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Development policy proposals Governance and response to situations of fragility
The success of any development policy depends not only on external aid's quantity and quality, but also on governance in partner countries. Supporting governance is not a technical issue, but a highly political one, dealing with principles and norms that organise societies.
Progress on governance reform is crucial to sustainable development, poverty reduction, stability and security. The EU has therefore put governance at the heart of its cooperation with partner countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (the ACP States) under the 10th EDF.
Sustainable development, poverty reduction., stability and security all depend on states being able to perform the essential public functions of providing access to health, education and justice, observing fundamental rights and freedoms, and managing economic and natural resources in a transparent and responsible fashion.
The European Union approaches governance in a very broad way. The debate on governance sometimes tends to focus only on corruption and ignore all the other aspects. We must of course maintain a strong position against corruption: it is one important obstacle for sustainable development. Beyond corruption though, the consolidation of the "regalian state", a state which is able to deal with its core functions and responsibilities, is often the only effective response to development problems.
Governance is sometimes described as "good", "weak", "bad" or "strong". These qualifications can create confusion, especially when they are used by donors with regards to the situation in partner countries, and could be understood as an attempt to impose a governance model. These qualifications can also appear somewhat static and not very useful in reflecting the trends, the process or the dynamics which are specific to each country. Focusing the discussion on methods and approaches to support governance and develop capacities to promote democratic systems is the key.
This approach to governance is integrated in a Commission Communications ( 2003 
and 2006 
), Council Conclusions ( 2003 and 2006 ). The European Parliament (Resolution in 2006), and the Committee of the Regions (Opinion in 2006) have provided key contributions of this debate.
In order to put this policy in practice, governance is central in the cooperation strategies between the EU and 77 partner countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (the ACP countries), in the context of the "Governance initiative": through which a dialogue on governance between partners was launched and an additional amount of € 2.7 billion has been allocated, on top of the country allocation, to partner countries that have put forward a credible plan of governance reforms. As a result of this initiative, 67 ACP countries put forward Plans of reform and received financial incentives, from the "€ 2.7 billion reserve". Monitoring of these reforms will be integrated as appropriate in the regular political dialogue as well as in the reviews foreseen in the Cotonou Agreement. A report on the review of the "Governance Initiative" is now available ( SEC(2009) 58 final of 19.01.2009 ).
The EU needs to remain also active in situations of fragility, when institutional capacities of partner countries are very limited and political will and democratic legitimacy are sometimes lacking. In 2007, an extensive debate led to a Commission Communication , a set of Council Conclusions and a resolution by the European Parliament . The Commission, in association with EU Member States and institutions, but also involving civil society, is now working on an EU Implementation Plan, to be presented in 2009, with concrete proposals for the EU to come to a more coherent and strategic approach when addressing those very challenging situations.
Finally, Africa and the EU have launched a Partnership on democratic governance and human rights within the Africa/EU Joint strategy and Action Plan 2008-2010. In this thematic partnership, agreed priority actions are expected to lead to an enhanced dialogue and coordination at international and global level between the two continents, to a more strategic support to the consolidation of the pan-African governance architecture and to an enhanced cooperation in the area of cultural goods.
All inputs, contributions and reflexions can be sent to DEV-governance@ec.europa.eu