By Martin Banks - 4th June 2009
We can make globalisation more balanced, just and citizen-oriented
Claudio Martini
Europe's cities and regions can play a bigger role in development while also helping to improve the effectiveness of aid a conference has been told.
Speaking at the event, Claudio Martini, president of Tuscany region and the Rennes-based Conference of Peripheral and Maritime Regions (CPMR), compared the EU’s cohesion policy and its development policies.
He said, “In Europe, over the last 20 years, we have gradually built up a partnership for regional policy, based on cohesion between territories and the link between cohesion and the growth and development of the EU.
"We have moved on from a donor-receiver relationship to one of a necessary partnership. What we need to do now is, together, to build the same type of partnership for development.
"In this way, we can make globalisation more balanced, just, and citizen-oriented," said Martini, also president of the Forum of Global Associations
of Regions (Fogar).
In his view, what puts development aid in jeopardy today is the "reduced volume of funding, the dispersal of aid, and its lack of effectiveness."
Martini raised these points with the European commission, who were represented at the seminar.
The Italian went on, “We especially need the ‘atlas of decentralised cooperation’ which has been mentioned by the commission.
"It will give us a better understanding of the scope, including the financial scope, of regional and local authorities actions.”
Another speaker at the one-day event, Michel Vauzelle, president of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, said, “Development aid has been steadily decreasing over recent years.
"The overall amount of public aid for development is less than private
transfers made by migrants.
"What is worse, development aid can also be used as an instrument of domination, or at the very least as a means of exploiting commercial opportunities and sometimes is of greater benefit to the donors.”
