Voices & Views

Capacity4dev.eu reviews the most popular Voices & Views in 2016, which featured a variety of topics including disability, the garment industry, joint programming, extremism, and the new Consensus for Development. 

After years of conflict and instability, impoverished Somalia faces a daunting list of development and security challenges. This arid country is vulnerable to famine and disease, the long coastline is a haven for pirates and the militant extremist group al-Shabab remains a potent threat. But when speaking to capacity4dev.eu recently, Deputy Prime Minister of Somalia Mohamed Omar Arteh said the most pressing issue of all for his country is addressing the needs of the youth.

EU Ambassador Marjaana Sall shares her experience of managing a changing relationship with Comoros, Mauritius and Seychelles, as the latter two graduate to middle and higher income status. She emphasises the importance of working together on issues including climate change and trade, and shares examples of successful EU-funded projects.

The role of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in tackling undernutrition has been on development and humanitarian professionals’ radar for more than two decades. Yet fully multi-sectoral approaches remain rare, despite undernutrition contributing to 860,000 preventable deaths a year in girls and boys under five. Ahead of World Toilet Day, marked each 19 November, experts and practitioners discuss how to turn this around by linking nutrition and WASH policies and implementation and overcoming barriers between sectors.

The EU together with its Member States is the world’s largest development donor, providing more than half of the total Official Development Assistance (€68 billion) in 2015. The EU alone spends on average €10 billion per year on development cooperation. Until recently, reporting on results achieved through EU ODA focused on individual programmes, projects, specific sectors and themes, and there has been little systematic reporting on aggregate results. That changed this summer, when the European Commission's Directorate General for International Cooperation and Development (DG DEVCO) released the EU Results Report, which presents aggregate results of development programmes and projects in partner countries for the first time.

One of the great challenges of the Sustainable Development Goals will be finding ways of lifting populations out of poverty, which is often associated with increased consumption and production, while at the same time dealing with emissions and meeting environmental targets. The question is how to create economic value which also benefits society. Smart technologies, sustainable business models and circular economy solutions are already being developed, but experts say they need to be scaled up, and fast.

If women played the same role in the global economy as men, they could add $28 trillion to GDP by 2025 - increasing it by a quarter, according to McKinsey.

Gary Quince, who is nearing the end of his five years heading the EU Delegation to the African Union, shares his experiences and discusses the EU's support to the AU, touching on the gap between optimistic treaties and their implementation, joint programming and engaging with the private sector. 

The Dutch city of Utrecht wanted to plant a new forest as a contribution to the global environment. Trouble was, it didn’t have the space.

Emerging from over two decades of conflict and instability, in May 2002 the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste became the 21st century’s first new sovereign state. Since then the country’s government – with assistance from the international community – has worked hard to lay the groundwork for development. In this month’s Views from the Field we hear from both the EU Ambassador to Timor-Leste, Sylvie Tabesse, and Hernâni Coelho, Timor-Leste’s Foreign Minister, as they discuss Timor-Leste’s successes and remaining challenges. 

Young people are not just leaders of the future – they are leaders of today. With more than half the world’s population under 30, the vast majority in emerging and developing economies, young people have a crucial role to play in seeing through the Sustainable Development Goals. This International Youth Day we highlight initiatives by three young people driving change in climate smart agriculture in Malawi, voter engagement in India and professional development in ACP.

Development gains are easily undermined by rising extremism in fragile contexts. In response, donors are keen to embed elements of CVE, or ‘combatting violent extremism’, in their cooperation programmes. Engaging young people in the projects is crucial, as it is they who are most at risk of recruitment by extremist groups, and they who can build a peaceful future for their countries.

“To end the cycle of poverty and ensure sustainable development, you have to make sure women are in control of their sexual and reproductive health and rights [SRHR],” said Mangala Namasivayam from the Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW). In numerous developing countries, a range of cultural and religious factors mean that many, mostly women and young girls, are unable to fully realise these rights.

Estimates for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals range up to a $7 trillion a year. Where will it come from? According to two senior experts from the United Nations Environment Programme, the funds are there, and the real question is how they can be channelled from damaging investments towards sustainability.