Opinion of the Committee of the Regions on the ‘Spring Package: EU action plan for achieving the Millennium Development Goals’

(2010/C 267/05)

I.   POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS

A.   General observations

1.   shares the Commission's political will to maintain the EU's lead role in the fight against global poverty which it took on in 2000 with the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs (1)) by the United Nations;

2.   welcomes the fact that the Commission has drawn up a Twelve-point EU action plan based on the numerous documents which make up the Spring Package, details of which are given in the appendix. The EU's aim is to establish a common position for the UN summit to be held in New York from 20 to 22 September. Despite a backdrop of severe economic, social and financial crisis, the ultimate goal is to step up the war against the misery which afflicts hundreds of millions of men, women and children and to determine practical ways of meeting the commitments of the MDGs by 2015;

3.   believes that these documents, which provide a wealth of analyses and proposals, make it possible to take stock of the global situation: they contain clear and detailed information on the (fairly mixed) progress made towards achieving each of the MDGs and on the financial efforts undertaken by Member States in the form of public development aid (PDA); they attest, without concealing the delays and shortcomings, to the complexity of the initiatives taken by the EU both internally and in various international forums to put the various parties on a battle footing; they also identify new ways of speeding up the necessary progress;

4.   finds it all the more regrettable that local and regional authorities (LRAs), both in the EU and recipient countries, are not mentioned explicitly (2) in the first Commission communication as being among the partners involved in the achievement of the MDGs. This omission runs counter to the 2005 Consensus for Development, which lays down the basic planks of EU development policy, the 2008 Commission communication, which explicitly recognises LRAs as development partners, and the Council conclusions on this communication adopted on 10 November 2008. It also goes against the dialogue undertaken between the Commission and the Committee of the Regions, which, since the unanimous adoption of opinion 312/2008 final by the CoR on 22 April 2009, has been the institutional representative of the LRAs;

5.   believes that it is essential to remedy this shortcoming in the common EU position to be drawn up after consideration by the Council and the Parliament, and to recognise that European LRAs and their counterparts in other countries play a key role in combating poverty;

B.   Remarks on different issues

6.   does not wish to return in detail to the contribution which European LRAs and local governments in aid recipient countries make to achieving the MDGs in accordance with the principles of democratic governance (3). It has already drawn attention to this and put forward proposals in the opinions on the development cooperation of local authorities it has issued since 2005 (4); hence this matter can be regarded as being settled;

7.   recalls that the Accra Action Plan of 2008 recognises the role of local and regional government in the new blueprint for aid;

8.   it nevertheless seems appropriate, at a time when the EU is preparing to present its position on the international stage, to emphasise certain points which directly concern LRAs;

Achievement of MDGs and thematic communications

9.   recalls that, of the eight MDGs (1), seven concern very specific aspects of poverty. The situation in 2010 – two-thirds of the way to the deadline – reveals a mixed picture. The results are fairly positive insofar as concerns the slight decrease in extreme poverty, mortality of children under five years of age, epidemics and access to drinking water. They are poor, even very poor, with regard to hunger and malnutrition, inequalities in education, maternal mortality, AIDs and waste water treatment. In examining the overall picture, which is also the result of crises – first the food crisis and then the economic and financial crisis – it is necessary to bear in mind the disparities which exist within individual countries and, above all, between different regions in the world: whilst, for example, the rise of China inflates some indicators, sub-Saharan Africa lags furthest behind when it comes to children's access to primary education, the fight against AIDs and access to clean water; also notes that achievement of these 7 MDGs is dependent on Goal 8 – Participate in a Global Partnership for Development – which, despite the current economic crisis, is based on a commitment of solidarity by all stakeholders to overcoming global poverty;

10.   agrees with the Commission that the MDGs are interdependent. To complement and illustrate the examples provided by the Spring Package documents, mention can also be made of access to water, an area where the EU plays an active role through the Water Facility programme but which is also very prominent in cooperation measures conducted by European LRAs. If water is drinkable, this has an impact on the health of everyone, but the fact that it is accessible makes it possible to improve agriculture – and thus in principle nutrition – and to change the lives of women by lightening their workload, especially that of young girls by freeing them for education;

11.   stresses that progress in achieving the MDGs requires the establishment of national systems which, in terms of planning and allocation of resources, do not overlook the provision of ‘basic’ services, i.e. services capable of effectively meeting people's fundamental needs;

12.   thinks that it is important in this context to reiterate the crucial role which local and regional authorities play in the organisation and provision of such services in accordance with democratic and effective governance aimed at improving people's well-being;

13.   believes, furthermore, that the local approach is essential in addressing one of the major challenges to the achievement of the MDGs, namely demographic change: without taking into account development needs at local level, for example by supporting small rural farms, emigration from the countryside will only exacerbate the misery in mega-cities that have become unmanageable or strengthen migration flows to other countries;

14.   consequently, calls on the European Commission to integrate this local approach to development when finalising regional (i.e. concerning several countries) and national strategy documents with partner countries; notes, in this regard, the need to involve LRAs in the drawing up and implementation of development programmes. Responding to the challenges of globalisation presupposes taking on board LRAs, who are responsible on the ground for democratic governance and local development;

15.   in addition, by taking appropriate action, LRAs can raise public awareness of the reality of global poverty in a crisis context and of the urgency of responding to development needs. By displaying solidarity and the desire to share, such action can also offer an opportunity for people of immigrant origin to rediscover their native cultures and to promote the emergence of citizens’ rights and development in their country of origin;

Financing development

Public development aid (PDA),

16.   is pleased to note that the EU (Commission and Member States) is the world’s largest donor of public development aid (5): even if the PDA figure for 2010 (estimated at around 0,45 % of GDP) is below the intermediate targets set by the EU, the EU gives more than the rich countries on average (0,31 % of GDP in 2010);

17.   would point out that some Member States already include, in their national PDA figures, the amounts spent by LRAs on their activities in the context of decentralised cooperation, whereas other Member States, for various reasons, do not;

18.   believes therefore that there is a need to clearly identify the share of LRAs in public development aid, both at national and global level;

19.   further believes that quantitative clarity would strengthen the financial involvement of LRAs in combating global poverty. Although the overall contribution of LRAs is far greater than their financial contribution, some of them have already set themselves the target of devoting 0,7 % of their resources to cooperation efforts with developing countries. Some of them have also set up funding mechanisms to respond to specific needs (for example, France in the field of access to water);

20.   proposes that the possibility be considered that each of Europe's 100 000 local authorities might decide, in accordance with their national legislation, to voluntarily allocate at least one euro per inhabitant to development aid. LRAs which are not directly involved in decentralised cooperation could pay their contributions into a local authority development aid fund, as is currently done in Spain. Initiatives which contribute indirectly to development (for example, measures to raise public awareness of global poverty) could also be promoted in this context;

Tax systems in developing countries

21.   shares the view of European authorities that they should work with developing countries to adopt tax bases and practices in the latter which conform with democratic governance by cracking down on tax paradises and corruption and supports the measures which developing countries plan to take to this end;

22.   would draw attention to three considerations in this regard:

23.   highlights the role played by LRAs, in tandem with civil society, in providing development education and raising public awareness of the problem of global poverty: without initiatives close to grass roots and confidence in how funds are used it would be even more difficult, at a time of crisis, to make EU citizens understand the need for financial solidarity with other continents;

Institutional mechanisms

Consistency of EU policies

24.   welcomes the initiatives taken by the EU to put into practice the European Consensus on Development, according to which EU policies which do not concern development must not conflict with the efforts needed to achieve the MDGs, and recalls that the Council decided in November 2009 that efforts must focus primarily on five of the twelve policies in question, namely: trade and finance, climate change, global food security, migration and security;

25.   consequently notes, among other things, that the post-2013 CAP reform will have to take into account global food security and the fact that the migration of highly qualified professionals from developing countries will be encouraged in the form of circular migration so as not to deprive these countries of the skills which are essential for their development and for the achievement of the MDGs, especially in the health field. In addition, environmental concerns will have to be taken into consideration in local and regional development;

Aid effectiveness

26.   in its opinion 312/2008 final adopted in April 2009, the CoR welcomed the ‘significant progress’ in terms of aid harmonisation brought about by the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and expressed the hope that the various levels of cooperation might be coordinated through consultation in an open and transparent manner. As harmonisation presupposes data on the various activities involved, the Committee, in close cooperation with the European Commission, has set about compiling an ‘Internet atlas on decentralised cooperation’ so as to obtain a more comprehensive picture than to date of who does what, where and how among European LRAs;

27.   would stress that the relations established between LRAs in Europe and their counterparts in partner countries can help put into practical effect the principles of democratic ownership and alignment with the priorities and characteristics of partner countries, which are at the heart of the Paris Declaration and the Accra Action Plan; implementation of these principles must not remain simply the preserve of relations between states;

28.   notes that the measures taken by LRAs were recognised in a report on achieving the MDGs by 2015 published by the Secretary-General of the United Nations in February 2010 as part of the preparations for the September summit (6). The report stresses the importance of these measures in that they are based on synergies with each other and the involvement of the relevant stakeholders;

29.   hopes fervently that, in the common EU position to be adopted by the European Council in June, political leaders do not lose sight of the fact that the aim of achieving the MDGs is to improve the everyday life of hundreds of millions of people and that ultimately it is at local level where the effectiveness of large-scale international aid mechanisms is measured;

30.   therefore requests that the sub-national level be explicitly taken into account in the analyses and proposals to be presented by the EU in June and the international community in September. Europe's 100 000 local authorities can feed the streams that become great life-giving rivers. This alliance between states and local authorities offers an opportunity to bring democracy closer to the people and to promote a fair distribution of wealth with a view to defusing the powder-keg of extreme poverty and achieving the millennium goals in accordance with the political and humanist commitments made in 2010.

(1)  Goal 1: reduce global poverty and hunger; Goal 2: achieve universal primary education; Goal 3: promote gender equality; Goal 4: reduce child mortality; Goal 5: improve maternal health; Goal 6: combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases; Goal 7: ensure environmental sustainability; Goal 8: participate in a Global Partnership for Development.

(2)  Except in the document on tax, which, paradoxically, is not addressed to the CoR.

(3)  The United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) document UCLG Position Paper on Aid Effectiveness and Local Government of December 2009 presents numerous examples.

(4)  Opinion CdR 224/2005 fin, opinion CdR 383/2006 fin, opinion CdR 144/2008 fin, and opinion CdR 312/2008 adopted in April 2009.

(5)  The annex to document SEC(2010) 420 final shows the public development aid of each of the 27 Member States together with projections to 2015.

(6)  UN document A/64/665.