The art of re-packaging aid
The development dimension of the EPA crucially hinges on the provision of development assistance by the EU aimed at boosting CARIFORUM’s institutional, infrastructural, regulatory and productive capacities at the national and regional levels so as to promote a sustainable expansion in exports both to the EU and the Rest-of-the-World. The question that arises is: how likely is the development assistance to be forthcoming in a timely and effective manner?
The EU has been torn by two contradictory tendencies. On the one hand a realisation that its past colonial excesses (such as slavery, indenture, and the rapacious plunder of national resources and treasure) are in no small measure responsible for the development predicament which many poor countries and regions face today. And, on the other, the need to pursue its economic self interest vigorously at the global level, while opportunistically exploiting whatever mercantilist options arise. As a result, the EU has in recent years earned a dubious reputation among development experts as a deceitful provider of development assistance. While quick to promise new envelopes of aid funding and to promote new delivery mechanisms, its actual track record in doing so is very poor.
Always seeking to ‘curry favour’ with developing countries and regions, the EU with great fanfare frequently designs and puts on offer new aid packages. More often than not these are frequently no more than the re-packaging of existing commitments in a new bundle.
As I have previously pointed out in this series, one of the lessons to be learnt from the experiences of the Lom
