ABSTRACT

In the late 1990s the European Community and its Member States accounted for 60 per cent of world aid. Moreover the EC itself, ‘as a distinct entity apart from the bilateral aid programmes of the individual Member States, has become the world’s fifth largest aid donor’ (Cox and Koning 1997:xiii, emphasis in original). Not only has the EC acquired a role as an aid donor, however. The 40 years since the EC was created have seen the evolution of increasingly complex relationships with developing countries in all parts of the world; they denote an important role for the EC as a development agency. Indeed the EC’s significance as an actor in North/ South relations is underlined by the agreements it has recently made, with the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme, to produce common development strategies. The first of these, between the EU and UNDP, will focus upon the Great Lakes region of Central Africa. ‘The EU and UN said other big aid donors, such as the US, were welcome to join’ (The Guardian, 7 April 1998).