Monthly Highlights from ECDPM's Talking Points Blog, GREAT Insights, Volume 1, Issue 9 (November 2012)

Will the re-election of Obama just bring more of the same to Africa? Talking Points, Faten Aggad, 7 November 2012
When I visited Tanzania in early 2009, small street shops were selling fabric with the face of Obama and the famous ‘Yes we Can’ election slogan printed on them. Few months later, I bought a box of Obama gum from a store in Burundi. The box of gum was a special edition produced by a Kenyan candy factory to celebrate the election of Obama into the White House. Africa was clearly proud of its (half) son and expectations that his election would yield a new era in US-Africa relations were very high. But the Obama-fever (...)

Budget hawks circling EU development aid. Talking Points, Laura Mayer, 7 November 2012
Florian Kratke co-authored this article. European Heads of State will be taking more than one shirt to the 22-23 November budget summit, anticipating lengthy negotiations for reaching the political agreement on future EU funding needed by the end of the year. EU insiders are expecting a deal to include cuts of up to €200 billion. A key question is how much development cooperation expenditure will be lost in the process. The revised “negotiation box” for the EU’s 2014-2020 Multi-Annual Financial Framework (MFF), presented by the Cyprus EU Presidency at the end of October, will serve (...)

Monitoring Regional Integration – tedious or a tool? Talking Points, Bruce Byiers, 7 November 2012
With burgeoning regional integration and free-trade arrangements around the world, a key question is whether or not agreed treaties are being implemented and if so, with what impact. This is all the more relevant since a significant number of South-South Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) suffer from a well known lack of implementation, monitoring, and general follow up. A good starting point is to ask what to monitor, why do it, how to do it and who should do it – we may even find that the exercise of monitoring itself helps improve implementation! Sharing monitoring (...)

EU-Africa relations: what’s in store for 2013? Talking Points, ECDPM Challenges Team, 26 October 2012
Each year ECDPM publishes a Policy Brief, on Challenges for EU-Africa Relations, outlining key events and expected trends for the year to come. This year’s ‘Challenges Paper’ will aim in particular to cover the preparatory work for the EU-Africa Summit in 2014, and the major issues that will influence it or be addressed there, as well as the impact these issues might have on future EU-Africa relations. This article provides an initial indication of our plans for the paper that will be published at the end of year. If you have a different take on (...)

This article was published in Great Insights Volume 1, Issue 9 (November 2012)