The Africa-EU Partnership - a new model for development aid?

The European Union launched its Joint Africa-EU Strategic Partnership with the African Union in 2007 in order to "move beyond the traditional donor-recipient relationship" and work together with African nations as equals to promote more sustainable and long-term development with a central focus on the UN's Millennium Development Goals.

The 3rd Africa-EU Summit opened in Tripoli last week with a speech by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi urging European heads of state to strike fairer trade policies with African countries that are based on "mutual interest not exploitation". Gaddafi's words echo concerns by African leaders that calls from the EU for developing countries to liberalise their economies and open their markets to European goods and services will damage emerging local industries and are too one-sided.

Last month, the European Commission (EC) launched a Green Paper outlining proposals of how it aims to improve the impact of its development policy. The Green Paper notes that a mere one per cent increase in developing countries' gross national income can be more effective than simply increasing aid to those countries and an impartial trade policy can be equally beneficial. Calls have already been mounting from NGOs such as CIDSE for the EU to reform its Common Agricultural Policy in order to give goods produced in the developing world fairer and more competitive access to global markets and to allow local African industries to thrive.

For more: Los Angeles Chronicle | The Africa-EU Partnership - a new model for development aid?