The European
Parliament adopted a resolution on poverty reduction and job creation in
developing countries: the way forward.
The Parliament
recalls that strong and sustainable economic growth within a stable,
business-friendly environment helps create wealth and jobs and is therefore the
surest and most sustainable route out of poverty. In this context, the
Parliament supports the following actions:
Challenges
for the developing countries
- On the
economy: Members urge governments in
developing countries to diversify their economy through the
development of their manufacturing sector and to avoid overburdening
businesses - especially SMEs - with excessive red tape. They also recall
that 2.7 billion people currently have no access to credit, and that
small enterprises, especially in the agricultural sector, need adequate
financing to preserve existing jobs and create new ones. Accordingly,
the resolution encourages developing countries to promote credit access,
via micro-credit, micro-insurance and innovative credit agents, such as
rural post offices. Developing countries are asked to treat the
development of the agricultural sector as a priority when drawing up
Country Strategy Papers and National Indicative Programmes. Members call
on the EU to recognise the contribution of the social economy to
job creation in developing countries, and to include the social economy
in EU development programmes and cooperation strategies. At the
same time, they stress the importance of all developing countries
signing up to the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda and the UN Social Protection
Floor initiative, as well as the implementation of the right to freedom
from forced labour and especially from child labour without exception,
as without education children are condemned to a life in poverty.
- On
citizenship and governance: all developing
countries are asked to sign the UN Convention against Corruption
urgently and EU Member States, and EU companies, must also respect the
UN Convention. The Parliament believes that EU Member States should act
as role models for developing countries in terms of budgetary
discipline, tax collection and good governance. It urges all
developing countries to foster independent parliaments, maximise
involvement by civil society organisations in formulating public policy,
and freedom of association for trade unions and the right to bargain
collectively.
Shared
challenges: Members reiterate their call for
developing countries’ national budgets and EU development aid to allocate at
least 20% of their spending to health and basic education. They also
want a rethinking of privatisation policies, especially concerning utilities
like water, sanitation and services of general interest. The resolution
stresses the importance of strong social protection systems, and free
and full access for all to educational systems, and the need for all
development strategies to pay special attention to the most vulnerable and
marginalised, especially women, children, older people and people with
disabilities. The resolution also highlights the problem of child labour
and recognises that it is one of the major obstacles to achieving universal
primary education completion and reducing poverty. It calls for the promotion
of inter-agency coordination and alignment in education aid and child labour
policy through strengthening existing mechanisms, including the Global Task
Force for Child Labour and Education.
Challenges
for donors
- On aid: Members urge all rich countries,
especially EU states, to keep their spending promises as regards aid,
i.e. at least 0.7% of GNI by 2015. They underline that export
subsidies have led to the dumping of EU products on developing
countries' markets and contributed to job destruction by making local
agricultural products uncompetitive and manufactured industrial goods
uneconomical. The Parliament believes that policy coherence can
bring fruitful results in terms of job creation. It calls therefore for
a change in EU external polices as these have a direct impact on
developing countries' economies and should be designed to support their
sustainable needs in order to fight poverty. It also calls for substantial
additional funding in order to combat the effects of climate change
and the global economic crisis in developing countries, and wants basic
education and public health to form the basis of development policies,
insisting that the current situation cannot justify any reduction in
national spending and international aid to these sectors. Members
emphasise that the EU has to revise its subsidy policies,
especially in the agricultural sector and in line with the needs
of small and medium farmers in the EU, in order to facilitate fair trade
conditions regarding developing countries. They ask all donors, once
again, to adhere more faithfully to the aid effectiveness agenda,
especially as regards donor coordination and accountability. The resolution
also insists that the Commission make sure that the external dimension
of the current reform of the Common Fisheries Policies will be
mainstreamed with EU development policy as these are directly linked to
the livelihood of the population in developing countries. The fisheries
sector in many countries is crucial for employment and food security
and therefore all developing countries should be eligible for EU sector
support to develop their own sustainable fisheries industry,
independent of any fisheries access agreement with the EU. Parliament expects
that since policy coherence for development is now a Treaty requirement,
EU policies in areas such as farming, trade, migration and fisheries
will not in any way undermine development efforts. It intends to monitor
closely how the EU fulfils this obligation. It calls on the Commission
and the EU Member States to promote sustainable enterprises with
decent jobs creation as a specific sector of development cooperation
in line with the 2005 European Consensus on Development, and to foster
its integration in more traditional sectors of development cooperation
such as infrastructure, rural development, governance and trade-related
assistance.
- On new
sources of funding: Members want G20 nations
to carry through on pledges to stamp out tax havens, to tighten up
supervision of financial markets and to usher in tax information
exchange. The resolution calls on the Commission and the Member States
to enhance public financial support to small and micro enterprises and
farmers in the developing countries, including the informal sector.
- Capacity building
and global governance: the EU is urged to
target its aid towards promoting capacity building in areas that will
directly benefit the partner countries’ economic fabric and create jobs,
i.e. developing their productive capacity, building efficient tax
systems, fighting corruption, strengthening institutions and civil
society, facilitating access to microcredit and other sources of
finance, etc. Members call for all EU development policies with an
impact on job creation and poverty reduction to focus on measures which
require governments, civil society, companies, foundations and local
communities to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by
2015. The EU should take account of human rights and governance
criteria when drawing up trade agreements and should not hesitate to apply
sanctions when states fail to respect their governance obligations.
Parliament
accepts the use of budget support only where there are watertight guarantees
that funds will reach their intended destination and satisfy their original
purpose and where recipients fulfil human rights and democratic governance
criteria. It looks forward to more effective assessment and auditing of
budget support to analyse if the intended goal is achieved and if governments
in the recipient countries comply with the abovementioned criteria. It calls
on the Commission to establish an IT-based scoreboard under the scrutiny of
the European Parliament to assess the efficiency of Community aid in the
field of poverty reduction, education and job creation.
Parliament
calls for: (i) a coherent and credible proposal on EU post-election policy,
which respects the free choice of the population in a given country;
(ii) a review of
loan policies in order to support democratic and sustainable economic
development choices by developing countries; (iii) concrete action to
eradicate abuses of tax havens, tax evasion and illicit financial flights
from developing countries and to promote these resources to be invested in
developing countries; (iv) a new binding global financial agreement on
the automatic disclosure by transnational corporate companies of the profits
they made and the taxes they paid on a country-by-country basis; (v) support to
the UN Social Floor Initiative to extend or implement sustainable social
protection systems in developing countries by ensuring greater coherence in
external relations policies and developing a Communication on Social Protection
in development cooperation.
Challenges
in the area of education:
Members urge the EU to introduce assistance programmes for parents in various
fields where poverty leads to a lack of knowledge with regard to bringing up
children to ensure that children in developing countries have real
opportunities. They also call on the Union to concentrate its efforts on
identifying branches where developing countries have a competitive advantage
whereby the establishment of work-based apprenticeships in these sectors
shall be one of the main priorities of EU development aid.
Access to
the market: lastly, Parliament
calls on the Commission and the Member States to develop a coherent approach
which respects the fundamentals of the free market and which guarantees
reciprocity in the field of trade.