Europe Development News |
Food rights rapporteur urges Europe to assess global impact of farm policies
UN food rights rapporteur Olivier De Schutter urged members of the European Parliament to restore “development-friendly” amendments to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that were dropped from the compromise reform package currently up for vote, reports EurActiv. De Schutter said the window of opportunity for Europe to bring its agricultural policy in line with basic human rights and EU’s development obligations is rapidly closing.
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Credit:Flickr user Vermario /cc
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Policy change at the root If anti-hunger campaign and G8 agenda
A coalition of 100 UK NGOs launched the anti-hunger If campaign, the largest coalition of its kind since Make Poverty History (MPH) in 2005, the Guardian reports. If goes further than MPH by calling for specific policy changes – not just more money – in 4 key issue areas: aid, illicit financial flows, land rights and transparency. Organisers believe the UK is well placed to use its presidency of the G8 this year to influence decisions. The British Prime Minister David Cameron endorsed the campaign in a video message and said in a speech at the World Economic Forum that the priorities for the UK's Presidency of the G8 would be trade, tax and transparency.
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Credit:If Campaign |
Developing countries’ private debt is on the rise
The World Bank’s 2013 development statistics reveal a changing composition of developing countries’ debt, and the global economic governance structure is ill-equipped to deal with it, Eurodad argues. The share of private debt in developing countries’ total external debt may now exceed the public share, although the true picture is unknown. Without a proper governance structure, developing countries will continue to be badly informed about the risks they ultimately have to manage.
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Value in evidence?
Rosalind Eyben and Chris Roche, organisers of the upcoming Big Push Forward conference on the politics of evidence, and Chris Whitty and Stefan Dercon, senior officials from the UK Department for International Development (DFID), debate the value of evidence-based approaches in development, as part of a “wonkwar” on Duncan Green’s Oxfam blog. You can leave comments and vote on a winner here.
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Credit:Flickr user marsmet491/ cc |
Mali a development failure, not a military one
Mali's civilian government and its western supporters had a decade to build institutions that could have protected the country against its extremist elements – but failed, argues Healther Hurlburt, Executive Director of the National Security Network, in the Guardian. Years of neglect and “lost ounce of prevention” look likely to turn into years of painful – and not necessarily effective – cures, she says.
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Credit:Flickr user Magharebia/ cc |
