Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-04T19:53:15.829Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

European Community Development Assistance to Asia: Policies, Programs and Performance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Martin Rudner
Martin Rudner
Affiliation:
Norman Paterson School of International Affairs Carleton University, Ottawa
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The European Community is distinctive among the donors of international development assistance. Although it is categorized officially as a multilateral aid institution, the Community differs in structure, purpose and role compared to other, more familiar organizations of that genre. Like other multilaterals, the European Community derives its aid budget, as well as its other financial resources, from the fiscal contributions of its Member states (each of which provides its own bilateral assistance to developing countries). Yet, to be sure, the Community represents more than just a multilateral economic union, since it also constitutes a supra-European governmental authority in the making. Indeed, the European Community has begun to evolve a common foreign policy, which is reflected in its role in Official Development Assistance (ODA). Its aid effort, in giving expression to the Community's common international purpose, has taken on most of the attributes of government-to-government assistance. It is this combination of multilateral and quasi-bilateral characteristics that sets the European Economic Community (EEC, as the Community is styled in its ODA role) apart as a uniquely meta-national participant in international development cooperation.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , February 1992 , pp. 1 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Vide: Greilsammer, Ilan, ‘European Political Cooperation: A European Foreign Policy?’ Jerusalem Journal of International Relations 11, 4 (12 1989).Google Scholar

2 On the EEC role in international development assistance, see International Business Intelligence, Development Aid. A Guide to National and International Agencies (London: Butterworths, 1988), ch. 3,Google Scholar‘European Economic Community’. For earlier studies cf. Ravenhill, John, The Lomé Conventions and North South Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985);Google ScholarChristopher, Stevens (ed.), EEC and the Third World: A Survey, vols 1–3 (London: Overseas Development Institute/Hodder and Stoughton, 1981, 1982, 1983);Google ScholarDolan, Michael B., ‘The Lomé and Europe's Relationship with the Third World: A Critical Analysis’, Journal of European Integration I, 1 (05 1978).Google Scholar

3 For a history of the EEC aid program, see Glaser, Tom, ‘EEC–ACP Cooperation: The Historical Perspective’, The ACP–EEC Courier 120 (03–04 1990), pp. 24–8; Ravenhill, The Lomé Conventions.Google Scholar

4 Units of account (‘ua’) represented an EEC monetary denomination originally valued at parity with the United States dollar. This ua denomination was subsequently succeeded by the European Currency Unit (ECU).

5 Information on EEC aid programs in Asia and Latin America has been derived mainly from the Commission of the European Communities (European Commission), Ten-Year Report: 13 Years of Development Cooperation with the Developing Countries of Latin America and Asia—Data and Results, SEC (89) 713 Final, Brussels: 10 05 1989 [mimeo].Google Scholar

6 European Commission Ten-Year Report, pp. 69–70.Google Scholar

7 Ibid., p. 70.

8 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Development Cooperation in the 1990s: 1989 Report (Paris: OECD, 1989), Table 26b.Google Scholar

9 Sharp changes in the pattern of disbursements over time seem to be due mainly to overlapping EDF commitments across successive Lomé conventions, changes in program structure in the successive Lomé conventions, changes in program structure in the successive conventions, and in particular the shifting mix of quick-disbursing sector import programs and slow-disbursing project aid for rural development: OECD Development Assistance Committee (OECD/DAC), Aid Review 1988/89. Report by the Secretariat on the Development Assistance Efforts and Policies of the European Economic Community, Paris: 2 03 1989, pp. 13–14.Google Scholar

10 OECD, Development Cooperation: 1989 Report, Table 26a.Google Scholar

11 In 1988, the following donor countries exceeded the net ODA disbursement level achieved by the EC, in order of magnitude: USA, Japan, France, West Germany, USSR, Italy, and the UK.Google Scholar

12 OECD, Development Cooperation: 1989 Report, Table 27b.Google Scholar

13 European Commission, Ten-Year Report, p. 18.Google Scholar

14 Data on the actual tying ratio of EC aid under Lomé III indicates that the average share of procurements sourced in ACP associated countries in 1987 under the three EDFs was about 20%. To be sure, the shares of individual ACP countries varied considerably. ACP shares in procurements tended to be higher in the implementation of projects than in equipment supply or technical assistance contracts (OECD/DAC, Aid Review1988/89, p. 17).Google Scholar

15 OECD/DAC, Aid Review 1988/89, Table 5.Google Scholar

16 European Commission, Ten-Year Report, p. 34.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., p. 19.

18 OECD/DAC, Aid Review 1988/89, p. 16. Only about half the disbursements on financial and technical assistance to Asia and Latin America were implemented within three years of commitment, with the remainder taking as long as ten years (European Commission, Ten-Year Report, p. 39).Google Scholar

19 For a study of the Canadian aid response to political changes in the Philippines, see Rudner, Martin, Canada and the Philippines: The Dimensions of a Developing Relationship, Asian Pacific Monograph No. 1 (Asian Pacific Research and Resource Centre, Carleton University, Ottawa, 1990).Google Scholar

20 This low 3% share in Asia contrasted with the 35% share going to regional cooperation in Latin America. This marked difference was due to both demographic and political factors affecting regional economic integration in the regions themselves (European Commission, Ten-Year Report, pp. 47–8).Google Scholar

21 Annual guidelines for financial and technical cooperation provide for the establishment of a special reserve fund, usually comprising between 6 and 10% of total appropriations, for disaster related projects.Google Scholar

22 Total disbursements of food aid by the EEC were US$183 million in 1987, ranking it fourth in the DAC donor community after the United States (US$1, 525 m.), Canada (US$299 m.) and West Germany (US$228 m.) [OECD, Development Cooperation: 1989 Report, Table 50].Google Scholar

23 European Commission, Ten-Year Report, p. 14.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., p. 23.

25 EEC program support for ecology as an economic cooperation activity is separate and distinct from other environment development projects supported under EEC Financial and Technical Assistance activities in such areas as forestry and water resource management.Google Scholar

26 On the ACP experience with the Stabex mechanism see Hewitt, Adrian, ‘Stabex: An Evaluation of the Economic Over the First Five Years’, World Development 11, 2 (1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and ‘Stabex and Commodity Export Compensation Schemes: Prospects for Globalization’, World Development 15, 5 (1987);Google ScholarRavenhill, John, ‘Stabex and Commodity Producers’, International Organization 38, 3 (1984).Google Scholar

27 On European NGO approaches to international development see Twose, N., ‘European NGOs: Growth or Partnership?’, in Anne, Gordon Drabek (ed.), ‘Development Alternatives: The Challenge of NGOs’, Special Issue of World Development 15 Supplement (Autumn, 1987), pp. 7–10.Google Scholar

28 Council of the European Communities, Regulations 442/81. See also European Commission, Ten-Year Report, pp. 68–9. For a recent volume of scholarly articles on the EEC and Asia by European and Southeast Asian academics,Google Scholar see Guiseppe, Schiavone (ed.), Western Europe and South-East Asia: Cooperation or Competition? (London: Macmillan, 1989).Google Scholar

29 For a recent study of the geographic distribution of EEC aid see Bowles, Paul, ‘Recipient Needs and Donor Interests in the Allocation of EEC Aid to Developing Countries’, Canadian Journal of Development Studies 10, 1 (1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30 Up to the early 1980s some 97% of EEC aid to Asia was allocated to lowerincome recipient countries, which later declined to 82% and 91% in 1986 and 1987, respectively. This compared to overall EEC aid allocation to lower-income countries of 81.9% in 1980/81 and 73.9% in 1987 (OECD/DAC, Aid Review 1988/89, Table 4i).Google Scholar

31 European Commission, Ten-Year Report, Table 6.11.Google Scholar

32 China became a recipient of EEC aid only since 1983; including China, EEC ODA per capita to low income countries was 0.94 ECU.Google Scholar

33 Though only 1.45 ECU per capita for Bangladesh, the largest single LLDC recipient.Google Scholar

34 For a general survey of EEC financial and technical assistance activities in Asia and Latin America by sectors of concentration, see European Commission, Ten-Year Report, ch. 7 and Table 6.4.Google Scholar

35 OECD/DAC, Aid Review 1988/89, Table 28.Google Scholar

36 European Commission, Ten-Year Report, pp. 45–6.Google Scholar

37 ‘Development Cooperation in the 1990s: Policy Statement by DAC Aid Ministers and Heads of Aid Agencies’, OECD, Development Cooperation: 1989 Report.Google Scholar

38 Marin, Manuel, ‘Lomé IV—The Scope of a New Convention’, ACP–EEC Courier 120 (1990), p. 13.Google Scholar

39 On the DAC concern for promoting the integration of women in development see OECD/DAC, 1986 Report Development Cooperation (Paris: OECD, 1987), pp. 64–5. The extensive role of WID in Canadian aid programming is set out in the Canadian International Development Agency's strategy document,Google ScholarSharing Our Future: Canadian International Development Assistance (Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, 1987), esp. pp. 25, 43.Google Scholar

40 Cf. Lomé IV Convention, Chapter I: Objectives and Principles of Cooperation, Art. 5. See also Rogombé, Rose Francine, ‘Les droits de l'homme au niveau international: un portrait de la situation au tiers-monde’, in Irving, Brecher (ed.), Human Rights, Development and Foreign Policy: Canadian Perspectives (Halifax, NS: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1989), p. 504.Google Scholar

41 Yeats, J. Alexander, ‘Development Assistance: Trade Versus Aid and the Relative Performance of Industrial Countries, World Development 10, 10 (1982).CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Rudner, Martin, ‘Trade cum Aid in Canada's Official Development Assistance Strategy’, in Brian, W. Tomlin and Maureen, Appel Molot (eds), Canada Among Nations: 1986/Talking Trade (Toronto: James Lorimer, 1987), pp. 127–46.Google Scholar

42 Cf.Keesing, Donald, ‘Outward Policies and Economic Development’, Economic Journal 77, 2 (1967);Google ScholarOECD, The Newly Industrializing Countries: Challenge and Opportunity for OECD Industries (Paris: OECD, 1988), esp. ch. 3.Google Scholar

43 Average tariff rates on manufactured imports into the EEC at the end of the Tokyo Round were 6.0%, and the effect of non-tariff barriers on import trade was calculated at 10.9%, compared to 4.9% and 6.2% respectively for the USA and 6.0% and 7.2% for Japan, according to data supplied by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and cited in Lloyd, P. J., ‘Trade Policies and their Impact on Individual Economies’, in SirFrank, Holmes (ed.), Economic Adjustment: Policies and Problems (Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, 1987), pp. 8–9;Google Scholar see also Balassa, Bela and Balassa, Carol, ‘Industrial Protection in the Developed Countries’, The World Economy 7 (06 1984), pp. 179–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 Joint Ministerial Committee of the Board of Governors of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund on the Transfer of Real Resources to Developing Countries (Development Committee), Trade and Development (Washington DC: World Bank, 1985), Table 1. An assessment of the incidence of non-tariff protection on all products except fuels calculates the effect of EEC barriers against all countries at 13.9%, against industrialized countries at 10.5%, against developing countries generally at 21.8%, and against major developing country exporters of manufactures at 24–25%. For Japan these effects were calculated within the range 9.6–11.6%, and for the United States 7.6–14.5%.Google Scholar

45 Cf.Schiavone, (ed.), Western Europe and South-East Asia, esp. articles by Mohammed Ariff and Rolf Langhammer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46 Thus spoke European Commissioner for North-South Relations, Sr. Juan Abel Matutes: ‘Even though we recognize the (APEC) intentions expressed are good and the aim is to strengthen free trade, the procedure as such is not acceptable and does not comply with the spirit and rules of GATT…We cannot accept a forum of this kind—in which 50% of our external trade would be discussed—in which the Community would not participate’. (The Globe and Mail [Toronto], Report on Business, 10 07 1989.)Google Scholar