Today, for the first time, the European Commission presents a joint vision of how trade, investment and development policies can work hand in hand to help fighting poverty. I am proud of this Communication, which provides a complete, comprehensive and well articulated approach of how best to combine our respective competencies and instruments. Sorry for the jargon but this is “Policy for coherence” in action!

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The European Union, like many other donors, is currently exploring the best ways to fight against poverty around the world. Faced with differentiation between developing countries, some of which have become aid donors themselves while others suffer from increasing fragility, the EU must ensure the greatest impact and best value for money for its aid. As always, important policy changes spark off a fierce debate. In particular I would like to respond to a recent article from the Guardian’s Poverty Matters blog, which criticized “cuts” to MICs and urged donors to “get more sophisticated in their thinking”. I am sure that the readers will be pleased to learn that this is exactly what we are applying to EU development aid.

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