The Development Challenges and the European Union

Abstract

Abstract High-level policy interest in the European Union dates to the late 1990s and has entered a new stage since 2005. This more recent approach moves away from purely instrumentalist concern with development as a way of pursuing goals of migration control, evident in earlier policies. The continued poor quality of data inhibits effective evaluation of this new approach, though it is clear that budgets allocated by EU Member States and the Commission are still relatively small compared to ODA, private remittance flows and especially migration control. Policy retains a focus on remittance flows; this is understandable since data is best, tangible outcomes are clearest and measurable targets have been set. Yet broader concerns are reflected in some recent approaches and the paper highlights a range of best practice examples. These examples illustrate the change in content of policy, particularly responses to developing technologies and the inclusion of a variety of non-state actors. As data improves, more accurate evaluations of all of these initiatives will be possible, but a continual focus on the accuracy and availability of that data is required to support this.