The European Union's first Report on Policy Coherence for Development

The European Commission adopted the European Union's first Report on Policy Coherence for Development (PCD), which highlights the interactions and complementarities between development policy and twelve other internal and external EU policies (trade, environment, climate change, security, agriculture, fisheries, social dimension of globalisation, employment and decent work, migration, research and innovation, information society, transport; and energy) that have an impact on developing countries.

More precisely, the report suggests that all 12 PCD areas are important, depending on both the global context and the situation of each developing country. For instance:

• Fisheries policy can make a huge contribution to the MDGs in many developing countries. For instance, hrough the Fisheries Partnership Agreement a country like Mauritania receives five times the amount of development funding that it gets from the EC.
• In the area of migration, measures aiming at turning brain drain into brain circulation are key. Migrants' remittances to developing countries in 2005 were higher than Official Development Assistance.
• The EU climate policy, which aims to limit climate change to an average of 2°C as compared to pre-industrial levels, will directly and indirectly benefit these countries.
• EU research policy supports programmes in areas of interest for developing countries and contributes to creating context-specific knowledge and building capacity in the South.

The importance of PCD is now recognised by the Commission and EU Member States, as is reflected by the many mechanisms put in place to promote PCD. Yet the EU is still at an early stage of PCD.

Further information on the report:
http://ec.europa.eu/development/ICenter/Pdf/COMM_PDF_COM_2007_0545_F_EN_ACTE.pdf#zoom=100