The Minister's letter
7.6 In his 8 January 2007 letter, the Minister for
Europe (Mr Geoffrey Hoon) at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
says that the Finnish Presidency, the European Commission and
the Council Secretariat jointly produced a progress report entitled,
"The EU and Africa: Towards a Strategic Partnership —
The Way Forward and Key Achievements in 2006", which was
presented to EU Heads of State and Government at the European
Council on 14-15 December, which in turn reaffirmed, in Conclusions,
"its earlier commitment to work towards a joint EU-Africa
strategy and underlined the importance of monitoring progress
towards all of the EU's commitments to Africa including the 2005
aid volume targets". He continues as follows:
"As the title suggests, the report is split
into two sections, summarising progress on implementation in 2006
and identifying priority actions for 2007. The report notes substantive
progress in many areas including work on increased dialogue and
co-operation, peace and security, human rights and good governance,
regional integration, trade, private sector development and interconnectivity,
migration and aid. The four priority areas for action in 2007
are strengthening the strategic partnership with Africa, supporting
Africa's quest for peace and good governance, promoting growth
and sustainable development, and investing in people.
"We welcome the report as an accurate representation
of EU support to Africa in 2006. There has been much activity
to implement commitments and real progress has been made. On peace
and security, agreement has been reached to provide further and
increased funding through the Africa Peace Facility to support
the African Union. EU election observation missions have been
deployed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Zambia and
Mauritania. Member States have agreed to make over €20 billion
in EC funds available to Africa between 2007 and 2013 including
targeted support for peace and security, governance and infrastructure.
"But we need to maintain momentum on delivery.
The UK places particular importance on the forward look section
of the report. We have been emphasising to EU partners, and will
continue to do so, the need to up the pace on delivery, particularly
on trade and access to basic services such as health, education
and water. In addition to implementation of these commitments,
the EU will build on the Strategy through the negotiation next
year with African partners of a Joint Strategy encompassing joint
commitments, and which we hope will be endorsed at an EU-Africa
Summit soon.
"We believe that the report and the European
Council's reaffirmed commitment has helped to maintain focus and
momentum on the EU's commitments to Africa. We are also pleased
that, as proposed during a recent House of Lords debate on EU-Africa,
progress on the strategy will henceforth be reviewed on an annual
basis rather than bi-annually as had originally been agreed."
Conclusion
7.7 We are surprised that someone as experienced
as the Minister for Europe, along with his counterpart at the
Department for International Development, should have overlooked
our clearly-expressed expectation that whatever document informed
the December European Council discussion of the Strategy would
be deposited together with an Explanatory Memorandum ahead of
the Council's consideration of it. The timing and format of this
somewhat brief exposition and analysis is a poor substitute: sight
of the report along with an Explanatory Memorandum would have
given the House considerably more insight into not only what has,
but also what has not, been achieved thus far, as well as what
is further envisaged in this Strategic Partnership.
7.8 For the future, we expect the next and subsequent
annual progress reports to be deposited in good time ahead of
the relevant Council so that they can be properly scrutinised.
7.9 We also look forward to scrutinising the Joint
Strategy encompassing joint commitments to which the Minister
refers, ahead of any endorsement at an EU-Africa Summit.
17 The eight UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
are those that, in 2000, the UN set itself to achieve, most by
2015: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; achieve universal
primary education; promote gender equality; reduce child mortality;
improve maternal health; combat HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases;
ensure environmental sustainability; and develop a partnership
for development - each with associated targets and benchmarks
to measure progress. Back
18
See headnote. Back
