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPSs) is the framework that will guide relations between the two blocs for the next 20 years. CONCORD welcomes the fact that achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and adhering to the Paris Climate Agreement will be among the key objectives of our future partnership. We call for the fight against inequality and leaving no one behind to be the guiding overall aim as our agreement is implemented. In particular, successful implementation of the agreement will require the continuous, meaningful involvement of civil society.

Although mutual partnerships require the interest of all parties to be taken into account, the EU-OACP agreement tilts the balance in favour of EU interests which, for instance, dominate in the economic and migration chapters of the agreement.

This short paper includes CONCORD’s views on the main parts of the agreement: it provides an overview and analysis of the main policy areas, including some cross-cutting themes that CONCORD believes to be essential.