The 20th Brussels Development Briefing will be on 'Financing agriculture' and will take place on the 15th of  September 2010. As an input to the UN Summit on MDGs to be held in New York on 22-26 September 2010, we will discuss issues related  to financing development in the context of agriculture and rural development. This will include issue such as Aid and ODA, taxation (Domestic tax revenues), private investment (new donors), revenue generation. Speakers include: Centre for Environmental Policy at  Imperial College in London, the  Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa in the US, CONCORD, OECD, African Development Bank, Caribbean Development Bank, YARA, African regional framers organizations.

For more information please contact: lopes@cta.int or boto@cta.int

Our video guest this week is Mr. Pedersen; he is the director of the FAO Liaison Office with European Union and Belgium. In this interview Mr. Pedersen explains how the FAO is working with the EU. Furthermore, Mr. Pedersen elaborates on the work of the FAO towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. In particular, Mr.  Pedersen stresses on the issue of food security. He presents the various actions and campaigns, such as the 1 billion hungry campaign, to illustrate the work done by the FAO in this area.

The European Union has released its budgetary support to the government for the 2010/2011 financial year with a reduction of 3m euros (sh8.5b) compared to 2009/2010. Vincent De Visscher, the head of the European Union (EU) delegation, recently said they had decided to release 23m euros (sh65b) of the second grant disbursement due to slow progress on the key indicators in the fight against corruption.

The 20th Brussels Development Briefing will be on ‘Financing agriculture and will take place on the 15th of  September 2010. As an input to the UN Summit on MDGs to be held in New York on 22-26 September 2010, we will discuss issues related  to financing development in the context of agriculture and rural development.

Land is an asset of enormous importance for billions of rural dwellers in the developing world, and especially in ACP countries. The nature of property rights and their degree of security vary greatly, depending on competition for land, the degree of market penetration and the broader institutional and political context.

Will trade liberalisation bear an adjustment cost for ACP countries? If so, how much and who will pay for it? What are the strategies for reducing or even eliminating these costs? These are all sensitive questions facing ACP and European negotiators in the context of the negotiations of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs).

Subsidies for agriculture in the industrialised countries of the world grew again in 2009, benefiting the largest companies and land owners, such as Prince Albert of Monaco and Queen Elizabeth of Britain.The latest increase came despite repeated and consistent evidence that such subsidies contribute to the destruction of the livelihoods of poor farmers in developing countries, especially in Africa, and that they distort international trade.

The 20th Brussels Development Briefing will be on ‘Financing agriculture and will take place on the 15th of  September 2010. As an input to the UN Summit on MDGs to be held in New York on 22-26 September 2010, we will discuss issues related  to financing development in the context of agriculture and rural development. This will include issue such as Aid and ODA, taxation (Domestic tax revenues), private investment (new donors), revenue generation. Speakers include: Centre for Environmental Policy at  Imperial College in London, the  Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa in the US, CONCORD, OECD, African Development Bank, Caribbean Development Bank, YARA, African regional framers organizations.

For more information please contact: lopes@cta.int or boto@cta.int

Land is an asset of enormous importance for billions of rural dwellers in the developing world, and especially in ACP countries. The nature of property rights and their degree of security vary greatly, depending on competition for land, the degree of market penetration and the broader institutional and political context.

The European Union is considering a privileged partnership with the African Union as a way to overcome the dated framework of ACP relations and to improve the Joint Africa-European Union Strategy. This partnership has potential, but it is not unproblematic: is the AU sufficiently relevant as an international organisation, and can it solve its functional shortcomings?