By Andris Piebalgs - 7th December 2011
At the end of the day, our efforts on governance and human development are all geared towards enabling the world’s poorest to climb the ladder of prosperity
Andris Piebalgs
The commission’s agenda for change for development aims to reduce poverty and bring the millennium development goals closer to completion, writes Andris Piebalgs.
When I recently announced an agenda for change for EU development policy, my main goal was to step up a gear and move into the fast lane to reduce poverty and bring us closer to achieving the millennium development goals.
The EU has been doing well so far, but the capacity for us to build on our successes and do better is there. The context has changed. The Arab spring has highlighted the thirst for democracy and a brighter future.
Yet we continue to wrestle with a worldwide financial crisis that has left the most vulnerable economies even more exposed and put a strain on our own finances.
Sustainable development can only occur when people can work and bring income to their families. Therefore, EU development aid should be a catalyst for inclusive and sustainable growth. But on the other hand, every person should be provided with basic social services, such as access to education, healthcare or electricity.
Such services, both in the EU as elsewhere in the world, are provided by the government and its institutions. This goes to show that good governance is key to a country’s basic development and poverty reduction efforts.
Reducing poverty for good requires robust and honest state institutions that are both able and willing to help poor people improve their standards of living and to provide them with public services, rights and security.
Likewise, democratic processes make the state accountable to its citizens, encourage transparency and guard against corruption. Basically, they allow for constructive relations between government and people.
So our development support should be a spur to democratic governance and respect for human rights. It needs to offer incentives to democratic reform processes and at the same time actively support developing countries in making positive change for the better.
We will be discussing these issues during the European development days in Warsaw with other stakeholders, including participants in the Arab spring, who will share their first-hand experiences of taking part in the movements pushing for democratisation, jobs, and growth.
I like to think of development policy and governance as two sides of the same coin. On the one side, policy and action can help bring about positive improvements in governance. On the flipside, improvements in governance can play an often critical role in reducing poverty.
Included in this is the crucial role of parliaments, civil society and NGOs in holding governments to account. It is a role that needs strengthening and that we will support. It will therefore be a greater focus of budget support contracts in the future, and aid will be directed as a positive vector for change. Likewise, empowering women is key to making tangible progress on the ground.
We have to remember that development is primarily about people. We must ensure that people are healthy, educated and able to find decent jobs. And we must help countries set up their own social protection schemes.
This is why in my latest policy proposal, an agenda for change”, I announced that we will continue to focus at least 20 per cent of EU funding on health,education and human development. In particular we will improve and increase our focus on women, transforming the gender action plan into a living tool.
At the end of the day, our efforts on governance and human development are all geared towards enabling the world’s poorest to climb the ladder of prosperity.
Social services are important in this respect, but they alone will not be enough to carry development forward. If a country is to grow and create wealth, its people will need jobs. That is why the agenda for change seeks to create an enabling environment for inclusive and sustainable growth.
So, we will help to provide social services and strong public institutions that will deal with things private sector can’t or won’t. But we will also focus on providing people with jobs and support local private companies who can employ the poor and unemployed.
This is the way forward to speed up our fight against poverty and achieve the millennium development goals on time.
Andris Piebalgs is European develelopment commissioner
