Communication from the EC: Investing in people: Communication on the thematic programme for human and social development and the financial perspectives for 2007-2013

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL AND THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

Investing in people: Communication on the thematic programme for human and social development and the financial perspectives for 2007-2013

I. GENERAL INTRODUCTION ON THEMATIC PROGRAMMES

To rationalise and simplify the current legislative framework governing external action by the Community, the European Commission has proposed a set of six new instruments under the Financial Perspectives for 2007-2013. Three of them are horizontal instruments to respond to particular needs and circumstances. Three are designed to implement particular policies (pre-accession assistance, European neighbourhood and partnership policy, and development cooperation and economic cooperation) and have defined geographical coverage. In future, these instruments will provide the legal basis for Community expenditure in support of external cooperation programmes, including thematic programmes which will cut across the geographical coverage of the three policy-driven instruments and replace, inter alia , the existing thematic regulations. As the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) is specifically designed to help candidate and potential candidate countries adopt and implement the acquis communautaire , the beneficiaries of IPA do not fall within the scope of this thematic programme.

Thematic programmes provide distinctive value added and complement geographical programmes, which remain the preferred framework for Community cooperation with third countries[i]. The Commission has committed itself to enter into discussions with the European Parliament and the Council on the scope, objectives and priorities for each thematic programme based on formal communications to both institutions. This process will provide the political guidelines for the subsequent stages of programming, notably the thematic strategy papers to be drawn up in accordance with the abovementioned instruments.

II. Context: Investing in people - EU policy on human and social development

Human and social development is about people[ii]. People’s needs drive and people’s opportunities determine development, growth, security and poverty reduction. It is a key strategic element of “The European Consensus”[iii] and strongly emphasised in the EC's international commitments such as those under the Millennium Declaration and those agreed at the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development, the World Summit for Social Development, the Beijing Platform for Action on gender equality and the September 2005 UN Summit.

In the context of external action, including development policy, the thematic programme Investing in people will focus on the core themes good health for all, knowledge and skills, culture, employment and social cohesion, gender equality, children and youth. It will reflect the internal policies of the EU and contribute to the coherence of the EU’s external policies. The programme will thus support the new external assistance architecture, giving the EU the means to act in some crucial areas. In particular, it will provide a thematic framework for sharing know-how, good practice and experience, for monitoring, data collection and analysis, for innovative approaches and pilot projects in the areas which directly affect people’s livelihoods around the world. It will strengthen the EU’s voice at international level. It will allow the EU to continue to play a visible and credible role in international organisations and partnerships on these themes.

Experience and lessons learnt

The thematic framework builds on a wealth of lessons learnt from experience at national and international levels, which is further developed in Annex 2. It also takes account of recent assessments and evaluations of action in these areas[iv]. The EC held extensive consultations on the design of this thematic programme[v].

The lessons learnt point to a need for a holistic and coherent thematic approach to human and social development, which is firmly anchored in the comprehensive approach formulated by the EU in its new development and external policies and which will complement and add value to country programming in different focal areas. Consequently, the programme is innovating by going beyond the present strategy, which has been centred on health, gender and basic education.

In the areas of poverty diseases, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and gender, the thematic strategy is built on the experience with the specific budget lines for those fields which will expire at the end of 2006[vi]. In other areas, such as education, thematic programmes have been implemented through regional funds or pilot and preparatory action. Experience in these thematic areas and from individual countries has shown that the EC should have a role where coherence of policies and a common EU approach can make a difference.

Employment and social cohesion issues are receiving increasing attention in the international debate. More and more countries and regions have a particular interest in the EU’s experience of economic, employment and social policies and have engaged in cooperation with the EU. The focus on employment and social cohesion in the thematic programme will facilitate the response to this increasing demand and reflect the EU’s willingness to find new ways to tackle the growth-investment-employment nexus, trade, social inclusion and protection issues.

Culture has featured very little in development work, but there is growing recognition that cultural and inter-cultural factors influence development considerably and need to be addressed from three angles: fostering dialogue between cultures, addressing cultural diversity throughout the world through international co-operation and promoting the cultural sector and industries as a factor of employment and growth.

Investing in people could thus be a means to formulate and test strategies on how to address these new priorities with European added value.

With regard to gender equality and children, the lessons learnt from experience and stakeholder contributions are that mainstreaming is important, but not effective enough, and has to be backed up by specific action.

The programme could potentially address many other issues, but given the limited resources, choices have to be made, focusing on activities where EU leverage and credibility are greatest.

Rationale and added value of the thematic programme “ Investing in people”

As stated by the European Commission [vii], a thematic programme encompasses a specific area of interest to a group of partner countries not determined by geography, or cooperation activities addressed to various regions or groups of partner countries, or an international operation that is not geographically specific, including multilateral or global initiatives to promote the Union’s internal policies abroad.

One important principle underlying the concept of thematic programmes is “subsidiarity”. Geographical programmes are the preferred instrument for cooperation with third countries. However, in some circumstances geographical (country, multi-country and regional) programmes are not the best instrument for action in a particular domain: some EU policy objectives cannot be achieved through country and regional programmes and/or some of the action under the country and regional programmes can be effectively supplemented by thematic action. The thematic programme adds value to geographical programmes since it:

1. supports innovation and stimulates scaling up of innovative measures and creates and pools know-how and good practice across regions;

2. enhances technical cooperation between countries and regional organisations in order to make progress on international commitments, and strengthens partner countries’ and regions’ participation in and adherence to relevant international conventions, initiatives or processes. In specific cases, it can provide the tools for effective benchmarking and monitoring across regions and in this way benefit country policy, aid effectiveness and donor harmonisation, in line with the Paris Declaration on Aid Harmonisation;

3. supports development in situations and regions where bilateral cooperation cannot be agreed or there is no cooperation framework, such as in fragile states and in the case of critical programmes;

4. focuses on meeting the EC’s international obligations, on global advocacy for critical issues, on improved global governance, increased aid efficiency and securing an effective multilateral policy framework.

III. Proposed thematic programme “Investing in people”

Scope

The programme is to be set up in the framework of the “European Consensus”, the external dimension of EU policies and international commitments and will focus on providing synergies between the themes and EU policies in these areas in order to reinforce coherence. Investing in people builds on and integrates the acquis formulated in a series of key policy documents[viii]. It complements the country strategies.

The EC will report regularly to the Council and the European Parliament about implementation of the strategy and publish evaluation reports.

Priorities for thematic action on human and social development

The focus of the programme is on six themes crucial for human and social development put forward in the “European Consensus” and in the EC’s other aforementioned international commitments in this area: health, knowledge and skills, culture, and social cohesion and employment, gender equality, youth and children. These priorities are strategically linked and synergies are developed between all the themes.

1. Good health for all

Health is crucial for individual well-being, learning, work and social activity, for gender equality and for any society’s growth and development. Health systems in individual countries and access to essential services are a central concern. Human resources for health care are a crucial bottleneck to be addressed at country and at international level. Health information systems with the ability to generate, measure and analyse disaggregated performance data are essential to ensure better health and development outcomes and that domestic and external resources contribute effectively to faster progress. Ensuring fair mechanisms for financing equitable access to health care for all is another major priority of EU policies improving health systems and social cohesion. Poverty diseases present a particular challenge across sectors and beyond national borders. The EU has long been leading and supporting international efforts to confront HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other diseases. Finally, the EU continues to be one of the driving forces in the key area of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) based on the full Cairo agenda. Action in these two areas will continue with the same definitions and scope as provided for in Regulation (EC) No 1568/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council on aid to fight poverty diseases in developing countries and Regulation (EC) No 1567/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council on reproductive and sexual health and rights in developing countries. The European Commission’s recently adopted orientations for combating HIV/AIDS within the EU and neighbouring countries will be taken into account specifically for developing countries of the EU neighbourhood.The thematic programme can respond to these challenges in several ways:

- speed up the development and improve the availability of and equal access to global public goods, including effective, affordable and safe pharmaceutical products, reproductive health commodities and innovations, including electronic communications, for strategies to combat diseases and prevent infection, support innovative environmental health measures for disease prevention and support the participation and capacities of institutions and communities in order to allow ethical and efficient implementation of clinical trials and enhance regulatory capacity;

- support advocacy and information activities to increase political and public awareness and improve education of the public, including sensitivity for rights, equity, gender and cultural issues related to desired health outcomes and prevention;

- build capacity, including use of ICT tools, for policymakers and other relevant stakeholders at country, regional and global level to improve their contribution to development outcomes in these areas;

2. Knowledge and skills for all

The EU is contributing to improving access to education for all children and, increasingly, for women and men of all ages, with a view to increasing knowledge, skills and employability on the job market, contributing to active citizenship and individual fulfilment on a life-long basis, supporting an inclusive knowledge society and contributing to bridging the digital divide, knowledge and information gaps. Attention will be devoted to adult illiteracy and adult literacy programmes. Beyond universal primary education, countries, together with the business sector and donors, now have to build vocational education and training (VET) as a major enabler of employability and provide greater access to good quality secondary and higher education. Tertiary education plays a key role in creating local knowledge centres and in producing education and health practitioners and people whose skills, capacities and entrepreneurial spirit contribute to growth and thus poverty reduction. The capacity and quality of tertiary education, including advanced VET, need to be improved in many developing countries. Initiatives developed in the EU or within bilateral external assistance programmes on skills and human resources development can also be of interest to some partners.

This comprehensive approach emphasises the fact that access to knowledge and skills is a major tool to empower children, youth and women and to improve awareness and skills related to disease prevention and care, family planning, awareness of human rights, tolerance, solidarity and peace. Knowledge, innovation through science and technology as well as development of and access to electronic communication networks are key engines of socio-economic growth and sustainable development and need to be addressed in synergy with the international dimension of EU research policy. All efforts to promote education and training should minimise the brain drain effect.

This thematic programme can contribute to country programmes through the following complementary action:

- help low-income countries to become eligible for international support for the development of adequate and quality education policies; contribute to international mechanisms aimed at supporting countries that fail to mobilise sufficient donor support to finance their education plans;

- promote international exchanges of experience and good practice for the development of secondary and vocational education and training including close cooperation with organisations representing employers and workers and other stakeholders, with a view to ensuring quality and meeting skills needs, and maximising employability and adaptability;

- promote transnational university cooperation and student and scholar mobility at international level through accompanying measures facilitating country to country or regional programmes, the use of ICT networks to build south-south and south-north education networks and access to information resources, including on the ERASMUS mundus programme, distance learning and virtual mobility;

- support development of statistical capacity and consistent methods for retrieval of quantitative and qualitative data based on commonly defined indicators, common concepts for the analysis of data and expansion of the global monitoring framework. This will benefit programming, monitoring and evaluation of aid, in particular sector budget support, for recipients and donors alike;

- marginalised and vulnerable children (e.g. working children, orphans, disabled children, children in conflict/post-conflict situations, indigenous and minority children, or children in remote rural areas, particularly girls) have no opportunity to go to school. This situation can be intrinsically linked to these children’s and families’ conditions or to deficient school systems. The programme could promote greater attention to these children at global level, through advocacy, pilot projects, exchanges of experience and good practice, while most support will need to come from country or regional programmes. The link between education and combating all forms of child labour should be a priority area.

3. Culture

Culture determines how societies and economies function and has an impact on all spheres of interaction between the EU and partner countries, with implications for social, economic and external policies. The principles of ownership and participation, if properly and fully applied to achieve self-esteem and “parity of esteem”, should make it possible to take due account of the cultural reality of partners in cooperation, without questioning the universality of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The recent adoption of the UNESCO Convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions underlines the international consensus to actively promote and foster cultural diversity in international relations, notably with developing countries. Audiovisual means might be an effective way to promote culture as well as to transfer experience and good practice.

Learning, gender roles and stereotypes, ways of life, attitudes towards others, stigma, discrimination, conflict and many other issues are deeply influenced by culture.

- Investing in people can help to promote mutual understanding and dialogue between peoples and cultures, promote cultural diversity and respect for the equal dignity of all cultures and strengthen cooperation and exchanges of experience in various fields of culture, education and research. The importance of promoting respect for the social, cultural and spiritual values of indigenous peoples and minorities helps combating the social inequalities and injustice in multi-ethnic societies.

- Furthermore, culture is also a promising economic sector for development and growth. International cooperation, in particular with developing countries, should give a more substantial place to the cultural sector, and in particular cultural industries, to fully exploit its economic potential.

4. Employment and social cohesion

There is growing interest at global level and in various regions and countries in the EU’s economic and social approach taking into account the different situations, needs, interests and possibilities of partner countries and regions[ix]. Employment, combating inequalities and promoting social cohesion form an important new theme in the Union’s external relations and development policy. This includes decent work for all, social welfare and inclusion, productive employment, social dialogue, development of human resources, empowerment of women and fundamental social rights, including combating all forms of child labour and trafficking of people. It also includes promotion of an integrated social and economic approach that regards the economy, trade, employment and social cohesion as interdependent elements with a view to fighting inequalities. The EU will focus in particular on social and fiscal reforms to promote equity and on progressively integrating the informal sector into the formal economy.

The 2005 UN Summit highlighted the important contribution which productive employment and decent work for all can make to preventing and combating poverty and the need to integrate them into development strategies. Integrated social and economic strategies, trade policies that promote social development, investment policies that stimulate entrepreneurship, gender equality at work, local employment and skills, efficient labour market institutions and cooperation between social partners will therefore be crucial for development strategies.

Social security schemes and social inclusion are key elements to tackle vulnerability and reduce the risk of poverty. They support households and contribute to the gender equality agenda as well as to combating child labour. It will be necessary to address the lack of social protection in the informal economy.

The thematic programme could:

- contribute to promoting the “decent work for all” agenda as a universal objective, including through global and other multi-country initiatives to implement international labour standards, assessment of trade impact on decent work, social dialogue, sustained and adequate mechanisms for fair financing, effective functioning – and wider coverage – of social protection systems, including pension schemes and basic social protection benefits;

- support initiatives to promote the improvement of working conditions as well as the adjustment to trade liberalisation. This should include an employment dimension in development policies and the further take-up of Corporate Social Responsibility as a voluntary business practice, to help spread European social values;

- help promote the social dimension of globalisation and the EU’s experience.

5. Gender equality

The promotion of gender equality and women's rights is not only crucial in itself but is a fundamental human right enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights and a question of social justice, as well as being instrumental in achieving all the MDGs and in implementing commitments such as those given under the Beijing Platform for Action, the Cairo Programme of Action and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women[x]. Throughout this thematic programme, gender equality issues such as girls’ and women’s access to knowledge and skills, safe school environments, sexual and reproductive health and rights, social protection and employment should be addressed under the four priorities outlined above. Initiatives in the area of culture will contribute to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudice and customary practices which are based on the idea of inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women.

Beyond this horizontal dimension, gender equality is a theme in its own right that will be addressed through specific action on gender equality. This thematic programme can complement necessary country action through the following forms of support globally or across regions:

- providing strategic support to programmes that contribute to achieving the objectives of the Beijing Declaration;

- promoting civil society organisations, notably women’s organisations and networks, in their endeavours to promote gender equality and economic and social empowerment, including north-south and south-south networking and advocacy;

- promote a gender perspective in the efforts to promote statistical capacity, by supporting the development and dissemination of data and indicators disaggregated by sex, as well as gender equality data and indicators.

6. Youth and children

Investing in youth and children is investing in the future. The largest cohort of children and youth the world has ever seen presents challenges and opportunities for developing countries. They are particularly vulnerable and their rights and interests need special attention, starting with participation and empowerment and including promotion and protection of their rights, health and livelihoods. Healthy and educated children and youth, enjoying their basic rights, are an opportunity. Knowledge and skills equip them to participate in the labour market and society at large. The best interests of children and youth should be taken into account in all relevant action and participation by children and youth should be ensured, while ensuring consistency with a life-cycle and inter-generational approach. Beyond mainstreaming and country support the thematic programme could:

- enhance countries’ attention and capacity to address children and youth issues in external action;

- support regional, inter-regional and global initiatives in key areas, such as preventing all forms of child labour, trafficking and sexual violence, and support the youth employment network;

- support action to promote youth and children in situations and regions where bilateral cooperation has limitations, such as in fragile states;

- support mapping problems, collecting and monitoring data (including birth registration), developing policies and pilot projects, and sharing best practice for rescuing victims of child labour, trafficking or violence and reintegrating them into society (education, skills training, medical and psychological care), advocacy and awareness-raising and innovative initiatives (e.g. against child labour, trafficking, genital mutilation, forced sexual relations and forced marriages).

IV. PROGRAMMING AND IMPLEMENTATION

- Four-year (2007-2010) and, subsequently, three-year (2011-2013) Thematic Strategy Papers (programming documents) will be decided by the Commission following the Comitology procedures[xi].

- On the basis of this multi-annual programming, the Commission shall produce annual action programmes which establish priority actions to be supported, specific objectives, anticipated results as well as indicative amounts.

- The programme shall be implemented in accordance with the 2000 Reform of the Management of External Assistance which foresees inter alia, devolution of management responsibilities to the delegations where appropriate.

- As for the mid-term review, an external evaluation of the operations during the first three-year period (2007-2009) will be carried out to provide input to the preparations for the second Thematic Strategy Paper (2011-2013). The reports will be transmitted to and discussed with Member States and the European Parliament.