European Development Days

Euranet's European Development Days Blog

EU and the world

22.10.2009

by Florin Orban

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Euranet correspondent Florin Orban is at the European Development Days Summit in Stockholm to find out what it's all about.

Day 3 - 24 October

And that was EDD, the 4th edition, Stockholm

The climate change was the main topic discussed in the last plenary session of the European Development Days, just weeks before the Copenhagen conference - one of the most important events for environmental issues in the new millennium.

Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hassina

“There are no winners or losers – either we all win or we all lose”, said Margot Wallström, vice-president of the European Commission and former commissioner for the environment. “There is no Plan B because there is no Planet B”, she added. “We should not think about this only as a burden or only as a cost. We should also think of this as an opportunity to build a healthier, cleaner and fairer world”, emphasized Wallström. “If you think it is expensive today, waiting until later would cost even more”, she noted.

Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga made a similar observation. “In this game there are no offenders or victims”, he said. “Ultimately, all of us will be victims”. Meanwhile at a press conference on the World Bank’s World Development Report 2010: Development and Climate Change, Mary Robinson, President of the Ethical Globalization Initiative and former president of Ireland, called on Europe to take the lead in climate change negotiations. “The time has come for decision taking”, she said. “It is a time for leadership. If Europe takes the lead it will affect China, Brazil and the US.” And Ms Robinson added: “The image of climate change is the polar bear. I like polar bears too, but that is the wrong image. The image of climate change is a poor farmer, and she is a woman and she is desperate.”

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt closing the 2009 European Development Days

The topic was raised during the closing session of the 4th edition of the European Development Days. Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said that Europe is making significant efforts to ensure success of December's climate change negotiations in Copenhagen. “While the economic crisis is a crisis of a generation, climate change is a once in a millennium crisis”, he said. “It will have profound consequences for a very, very long time. The European Union and the Swedish presidency are committed to doing everything we can to shape the kind of deal that we know is necessary in Copenhagen.”

The 4th edition of the EDD ended with a lot of commitments for the future. This important meeting had a lot of strong points. The opportunity for participants to debate openly and, at times controversially, on a series of highly important topics such as development, democracy or climate change was, of course, a major achievement. The fact that themes like the numerous conflicts in Africa and their possible resolutions, or the attitude of Western countries faced with increasing immigration from the poor countries were not on the agenda, showed that there is still a long way to go to reach a real dialogue between the North and the South. But it’s exactly these missing points, which should push Europe to open up debate with all the nations of the world, no matter how poor, or remote they are.

Day 2 - 23 October

Democracy and development were the main focus of events on the second day of the EDD.

European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek at the Democracy and Development session

Photo: Florin Orban (RRI)

The main idea expressed in the plenary discussion and in most of the debates was that a sustainable development can be achieved only under democracy.

Democracy is recognised as the best form of government to allow citizens to become full participants in society. However, Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga pointed out that there are tensions between democracy and development, and that Africa really needs physical infrastructure rather than capacity building for institutions.

This raised the question of whether Europe is placing much importance on governance and promoting democracy, and too little on building up the infrastructure. Should Europe's policy be more like China's – money for infrastructure without governance conditions attached?

Speaking from a European perspective, Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation Gunilla Carlsson said the choice is not one between infrastructure or building democratic institutions. “We should do both”, she argued.

Plenary session on democracy and development

Photo: Florin Orban (RRI)

Secretary General of the League of Arab States Amr Moussa criticised developed countries for "inconsistency" and "double standards". He pointed to the West's refusal to recognise some election results in the Middle East and its response to human rights issues in Darfur and in the Gaza Strip. “Democracy is a system that should be promoted, but the definition of democracy must be broader than simply a ballot box. Democracy promotion requires more than elections, it also requires institutions”, he said.

Liberia President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf stressed the need for infrastructure. “If one wants to promote good governance and democracy, one needs a people that are able to access the information that enables them to do that,” she said. And she added: “We need to give Africa the exercise of choice to make sure our priorities are respected. The exercise of choice is one of the fundamental tenets of democracy. One must respect our priorities if we are going to achieve our objectives”, she said.

So infrastructure appears to be essential, but on its own it is far from being enough to create a real democracy. Because even in developed countries, in fact even in the EU, democracy is not a given. President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek admitted, “We still have weaknesses with democracy in Europe; we must fight for democracy everyday”.

Day One - 22 October

President of the EU-commission Jose Manuel Barroso at opening ceremony of EDD.

Photo: Florin Orban (RRI)

Thousands of people were expected to take part to the event, even from its first day. And so it was. We saw this early in the morning, when the entrance in the Stockholmsmässan, the Stockholm International Fair, was practically blocked by the long lines waiting the security checking.

Fortunately, the security procedures were not so strict, so therefore pretty fast. Inside the building - people from all continents, all colours, all possible outfits, cameras, most of them converging to the big hall where the opening ceremony was to be held. Of course, because of the traffic, or (and) the security rules, some of the official delegations were late, and the start of the opening ceremony was slightly delayed. It happens, even in Sweden…

The opening was solemn, with speeches fitting the occasion. “Poverty is unacceptable, hunger is unacceptable, development is a must”. That is, more or less, a summary of most of the speeches. Nothing surprising. More animated were the events and the debates which followed.

A study released during the morning, entitled "Aid Effectiveness: benefits of a European Approach", revealed that European donors could make efficiency gains of billions of euros each year if they worked better together. The document, initiated by the European Commission, states that “the major obstacles to cost-effectiveness of aid are to be found in the volatility of aid flows, the proliferation of donors and implementing organisations and the ensuing fragmentation of aid programmes into tens of thousands of projects”.

The potential efficiency gains of a united European approach towards Aid Effectiveness could amount to 3 to 6 billion euros per year between 2010 and 2015. And here are another two interesting figures. The first: the EU member states and the Commission together accounted for 40-50,000 aid activities or projects in 2007. The second: around 10% percent of EU aid is still tied, meaning it has to be spent back in the donor country…

One of the speakers at the opening day's plenary session, The Response to the Global Economic Downturn, was the billionaire George Soros, chairman of the Open Society Institute. He called the European nations to use the International Monetary Fund (IMF) instruments, such as the Special Drawing Rights, to provide as much as US$100 billion in aid to poor countries. As a specialist in making big money from average amounts of money, Soros must be listened too. "The idea developed by George needs more discussion, but we are beginning to implement it", said IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

But not everybody agreed with increasing the role of the IMF. "The Bretton Woods institutions are beginning to show their age. Some say it is time to consider their retirement", said Otive Igbuzor, head of International Campaigns, ActionAid International.

Adapting to climate change was another important topic of the day. “The local effects of global warming are to be studied”, said Rajendra Pachauri, Nobel Peace Laureate 2007 and chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). "This should be the first and most important part of the agenda - to define what needs to be done at the local level,” he added.

But the real problem, the financing of those needs, still remains. One solution was suggested by Raila Odinga, prime minister of Kenya, who called for the establishment of a climate adjustment fund to help poor countries adapt to climate change. The topic will analysed in more depth on Saturday, in a plenary session called Climate Change – The Road to Copenhagen and beyond, just before the closing ceremony.