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.

As stated in the New European Consensus on Development, and reaffirmed by the Council of the European Union, the EU and its Member States recognise the multiple roles that civil society organisations (CSOs) play “in the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as their essential role in economic, social, political, environmental, development and humanitarian fields, complementing the role of the State in providing services, reaching out to vulnerable and marginalised people, eradicating poverty, building resilience, and contributing to ensuring that no one is left behind.”

As such, the EU has committed since 2012 to support CSOs in all external instruments and programmes and in all areas of cooperation,
including through a “flexible and tailor-made approach to funding” in order to reach all types of CSOs. This commitment to support CSOs was reiterated in the specific objectives of the EU Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument – Global Europe (NDICI-GE).

Women’s equal participation and leadership in all aspects of society are essential to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, but what about the funding to make this happen?

With the Gender Action Plan (GAP III) (2021-2025) and less than 10 years to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, including SDG 5 for gender equality, CONCORD considers it crucial to address the lack of funding that reaches women’s rights organisations, feminist movements and national, local and grassroots organisations working to advance gender equality.

This paper builds on the work already carried out by women’s rights organisations – such as the Association for Women’s Rights in Development – by adding specific recommendations to the EU and Member States.

The review of the EU’s Trade Strategy was an opportunity for the EU to use its leadership in the multilateral trade system to accelerate worldwide progress on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement.

Overall, the new strategy does not suggest any major changes to the EU’s approach to trade. The EU continues to promote a model in which trade liberalisation and measures to protect European companies and domestic markets are the main goals, without enough consideration for realising sustainable development across the globe. CONCORD deeply regrets that the European Commission missed this opportunity to truly align EU trade policy with the objectives of the 2030 Agenda.

This analysis identifies 12 key improvements to the reviewed EU Trade Strategy to move towards an economy that ensures well-being for the people and planet.

2020 should have been a celebratory year for accelerating gender equality globally. Instead, COVID-19 has dramatically reversed the progress made over recent decades. Inequalities, poverty and gender-based violence are on the rise and women and girls are the first to be impacted. Gender equality is one of the EU’s key values and principles and, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has never been more important that the EU remains true to its
commitments.

We welcome the new Gender Action Plan (GAP) III and acknowledge that it takes important steps forward in tackling the root causes of gender inequalities. However, complementary steps are needed for GAP III to be a success. And Member States have a very important role to play.

In this analysis, three key factors that can make GAP III more impactful are identified: implementation, funding and the inclusion of civil society.