EU will be 'first' to put SDGs into action

Devex
By Molly Anders

Federica Mogherini, European Union high representative and vice president, speaks at a press conference on the Sustainable Development package at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. Photo by: Mauro Bottaro / European Union

European Union High Representative and Vice President Federica Mogherini said Tuesday that the EU will be the first to integrate the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development into its internal policies and external actions, one year after the agenda was adopted.

The EU announced three proposals for the future of the European Union’s development cooperation: a replacement for the 10-year-old European Consensus on Development, a road map for integrating the Sustainable Development Goals into all EU development cooperation and a commitment to renew EU partnership with African, Caribbean and Pacific Countries in preparation for the end of the 2020 Cotonou Agreement.

The 28 member states of the EU make up the world’s largest aid donor, responsible for about half of all official development assistance. The 2005 EU Consensus for Development created a blueprint for EU member states’ joint development cooperation, including priorities for funding and financing mechanisms.

The new Consensus for Development will “invest more in joint programming, pooling together resources and making use of all the instruments we have at our disposal,” Mogherini said Tuesday at a press conference at commission headquarters in Brussels.

But other key differences in the proposal include a reprised pledge of the member states to spend 0.7 percent of gross national income on aid, a renewed emphasis on the EU’s original focus on poverty reduction through development assistance, and — somewhat controversially — an intent to “explore” the relationship between development and security interests through the EU’s aid work on migration.

“I believe it is clear to all, we understand that there is no sustainable development without peace and stability, without inclusive societies, good governance,” Mogherini told reporters.

The pledge drew some resistance from NGOs, many of which are wary of the EU’s use of aid to curb migration to Europe through its Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, the EU External Investment Plan and most recently the European Migration Partnership, all of which offer aid in exchange for developing countries' commitment to host and/or settle migrants.

The EU’s strategy to jointly tackle development and security concerns presents a grey area for development partners and advocacy organizations who believe the two should be kept separate.

“The EU must review some of its recent policies that go against the positive vision established today, specifically its response to migration,” Oxfam International Deputy Director for Advocacy and Campaigns Natalia Alonso said in an email to press.

“These [policies] are primarily serving the EU’s own agenda instead of helping people lift themselves out of poverty,” she said.

Mogherini also announced that the EU will implement the SDGs “both internally and externally,” by integrating the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development across its funding and operations.

“We are I would say the first ones to put the same energy, the same political weight, the same intercross-sectorial determination in implementing the agenda one year later on internal policies, on external actions,” Mogherini said.

The EU will implement the 2030 Agenda through two courses of action, according to a press statement: the first will mainstream the SDGs in the European policy framework and current Commission priorities; the second will implement “formal reflection” on the EU’s adherence to the SDGs and for developing a longer-term vision and sectoral focus after 2020.

Geneviève Pons, director of the WWF International’s European Office said in a press statement the EU’s lip service to the SDGs, at this stage, is no more than “repainting the front door to impress the neighbors.”

“The 2030 global goals are indivisible and universal — not a series of separate boxes to tick or ignore. This is why an overarching EU implementation strategy, built with civil society’s input, is needed to ensure all policies are transformed and work in harmony toward greater sustainability,” Pons said in the statement.

Mogherini offered priorities for a renewed partnership with 78 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries to prepare for the expiration in 2020 of the formal collaboration set out in the Cotonou Agreement.

The EU will negotiate an overarching strategy, as well as national and regional strategies “to help build peaceful, stable, well-governed, prosperous and resilient states and societies at our borders and beyond and deliver on our objective of a multilateral rules-based order addressing global challenges,” a statement from the commission said.