Monthly Highlights from ECDPM's Weekly Compass Update, GREAT Insights, Volume 2, Issue 6 (September 2013)
Is there a future for Political Economy Analysis in the European Commission?Weekly Compass, No 157, 26 July 2013 The European Commission’s (EC) Capacity4Dev website recently posted a message saying that Political Economy Analysis under its present form should be discontinued. In a Talking Points Audio interview, ECDPM’s Head of Strategy, Jean Bossuyt, outlines why the EC’s decision is a surprise, and not a surprise. ‘You badly need Political Economy Analysis, that should be the principle,’ he says. How Political Economy Analysis is done is not the issue. The essence is that the European Union Delegations have the tools to properly read rapidly evolving political situations, so they can detect where there is traction in society, and can then tailor their cooperation accordingly. ‘The worst for European cooperation credibility is that you go very far on the political road in terms of policy discourse, but you remain under equipped in terms of instruments.’ That would be a recipe for failure, says Bossuyt.The enriching business of nutrition. Market-based partnerships and regional approaches to nutrition: What role for CAADP?Weekly Compass, No 156, 19 July 2013 With gathering momentum around engaging the private sector for development and a spate of recent nutrition summits, statements and initiatives, this ECDPM Discussion Paper discusses the implications of linking the two agendas. It looks in particular at what might be done in Africa through the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) to turn nutrition policy statements into action, particularly at the regional level. The analysis suggests that although there is clear potential for aligning interests, market-based approaches are no golden bullets. They still require supporting institutions, standards, policy coordination from governments, and financial support for risk-sharing and effectively to “create the market’. Small markets and value-chain linkages potentially raise the need to think regionally about nutrition. Creating a solid framework to assess OECD food security policies, Weekly Compass, No 155, 12 July 2013 ECDPM’s Quentin de Roquefeuil discusses a new methodology, being created by ECDPM and the OECD, to assess the impact of OECD policies on food security in developing countries. In a video interview with the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development, he explains that the motivation behind the initiative is that after 10 years of Policy Coherence for Development, there is still a lack of evidence to show impact. The methodology will be flexible and will provide a solid framework that can be used beyond just OECD countries. De Roquefeuil hopes it will feed into the “institutional machines” of developed countries to help them take into account the effect of their policies on other countries. This work builds on ECDPM’s recent Discussion Paper Insights from Developments in National Policy Coherence for Development Systems: Key Cross Cutting Issues and Dilemmas. CAADP and emerging economies: The case of Tanzania, Weekly Compass, No 154, 5 July 2013 New national agricultural policies are being implemented in Tanzania - among them the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) - and public and private actors from the emerging economies are increasingly present in the agricultural sector. As part of the larger study “Emerging Economies and the Changing Dynamics in African Agriculture: what role for CAADP?”, ECDPM, together with Sokoine Agricultural University have undertaken a country case study looking into the changing dynamics of Tanzanian agriculture and what role the emerging economies play in this transformation. Central to the study is the perception of different Tanzanian stakeholders of both the impact of these partners, but also of Tanzania’s capacity to develop encompassing agricultural development strategies that can engage all of its partners. This article was published in GREAT Insights Volume 2, Issue 6 (September 2013).
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