ACP Secretariat
14 April 2015 : ACP-EU DFC Committee
15 April 2015: Steering Committee on Sugar
16 April 2015: Committee of Ambassadors
17 April 2015: 65th ACP-EU Committee of Ambassadors
European Parliament
14-16 April 2015: Committee on Agriculture
13-14 April 2015: Committee on Fisheries
13-14 April 2015: Committee on International Trade
Council of the EU
13 April 2015: Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA)
17 April 2015: Trade Policy Committee (TPC) - Deputies
Other
13 April 2015: Rethinking development and EU Aid: A focus on Reproductive Health
16 April 2015: CEPS launch event: IFPRI’s 2014–2015 Global Food Policy Report
16 April 2015: COLEACP and Louis Michel MEP: Private sector & ACP agriculture discussion
The CTA Brussels News Service is providing EU-ACP policy news since 2004, on various key thematic areas. In addition to this news service, we also provide news on ACP intra-regional trade, and south-south cooperation (investments of emerging countries' in agriculture in the ACP regions). The main stories for the week are featured in our newsletter and all stories can be found in our Regional Trade and the South-South cooperation sections.
On April 10, the Universal Health Coverage Partnership Programme was presented at the Infopoint Lunch-time Conference: EU/LUX-WHO. Universal health coverage represents a concept defining that all people can use the curative health services they need, of sufficient quality to be effective, ensuring that the use of these services does not expose the user to financial hardship. The World Health Organization entered into an agreement with the European Union and Luxembourg in 2011 aiming to strengthen the capacity of Ministries of Health in 19 selected countries (such as Burkina Faso, Guinea, Liberia, Senegal, Sierra Leone etc. ), to establish and reinforce a comprehensive social dialogue between all stakeholders in the health sector in order to define the most suitable health policies and strategies in their countries. There are 388 million people benefitting from this partnership, which is central to tackling issues of nutrition and coherent with the Sustainable Development Goals.
NGO Fern revealed that the European Union is responsible for a quarter of products connected to illegal deforestation. The EU is one of the largest importers of products resulting from illegal deforestation. In 2012 imported €6bn of soy, beef, leather and palm oil which were grown or reared on land illegally cleared of forests in the tropics - almost a quarter of the total world trade, according to Fern’s report. For example, in Papua New Guinea, which is one of the world's largest exporters of tropical timber, it was found that approximately 90% of forest clearance licenses were obtained through fraud.
According to statistics published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the EuropeanUnion has remained the world’s largest aid donor in 2014. These statistics arecompiled by the OECD development Assistance Committee (DAC), the ultimateauthority that decides if expenditure reported to it (by member states or otherdonors) qualifies as Official Development Assistance (ODA). The total aid ofthe 28 EU Member States increased from €54.0 billion in 2013 to €56.1 billionin 2014, remaining at 0.41% of GNI. Additional ODA from the own resources ofthe European Investment Bank contributes to the collective EU amount, bringingit to €58.2 billion.