Final recommendations

Final recommendations of the EU presidency campaign in the Netherlands

During the Dutch EU presidency from July to December 2004, the Dutch EU NGO Association organised the campaign “Europe in the World”. In this campaign, Dutch NGOs call for a guiding role for development in European policies. Development co-operation should not be subsumed to trade, foreign relations and security considerations.

These are the main recommendations the Dutch EU NGO Association wants to pass on to the Luxembourg NGO Platform:

> main recommendations

Urgent demands

The NGO-EU network has four 'urgent demands' for the European ministers of development cooperation:

1. In the area of policy coherence for development:
   Promote the use of coherence assessment instruments, and apply these to a number of substantial cases, in order to guarantee that decisions in the field of trade, agriculture and security do not have adverse effects on development and the realisation of the MDGs.
    
   
2. In the area of reproductive rights and HIV/ aids:
   Ensure the integration of sexual and reproductive health and HIV/aids services as part of a comprehensive health system, which is fundamental for achieving the MDGs by 2015.
    
   
3. In the area of peace & security:
   Not divert scarce aid resources to address counter-terrorism and security concerns through a widening of the DAC criteria for ODA and ensure coherence of initiatives in the field of peace and security with development and the realisation of the MDGs.
    
   
4. With regard to the EU Financial Perspectives 2007 - 2013:
   Maintain an identifiable EU development policy and increase development budgets (ODA) of the member states to the internationally accepted norm of 0,7% of BNP by 2010.

Read more in the position paper.

NGO-EU network

In the beginning of 2003 members of the Dutch platform of NGDOs formed an EU working group in preparation of the Dutch Presidency of the EU. This working group includes Cordaid, COS, Euforic, HIVOS, ICCO, NCDO, NiZA, Novib, Plan Nederland, SIM, TNI, Wemos en WPF and the study institutes/networks ECDPM and SID.

The purpose of the partnership between Dutch development organisations, universities, research institutes and the Concord working groups is to promote attention for development issues during the Dutch presidency. Taking into account the large amount of NGDO’s in the Netherlands and their respective constituency, the working group decided that each NGDO will illustrate a different theme in EU-development policy. The campaign will thus be able to reach a broader public, with each organisation appealing to it’s own consistuency as well as individuals or organisations interested in one or more of the chosen themes.

Topics that have been chosen include the impact of enlargement, coherency of EU policy, EU representation at GATS and EU development policy in general.

During 2004, a series of public conferences are being organized with NGO-representatives, partners from the South, politicians, academics and EU-representatives. Each conference will be organised by a “lead agency” NGDO from the network.

Agenda
A summary of events and conferences held concerning/during the Dutch EU-presidency can be found here.

Report fourth conference
The report of the fourth conference, on reproductive rights and HIV/Aids, is now up for download in an english version:
> report including recommendations (pdf, 81 Kb)


Also available: the 'integration paper' of WPF: "Aids, Sex and Reproduction. Integrating HIV/AIDS and Sexual and Reproductive Health into Policies, Programmes and Services"
> download (pdf, 137 Kb)

Working paper
The foundation for the campaign was laid down in a working paper, called "The Dutch EU Presidency from a development perspective. Analysis & points of actions."
> Working paper (pdf, 171 Kb)