January 2009

The European Union and its Responsibility in the World

Manifesto on Human Rights for the new European Parliament, 2009

In June 2009, citizens of the 27 member States of the European Union (EU) will elect their representatives to the European Parliament for the 2009-2014 term.

On this occasion, CONCORD - which represents more than 1600 civil society organisations supported by millions of European citizens - calls for a partnership between civil society and the European Parliament in order to find a way towards sustainable development.

In its manifesto, CONCORD identifies and discusses three essential EU objectives, namely sustainable development, more and better development aid and democratic accountability, and urges MEPs to act on them.

Click here to download the CONCORD manifesto for the 2009 European Parliament Elections.

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Human Rights-Based Approaches and European Union Development Aid Policies

November 2008

EU 2009 Elections: TDHIF Manifestos on Human Rights and Development

In June 2009, EU citizens will elect their new representatives in the European Parliament for a five-year legislature (2009-2014). These elections will not only determine the next 785 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), they will also influence the subsequent appointment by the Parliament of new Commissioners in the European Commission, the executive body of the EU.

In this context, TDHIF is contributing to the drafting of two manifestos to call upon and commit the new policy makers to supporting human rights and development during their legislature by encouraging them to overtly uphold the principles of the manifesto. These manifestos are co-written with other NGO members of the Human Rights and Democracy Network (HRDN), as well as members of CONCORD (the European platform on Development), in order to coordinate and strengthen advocacy strategies. TDHIF will make sure that important references to human rights based approaches (HRBA) are included, and take an active role in advocacy. TDHIF believes that EU policies on development cooperation and children should be implemented through a human rights based approach that ensures the application of the UN Convention on Child Rights in development projects.

Please find attached the Manifesto on Human Rights:

April 4, 2008

CONCORD (European Confederation for Relief and Development) and Global Call to Action Against Poverty

OECD Figures: Scandalous lack of progress in EU development aid

In 2007, European Aid fell by 1.7 billion euros, show OECD figures released today. NGOs from across Europe warn European governments that their failure will cost lives.

“European governments’ failure to meet aid pledges is nothing short of disgraceful. Europe likes to see itself as a world leader in development assistance, but these figures show that governments are taking a step backward on their commitments” said Olivier Consolo, CONCORD Director. “17 of the 27 European member States have not increased their Official Development Assistance at all in the last year and of these, 11 have actually allowed it to fall. The gap between promises and reality must be closed!” .

Over 1600 European NGOs united under the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP), and CONCORD, the European NGO Confederation for Relief and Development, have criticised European governments for their failure to live up to aid promises. According to the OECD, European aid fell from 0.41% to 0.38% of Gross National Income (GNI) in 2007. European governments are getting further from, not closer to, their 2010 commitments of 0.56 % GNI for ODA and have yet to set out how they will meet their aid targets. France, which will take the Presidency of the European Union as from the 1st of July is one major donor which has failed to announce a timetable for how it will meet its commitments of aid.

“It is unacceptable that France, which is a leading donor has failed to set out how it will meet its targets on aid. The French Government must now look forward and reaffirm the commitments it has made, by programming an ambitious rise of its assistance for 2009, on the basis of a multi-annual framework to ensure that its aid is predictable", explains Anne Héry, representative of Handicap International in Paris and Secretary-general of Coordination SUD.

Since 2005, there has been a serious lack of progress on genuine aid* in sharp contrast with promises made by European governments. Last year’s poor performance is largely due to the timing of debt relief deals, which have been counted as ODA in the past, thereby inflating aid figures and disguising the poor performance of European governments. This lack of progress on aid will impact hard on the developing countries that were counting on this money to reach the Millennium Development Goals.

"A failure on the part of European Union to meet its aid promises directly condemns the poor and marginalized in developing countries to a life of poverty. Already in many poor countries, the verdict is that the Millennium Development Goals will not be met. This is a scenario the world can ill-afford and we demand action" said Marivic Raquiza, GCAP Asia Co-Convenor.

CONCORD and GCAP have today called on European governments to set transparent and binding timetables showing how they will meet their commitments to give more aid.

EU governments should also take a lead at the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Accra in September, and must set more ambitious targets to make their aid more effective. In particular, European aid must be more predictable, transparent and accountable.

“European donors are often less than transparent about the decisions that they take which affect the lives of real people in poor countries. They need to be more accountable for the effectiveness of their aid” said Hussaini Abdu, African Governance Coordinator with ActionAid.

On 22nd of May this year, CONCORD launched an in-depth report analysing issues of quality and quantity of aid from EU member states to the developing world.

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Notes for Editors (see CONCORD website for material as pictures or testimonies)

• The commitments: In 2002, the EU15 committed to give at least 0.33% of GNI as aid by 2006 (with an average of 0.39%) and 0.7% by 2015. In 2005, they committed to give 0.51% at least by 2010 (with an average of 0.56%) The 12 New member States committed to give 0.17% of GNI as aid by 2010 and 0.33% by 2015.

• The reality: The 2007 figures release by the OECD show that European aid fell from 0.41% of GNI in 2006 to 0.38% of GNI in 2007.

• * Most European donors inflate their official aid figures by counting as aid debt relief and funding to foreign students and refugees in European countries. In 2006, CONCORD found that EU governments had inflated European aid figures by nearly 30%. In 2006, 13.6 billion euros of reported ODA was in fact debt cancellation primarily for Iraq and Nigeria (€11 billion euros), educating foreign students in Europe (€1.6 billion) and housing refugees in Europe (€1 billion). CONCORD considers that this cannot be counted as genuine aid.

• CONCORD CONCORD’s European Aid Watch Report will be published on 22nd May, and will include a detailed analysis of the degree to which European aid was inflated in 2007.

• In 2005, all OECD donors signed the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, which included a set of indicators and targets to improve the effectiveness of aid. They will meet again in September 2008 in Accra at the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness to assess progress and make new commitments. A recent report from Eurodad showed that much still needs to be done if donors are to live up to these commitments to make aid more effective and accountable.

Terre des Hommes, a voice for children in Europe

Through its internal and external policies, The European Union represents a major regional actor in the fields of development cooperation, the promotion of social justice and of human rights, both in terms of programmes funding and policies implementation within and outside the zone of the 25 EU members.

The European Commission is co-financing a series of Terre des Hommes’ programmes in sectors such as emergency, health, education, community development, protection of refugees, support of indigenous communities, juvenile justice, abuse of children or child trafficking. Two Terre des Hommes organisations – Terre des hommes Italy and the Foundation Terre des hommes in Lausanne – are partners of ECHO – the European Commission Humanitarian Office.

As international NGO learning from its field programmes and advocating for the rights of the child, Terre des Hommes is in a position to take an active part in the dialogue between the EU institutions Commission, Council of the UE and European Parliament) and the European Development NGOs. Therefore, thanks to its European office in Brussels, Terre des Hommes tries to influence the EU policies on Development, Humanitarian Aid or Human Rights so that the EU commits for the implementation of the Convention of the Rights of the Child.

Whenever relevant, Terre des Hommes works through networking with others NGOs in order to strengthen the voice of the European civil society. Terre des Hommes runs advocacy work on 3 major issues to influence European decisions:

To promote the role of non-governmental organisations and integrate a rights-based approaches within the European Development policy

To fully integrate the rights of the child, as well as social, economical and cultural rights in the European Human Rights policy

To urge the European Union and other pan-European organisations to shape and implement adequate policies to combat - and protect victims of - child trafficking in Europe and worldwide

To achieve those objectives, Terre des Hommes works in coalition with 2 major coalitions based in Brussels.

CONCORD: Terre des Hommes is founder member of CONCORD (www.concordeurope.org), the European NGO Confederation for Development and Relief, which is the major European network representing some 1800 European Development NGOs.

Human Rights and Democracy Network: Terre des Hommes is member of that informal coalition of Human Rights NGOs which runs a structural dialogue with the EU on human rights programmes and policies.