What the EU needs to do to implement its development policy

The Plenary Meeting of the XLIX Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs (COSAC) hosted a discussion on Delivering on Development, on Monday, 24 June 2013. Panellists included Mo Ibrahim, Chair of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, Michèle Striffler, Vice-president of the Development Committee of the European Parliament, and Barry Andrews, Chief Executive of GOAL. Mo Ibrahim discussed some of the challenges which Africa currently faces, setting out four priority areas:

1. regional and economic integration;
2. agriculture;
3. youth
4. education

Mo Ibrahim also discussed corruption and accountability, stressing the need for businesses – as well as governments – to improve their practices. He said that for every corrupt government leader, there could be 10 or 20 corrupt business people and advocated “working together to end corruption”. Mo Ibrahim went on to say that Africa loses about USD$ 70 billion every year in illicit funds. He reminded the panellists that many multinationals in Africa do not pay taxes, despite huge growths in profits. He suggested that if the EU works “on the problem of illegal transfers, that will end up being more useful than the aid, the 0.7% [of GDP] that you would send”. On the issue of post-2015 MDGs he noted that the lack of statistical data is a major capacity issue and urged the EU to allocate more aid to building statistical offices in developing countries.