The EU’s Role in Development: A Full-Fledged Development Actor or Eclipsed by Superpower Temptations?

Orbie, Jan

doi:10.1057/9781137016737_2

Cited by 30 publications

(31 citation statements)

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“…As EU coordination is mostly focused on information exchange and reporting on internal EU issues, it is perceived to be complementary rather than fostering or hindering donor-wide coordination. Paradoxically, within the EU, the countries that have been least enthusiastic about European integration of development policy have been most supportive of the Paris Agenda (Orbie, 2012). These -mainly Nordic Pluscountries have 'emphasized that the EU should support existing coordination efforts, such as the PRSPs and Joint Assistance Strategies' (Carbone, 2010, p. 23).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The EU and Donor Coordination on the Ground: Perspectives from Tanzania and Zambia

Delputte

Orbie

2014

Eur J Dev Res

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The proliferation of aid donors and channels for aid and the resulting fragmentation brings about huge costs for developing and donor countries and has a detrimental effect on the impact of aid. Coordination is presented as a strategy to help resolve this problem and has been at the top of the development agenda in the past decade. The EU has on many occasions expressed its ambition to foster this agenda and strengthen internal EU coordination. However, the few existing contemporary studies suggest that the implementation of coordination is fairly low. This article seeks to understand this gap through an empirical analysis of EU coordination in Tanzania and Zambia. The findings reveal that the EU's internal and external coordination role has indeed been limited. It is argued that challenges to EU coordination can partly be explained by institutional factors, but that ideational and political elements should also be considered in order to gain a more profound understanding.La prolifération de donateurs d'aide et de mécanismes de développement et la fragmentation qui en résulte génèrent des coûts considérables aussi bien pour les pays en voie de développement que pour les pays donateurs et ont un effet néfaste sur l'impact de l'aide. Au cours de la dernière décennie, la coordination, vue comme stratégie pour résoudre ces problèmes, se situait en haut de l'agenda de la politique de développement internationale. À maintes reprises l'UE a exprimé son ambition de stimuler cet agenda et de renforcer la coordination interne au sein de l'UE. Mais les rares études contemporaines suggèrent que la mise en oeuvre de la coordination a été très faible. Cet article cherche à comprendre ce gap au moyen d'une analyse empirique de la coordination de l'UE en Tanzanie et en Zambie. Les résultats révèlent qu'effectivement le rôle de coordination interne et externe de l'UE dans les pays susmentionnés a été limité. Il est clair que les défis pour la coordination de la part de l'UE peuvent être expliqués partiellement par des facteurs institutionnels, mais qu'il faut aussi tenir compte de facteurs idéationnels et politiques pour arriver à une compréhension plus approfondie.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The EU and Donor Coordination on the Ground: Perspectives from Tanzania and Zambia

Delputte

Orbie

2014

Eur J Dev Res

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“…In terms of substantial norms, however, the EU and the WB differ. The EU conceptualizes gender equality in development policy more as a political and social project, while the WB perceives it as a 'business case' (World Bank, 2002, 2012 or 'smart economics' (World Bank, 2006, 2012. Although both donors define gender equality as instrumental in achieving other development goals, such as poverty reduction and growth, the EU's framing also emphasizes its intrinsic value in relation to human rights, democracy and social justice (for example, European Commission, 2007).…”

Section: Social Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Normative Distinctiveness of the European Union in International Development: Stepping Out of the Shadow of the World Bank?

Orbie¹,

Bossuyt²,

Debusscher³

et al. 2016

Development Policy Review

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This paper seeks to contribute to the debate on the European Union (EU)'s distinctiveness as an international actor. In particular, it examines whether there is anything distinctive about the international development norms promoted by the EU. Previous studies have indicated that in the field of development policy the EU is predominantly a 'norm taker', meaning that it has to a large extent translated development aid norms originating from other donors, including the World Bank, into its own development policies. However, in recent years the EU has arguably become a more mature, ambitious and professionalized development actor, which explicitly aims to take the lead on the international development front. Therefore, this paper assesses whether the EU is still taking on development aid norms originating from the World Bank, generally considered a leader in international development thinking, influencing many other donors, including the EU. The paper does so by focusing on the development areas of governance, aid effectiveness and the social dimension of development. Importantly, the paper situates 'norms' at the specific level of 'policy ideas' (as opposed to 'programmatic' and 'philosophical' ideas), since normative differences between the EU and the World Bank -if any -might be translated differently by the two actors. Accordingly, the paper hypothesizes that both substantially and procedurally the EU has been stepping out of the shadow of the World Bank.Based on the findings presented in the paper, it appears that in the three areas studied the EU has effectively made a shift away from being a pure norm-taker from the World Bank, and towards becoming a more distinctive development actor, at least to some extent. Indeed, the paper finds that since the 2000s the EU and the World Bank have increasingly developed a different interpretation of the concepts of governance and aid effectiveness and the social dimension of development, both in terms of substance and procedure.2

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“…However, progress to implement these various reform initiatives has been limited and there remains a strong gap between policy level in Brussels and implementation in African countries remains (Orbie, ; Carbone, ; Carbone, ; Klingebiel et al., ; Delputte and Orbie, ).…”

Section: Challenges For a Reforming Eu Development Policy: China As Amentioning

confidence: 99%

China in Africa: What challenges for a reforming European Union development policy? Illustrations from country cases

Grimm

Hackenesch

2016

Development Policy Review

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During the past decade, the EU has introduced several reforms to make collective development policy more coherent and effective. At the same time, development exists alongside (and sometimes competes with) other policy fields, particularly in settings where the EU has strong economic interests. Reforms to EU external relations take place against a backdrop of rapidly intensifying economic and political relations between China and African countries, a debate often framed as increasing competition with the EU. This article argues that Chinese engagement in Africa poses challenges for the EU's development policy, but these differ considerably across African countries. We look at three country cases to show that China's increasing engagement with individual African countries does not cause EU collective action failures.

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The EU’s Role in Development: A Full-Fledged Development Actor or Eclipsed by Superpower Temptations?

Cited by 30 publications

References 0 publications

The EU and Donor Coordination on the Ground: Perspectives from Tanzania and Zambia

The EU and Donor Coordination on the Ground: Perspectives from Tanzania and Zambia

The Normative Distinctiveness of the European Union in International Development: Stepping Out of the Shadow of the World Bank?

China in Africa: What challenges for a reforming European Union development policy? Illustrations from country cases

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