CAADP Partnership Platform: “Walking the talk” on regional cooperation?

The Partnership Platform taking place next week in Johannesburg is the key annual event of the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). This year is particularly important because it’s the first platform meeting since the 2014 Malabo Declaration which introduced ambitious commitments for agricultural growth and transformation in Africa to be reached by 2025. ECDPM's Head of the Food Security Programme, Francesco Rampa, argues in his latest Talking Points blog post that Regional Economic Communities (RECs) should have a stronger role in CAADP implementation. RECs, he says, are better positioned than continental institutions in helping Member States in their own CAADP processes. Rampa will be in Johannesburg raising this and other issues. Follow him on Twitter to know more of the day to day discussions at the CAADP Partnership Platform.

Unpacking local content requirements in the extractive sector: What implications for the global trade framework?

ECDPM’s Isabelle Ramdoo made a presentation on local content requirements in the extractive sector at last week’s E15Initiative workshop. The event is attended by experts in the extractive industries sector who consider the relations that exist between natural resources and trade and investment, aiming to identify the challenges and opportunities that would lead to a favourable environment in these areas. Ramdoo’s presentation outlined the scope and instruments for local content requirements and explained where they have worked and why. For the way forward, she suggested finding a balanced and pragmatic approach on regulation which make economic and political sense.

Tackling illicit financial flows from and within Africa

Reshaping the global financial architecture is necessary to reverse the problem of illicit financial flows and to subsequently mobilise the necessary domestic resources for development financing in Africa, according to a new paper from the African Civil Society Circle. They recommend that African countries strengthen the capacity of their financial institutions to monitor transfer-pricing rules and to adhere to the “arm’s length principle.”  At the regional level, the African Union secretariat should expeditiously develop a roadmap and action points for the implementation of the key recommendations of the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa report. At the global level, the African Union should consider engaging the G20 and OECD members that adopted the Action Plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting.

Extra-governmental involvement in African regional integration

Africa’s desire for a meaningful and participatory partnership between states, citizens and business on regional integration remains a work in progress. Drawing extra-governmental constituencies into regional integration initiatives is important in ensuring that durable systems emerge according to a paper by the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA). They say the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) shows that involving civil society and business in regional integration efforts has been difficult due to lack of awareness and underdeveloped civil society and business organisations. Bodies set up to help facilitate such engagement have failed to alter this dynamic. To foster broader engagement, public education must be undertaken, together with better organisation and mobilisation by civil society and business, SAIIA says.

Security and development in the Sahel region are crucial to the European Union

There are serious challenges to the Sahel region - extreme poverty, internal tensions, institutional weaknesses, frequent food crises, fragile governance and rule of law, radicalisation and violent extremism. These have potential spill-over effects outside the region, including in Europe. The European Commission and the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy agreed a Regional Action Plan (RAP) to implement EU Sahel Strategy. It applies a comprehensive approach to ensure that the policies, instruments and tools work together for the same objectives. The RAP identifies four domains to be reinforced: 1) preventing and countering radicalisation; 2) creating appropriate conditions for youth; 3) migration and mobility; and 4) border management, fight against illicit trafficking and transnational organised crime.

Challenging old paradigms, but still far from new ones: View from South Africa civil society

The world has changed, and the divisions that once shaped it can no longer be used (North vs. South, developed vs. developing, first world vs. third world…). We are looking now at a world with strong developing industrialised countries that have their own demands and challenge the old paradigms, explains Professor Chris Landsberg, of the University of Johannesburg. Landsberg attended a workshop facilitated by ECDPM with many other representatives from South African civil society. He stressed the important role of civil society in making sure that governments live up to their commitments. For this, he said, civil society actors need to collaborate with each other and work across borders.

Creating jobs at the heart of economic policy

The Broker has concluded an international debate exploring what policies are needed to create more and better jobs in a globalised world.  The debate comprised 44 written contributions by international experts from academia, research institutes, the private sector, trade unions, NGOs, multilateral institutions, and EU institutions. One contribution came from ECDPM’s Isabelle Ramdoo on whether Economic Partnerships will create jobs. Contributors to the debate distinguished economic globalisation, trade liberalisation, financialisation and technological change as the main factors influencing employment. They also proposed answers to the main question of how more and better jobs can be generated within a globalised world and made policy recommendations, with Europe’s economic recovery as the starting point.

-The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation look at the impact of natural hazards and disasters on agriculture and food and nutrition security. The FAO has announced the launch of a special facility aimed at helping countries better equip their food production sectors to reduce risk exposure, limit impacts, and be better prepared to cope with disasters.

-ODI explore the patterns of progress on the MDGs and implications for target setting post-2015. They find improvements across different MDG dimensions are often non-linear: they occur at varying rates at different times in different countries.

-Leaving no one behind: how the SDGs can bring about real change, is the new report from ODI. The commitment to ‘leave no one behind’ has been a key feature of all the discussions on the post-2015 agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, what this means in practice is still not clear. This briefing looks at how the idea of leaving no one behind can be integrated into the SDGs.

-This paper from the IMF explores the impact of fiscal decentralisation on the efficiency of public service delivery. It uses a stochastic frontier method to estimate time-varying efficiency coefficients and analyses the impact of fiscal decentralisation on those efficiency coefficients. The findings indicate that fiscal decentralisation can improve the efficiency of public service delivery but only under specific conditions.

-As violence and instability spreads across the Middle East and North Africa, the European Union recognises its failings in this region. FRIDE looks at the EU's geopolitical crossroads in the Middle East.

-The European Council on Foreign Relations has released a review of German foreign policy. Germany will perform this role in addressing the three crucial challenges identified in the review: crisis, order, and Europe.

-This briefing from Oxfam explores some of the solutions for fighting corporate tax avoidance that the European Union should present in 2015, and explains why it is important to adopt them as soon as possible.

-The 2015 European Commission  Trade and Investment Barriers Report addresses a selection of key barriers faced by European Union companies on the markets of the EU’s six strategic economic partners, i.e. China, India, Japan, Mercosur (Brazil/Argentina), Russia and the United States. Its main objective is to raise awareness of the most significant trade restrictive barriers and reaffirm the importance of tackling such barriers in a focused and concerted way.

-OECD has released their report on Chinese export credit policies and programmes.

-The Conflict Barometer from Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research, explores disputes, non-violent crises, violent crises, limited wars, and wars.

-“Do aid donors specialise and coordinate within recipient countries?” asks Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

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