Committee on Development Ordinary meeting HEARING
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DEVE European Parliament
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 6
He will speak, but a little bit in another, yeah. Maybe after the next speaker, I think, is the right place. Last but not least, access to water is a human right, and this must guide our decision making here in the EU and in partner countries. But now without much further ado, oh, yeah. Let us hear the input from our invited guests.
So first of all, our first speaker is Missus Bogart, managing director at the International Fund for Agricultural Development. The IFAD president is currently chairing UN Water and strongly engaged in preparing the UN conference on water this year. Miss Bugert, we are delighted to have you and to listen to you for up to 10 minutes. Thanks a lot.
Speaker 8
Yes. Thank you so much for that welcome and for inviting me or inviting our president to be fair. So I really thank the European Parliament and the committee and the EU for having me here in this place. As you mentioned, Alvaro Laurio is the chair of UN Water, but he couldn't be here today. But I'm here to share IFAT's perspective as a key UN partner on water and related issues.
Speaker 7
For those who don't know IFAD that well, we are a Rome-based UN agency and financial institution that provides loans on highly concessional and ordinary terms to developing countries with the purpose to invest in rural development. Together with these countries, we designed programs that address the root causes of poverty and migration, such as food security, unemployment, and climate change. We also make sure to empower countries to implement the programs themselves to ensure interventions are actually carried out and more sustainable. And in this way, eFAD has provided over EUR 25,000,000,000 of financing that we monitor closely, and that we know is highly effective in terms of impact. 50% of our core contributions are from European countries, but our funding is not only dependent on the member states.
Also, thanks to our AA plus rating, we are able to issue more than 1,000,000,000 worth of bonds. And we are also able to reinvest the loan repayments we receive and attract co-financing for many of our programs. But the EU has been a partner of eFLD for nearly half a century and is today the largest contributor to eFLD's supplementary funds with approximately EUR 350,000,000 and 22 projects ongoing. We share the same ambitions to develop food security, employment, climate resilience, and private sector activity in developing and rural economies. And when we look at the European Union's water resilience strategy, we also recognize the themes and priorities.
Your strategy aims to restore and protect the water cycle from source to sea. You've recognized the need to upgrade infrastructure and prepare for more water-related disasters. The methods you are implementing in Europe are like those we apply in emerging economies and in countries. Improving water retention on land while ensuring clean water is available and affordable for all, and used wisely, and with that, more resilient. You have the expertise and the ambition to promote water resilience worldwide, and this is an area where the interest of the EU, of IFAD, and the UN water converge.
Economic development relies upon access to reliable supplies of clean water, and that's as true here as in the low and middle income countries. Without.
Sufficient water.
Speaker 5
Can you slow down a little bit? Interpreters said that it's a little bit too fast. But yeah. But sorry. I mean, like, just a little bit slower, and then everything is easier to interpret.
Translation works.
Yes. Thanks. As
Speaker 7
I mentioned, economic development relies upon access to reliable supplies of clean water, and that's just true here as in low- and middle-income countries. Without sufficient water, there can be no food security, no rural prosperity, and no long-term climate resilience. Is it okay? Okay. This is particularly true in rural areas where IFAT is active and where agriculture remains the primary source of livelihood of billions of people.
Small scale farmers produce roughly one third of the world's food, yet they are among the most exposed to water scarcity, droughts, floods, and climate change. Today, the world is facing a rapidly intensifying water crisis.
Speaker 7
Know, or most of you probably know, in 2030, global demand for water is expected to exceed supply by 40%. That is why investing in water is crucial. It means investing in stability, poverty reduction, and resilience. EFAD has nearly $3,000,000,000 in ongoing investments in rural water solutions. There are three priorities that guide our approach.
First, we must scale up sustainable irrigation and water efficiency. Many developing countries still rely heavily on rain-fed agriculture, making them increasingly vulnerable to climate shocks. We prioritize climate-smart irrigation systems. These systems allow farmers to produce more food with less water, and simultaneously reduce environmental pressures. The second priority is water resilience, requiring investments in ecosystems.
We know that protecting watersheds, restoring degraded landscapes, and improving soil health are critical for ensuring that water remains available in the future. That is why IFAT increasingly integrates nature-based solutions into its water investments. Thirdly, water management requires strong institutions and governance. Water is a shared resource. And coming from The Netherlands, myself, I know firsthand that managing water is not only a technical challenge, but also involves economic, social, and political considerations.
That is why IFAT invests in strengthening local institutions such as water user associations, cooperatives, and other community-based resource management to ensure that all these aspects are considered. Cross-cutting theme through these is the role of technology. There are considerable new opportunities offered by new technologies, and I don't mean just solar-powered pumps. In the MeCom Delta, for instance, in Vietnam, EFA partnered with technology companies to deploy digital monitoring systems, allowing farmers to track salinity levels through mobile apps. Today, more than 11,000 farmers can use these tools to protect their crops and adapt their irrigation practices.
We are also expanding the use of satellite data and earth observation technologies to improve water planning and climate adaptation investments. In all our solutions, we try to integrate science, technology, local knowledge, and global insights and research to provide innovation that helps farmers produce more and sustainably while using fewer resources, including, of course, water. To achieve global wide-scale water security, we'll need global cooperation. There's an estimated global shortfall in financing for water infrastructure of up to $664,000,000,000 a year. To close this gap, we'll need much stronger multilateral leadership and deeper collaboration between the development institutions.
As chair of UN Water, IFAT's president is working to strengthen coordination across the UN system and accelerate progress towards sustainable development goal 6. The EU's water resilience agenda is a model our president would like to promote in the lead up to the UN Water Conference 2026, and more broadly within the global policy dialogue on water. We need to discuss water taking into account linkages with agriculture, food systems, and climate adaptation as the EU Water Resilience Strategy does. Your integrated approach spans policy dialogue, basin-level governance, and local action. This is a very strong framework for strengthening sound water resource management, while supporting innovative and resilient economies.
At IFAT, we see ourselves as a strategic partner for this agenda because we can attract and leverage financial resources, technical knowledge, private sector and integrate that with our long standing experience on the ground. We have further developed our public-private producer partnership, which brings together governments, companies, and pharma organizations to co-invest in sustainable agricultural value chains and water infrastructure. These partnerships have shown us that private sector engagement increases impact by 4 times and that water resilience can both speed development and be financially viable. But we are very clear about that, we must remember that water is a public good and a foundation for sustainable development. Finally, we look forward to continuing work with the European Union, development partners and other stakeholders to work on this because investing in water resilience today is ultimately an investment in global stability, food security and shared prosperity.
Thank you.
Speaker 5
Yes. Thanks a lot. Before we come to the next kind of external speaker, I would like to give the floor again to Hildegard Bentele for her remarks, and then we come to Lehuluca Orlando for the Afed Committee, who has another important appointment in fifteen minutes, but then you can make your remarks. So Heligardt.
Speaker 4
Yes. Just to put our discussion today and the hearing a little bit in the context, we do not have only a water conference upcoming at the end of the year. We have World Water Day next Sunday, for all those who don't know. But as it was mentioned, the data we received about the state of water security is alarming. We heard it this morning when the joint DAVE Envy report on the implementation of the sustainable development goals was discussed.
SDG six on access to water and sanitation is one of the worst-performing SDGs. The EU and its member states are among the top donors in the water sector. But in light of the ongoing aid cuts and the huge size of the investment gap you were just mentioning, we also need to think beyond order. Harnessing the global gateway, what I invented myself in the last month, the role of the private sector actors and international technical cooperation is one important aspect here. The report we recently adopted in the Dave and Aftet Committee on Global Gateway stresses that growing water insecurity is starting to pose a major threat to economic growth perspectives, and calls for the systematic integration of a blue dimension in the global gateway investments.
The EU and its member states can also play an important role at the UN Water Conference coming up in December, 2026, pushing for an ambitious outcome. It is encouraging that four EU member states are involved in the preparations of the conference as Chair of the Interactive Dialogues, which are Finland, France, Germany and Spain. So, and with this, having said this, before we go to the other different perspectives of the main challenges, I would like to give you the floor, dear colleague Orlando, for your intervention since you have to leave earlier.
Speaker 10
Thanks a lot. First of all, I wish to say thank you to the data committee for giving me the opportunity to give some information about the report on transnational governance on water in the interest of conflict, prevention, and peace. And I think it's really interesting and relevant that it is a final effort of commission for affairs. This is not a topic that always occupies the center of our political debate, especially in these times of war and geopolitical crisis. But that does not make it any less important.
Speaker 9
On the contrary, it makes it even more urgent. Water governance is not peripheral in conflict prevention. It is central to it. Water is essential for life. Access to safe water is a human right and the prerequisite for stability and peace.
Speaker 14
Today, however, this right is under increasing pressure over the exploitation, pollution, rapid population growth, and the accelerating effects of climate change are causing extreme water scarcity in many areas of the world. At the same time, harmony conflicts and political instability are restricting access to water, putting this right under increasing pressure. Let us consider the effects. More than half of the planet's fresh water resources across national borders. More than 150 countries share transboundary river basins, but assessment and management of this shared resource is often insufficiently regulated.
Speaker 9
It means cows in many cases. And where agreements exist, water can become a source of cooperation, of prosperity and stability. When the institution are weak, when the populations are in internal and external conflict, the lack of regulation of access to and control of water can instead be an accelerator of crisis, encouraging new crises, inequalities, and migration, and it is exactly the reality. Water management is therefore not only a technical, administrative, and environmental issue, it is a strategic and geopolitical one. In this context, the European Union is both an opportunity and responsibility to act.
Speaker 13
Strengthening international water governance means investing in long-term and effective conflict prevention. The report we're withdrawing the hub puts forward some concrete and constructive proposals for action, which we hope will be worthy of support. And we will give to this commission all the necessary information to be able just to check to control our work in the effort. Thanks a lot.
Check and control. Aftel.
Speaker 5
Yes. Thank you so much, Levo Luka. I, yeah. Good that we hear your opinions. Unfortunately, you have to go, but you can listen to the next speaker.
Speaker 6
You still have ten minutes. So, thanks a lot. And our next speaker is Mister Timothy Cargill, vice president for international development at the ZULES Group. We look forward to hearing from you to understand the perspective of the EU private sector and how it can contribute to SDG 6 in light of discussions about leveraging investment for water infrastructure under Global Gateway. What are your concrete experiences in partner countries?
Mister Carga.
Speaker 12
Okay. Thank you very much. I'll try to speak slowly, so do not hesitate to slow me down. Maybe to start and just to introduce who we are at SUEZ, what is it? Suez is a French corporation, a French group, which is probably one of the oldest in the world in terms of water management.
Speaker 11
We've been incorporated 165 years ago. So we've got a long-lasting experience in our water and waste management. Today, obviously, we'll talk about water. I would say that, first of all, our experience in water management started in Africa. So we are a truly international company.
We have always been working all over the world. We started by the Suez Canal, so probably among the first PPPs in the world. And we are, I'll try to go straight to the point. What can we bring to this commission today? As I was saying, we are very much exposed to public-private partnership.
So we work with public authorities, but we cannot do anything without public and private investment. So it goes in the direction of a global gateway and blended finance type of project. We are present all over the world, or we were all over the world. It depends on the markets, but we are today present in 45 countries. And we manage where we are, interesting probably for the commission.
We are one of the only companies which is working in the whole spectrum of water. We do consulting. We do design. We do implementation, co construction and long term operations, which is very important. So we're not a construction company.
We're not a design office. We are covering the whole spectrum, and we do any type of water. So potable water, wastewater, industrial water, desanitization water. And we use a lot of where we are a bit different is that we try to stay ahead of the crowd by the excellency we're trying to deploy. It's not always the case, but we try to be in this range as much as we can.
And through the R and D, we do a lot of R and D in order to be cost-effective and to bring water to the population, which is our ultimate goal. Obviously, so this is what we do. The main points that we need to answer your questions to address in order to be effective and where we can bring a difference, it's, as I was saying, the long term partnership we're deploying in countries. We're not there to stay one year, two years. Most of the time, we deploy partnerships, and we stay for a generation in countries where we are.
So it's a proof of success and good cooperation. So I think it's an example we can bring to and the lessons we can bring to the commission. We I give an example. There are countries where we are present since 40, 50 years, mainly in Africa where we are more present. To give an example, in Africa, we built, I think, 80% of the water treatment facilities in African cities.
We built more than 500 plants over there, so we have huge experience. It's the same in other geographies, but not with the same scope. So we've got this operational background and experience, which I think is very valuable. It's not the whole thing. We have a good experience, and we have a good reputation.
It's probably our greatest asset, and people are coming to see us because they know what we're doing. So we've got this long-term cooperation. We've got it comes along with efficiency and performance in what we're trying to do. Not talking about industrial water. I don't think it's the core of the subject today or this side, but in sanitation and potable water, we do it for a lot of municipalities, sometimes government, and sometimes countries.
So I can go back after if we have time on the example of Senegal where we manage the whole drinking water of Senegal. So it means that we treat water for 10,000,000 inhabitants, seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. Whatever we do, we do it, as I was saying, with the municipalities, with the countries. It means that we don't take the control of what is a public good, but we enhance the performance of this good, of the water in order to get water to everybody. Obviously, we try to do the same with sanitation, according to the urgency and the situation of each and every country.
Whatever we do, we try to insist a lot on training. What we have to do, the core of our business is to bring autonomy to the different water utilities or cities with which we are working. So we do a lot of training. We do a lot of on the job training, transfer of technology, transfer of know-how for the different utilities to be able to become autonomous and to replicate what we're trying to do hand in hand with the different authorities. So you're gonna tell me all this is very nice.
It's a fantastic story, but we cannot do anything without financing. And as we are working most of the time in developing countries, we need financing. So as we're talking about developing countries, finance is scarce. Most of the time, unfortunately, people are not financing public goods, which are of extreme importance, first, but they prefer to go to energy or other activities, which are sometimes more lucrative. Whereas we can see, as Mr.
Aranda was saying, in the crisis, we're knowing at the moment, water is becoming probably among the top, if it's not the first priority in conflicts, because if you don't have energy, it's a pity. If you don't have water, after a couple of days, it's a revolution. People are migrating. People are dying. Diseases are spreading.
So it's probably the top, top thing. So we need financing, and we believe that the only way to have it in countries which are developing where finance is scarce, is to have blended financing. So countries can mobilize a bit of the budget. But what we are doing also, as well, and what's the difference also, is that we're trying to structure financing around the projects we're trying to develop. So we do it with public finance, private finance, and financing coming from IFAs or entities like the European Union, the commission, the European Investment Bank, and any IFAs, World Bank, IFC, AFD, EBRD.
We work with those institutions since decades. What it means is that we've got this expertise and this ability to structure projects which are going to become effective, which are going to bring tangible result to the population, and which are going to strengthen a legal framework which we need to have in order to make our project viable. In order to do all that, it's a lot of preparation, you know, working on portable water schemes, water networks, sanitation. It needs a lot of studies in order to make a project bankable and viable. Most of the time, we are working, as I was saying, in a PPP model with hybrid financing, which means that there is a public tender.
And in order to have a credible public tender, you need to have a legal framework to do it. Most of the developing countries don't have this experience. They don't have the framework, so they need advice. They need to do a feasibility study. They need to have legal advisers and so on, and this costs money.
And this is where the global getaway and what the EU and the commission can bring is also technical advice, legal advice, and financing to frame all those markets. So it's something which is extremely important for us. There is another aspect which is extremely important in terms of financing that the different governments, municipalities, or public private entities working in water need to have some subsidies or some specific type of financing, which are going to allow them to reduce the cost of project and to reduce the pressure on the price of water. In most of those countries, people cannot pay for the water, or it's something which is obviously socially extremely sensitive. So they need to find a way to build those capital intensive projects, maintaining a price of water which is in their control.
It's something that we can bring as well as with the experience I was talking about, but we cannot do it alone. We need to have entities which are ready to finance projects with a return on experience, which is, oh, return, sorry, on investment, which is not in accordance with what the private pure private sector is looking at. So this is, again, the benefit of having blended finance and public private partnership in order to make those projects flyable and effective. So I'm thinking a lot, but if I have to give an example, it would be we're in most of the African countries, Southeast Asian countries, and developing countries. Senegal, as I was saying, is a very important one because we're managing the water for the whole country.
It's working extremely well. But with the commission and with the BRD and BIE, we're working in many African countries, Ivory Coast, Tunisia, Egypt, where we manage the wastewater of half of Cairo, which is 30,000,000 inhabitants. This water is treated. And with the R and D and the technology and the transfer of technology, we bring, this water is reused. So we keep or we avoid to have any extra pressure on the resource in order to have wastewater reused in agriculture, mainly in Cairo, in order to keep the whole environment not under pressure and keeping a safe environment for everybody.
So many things to see. I think I'm already over time, but this is what we can.
Speaker 5
Bring in a nutshell. No. You have the floor later on, so I mean, everything's fine. Thank you for the contribution. Very interesting.
Speaker 6
We now move to the local civil society perspective. Missus Mathaya, who is, no, it's not remote, but is leading water aid in Zambia. The EU has an extensive cooperation program with Zambia covering agriculture and human development, as well as global gateway projects like the Lubito Corridor and the Nexus Energy and Water program for Zambia. What is your perspective on the effectiveness and coherence of the international support to your country, and the role local organizations can play?
Speaker 15
Thank you very much for the kind introduction and for the opportunity to speak at this hearing today. I'll start with just a little bit about WaterAid, and we are an international organization that was established in 1981 by the UK water industry with a mission to transform lives through sustainable and safe water, sanitation, as well as hygiene, and we're working in over 40 countries globally. Our work is guided by a global strategy, and the strategy is delivered through a system-strengthening approach focusing on four primary aims. First one, achieving universal access to sustainable services in selected geographical areas, improving wash for public health, wash for climate, as well as wash financing, and we work at local, national, as well as global levels. We are very pleased, I would say, in terms of seeing the critical issue of water resilience gaining more attention in Brussels and across Europe.
Speaker 16
And I would like to also acknowledge the important role that the EU is playing in supporting water governance globally. Last year, it was pleasing to witness the launch of the EU water resilience strategy, and we are definitely looking forward to seeing its full implementation, particularly the objective of ensuring clean, affordable water for all, which aligns, of course, with the global development agenda 2030, the Africa Water Vision 2063, and from Zambia where I sit, the Zambia Water Investment Program. My contribution today is going to share reflections on opportunities to accelerate safe water supply through multisectoral pathways in the EU's external strategies, and secondly, present entry points that the EU can leverage to support partner countries in closing financing gaps for safe water, using Zambia as a case study. Now earlier speakers have already mentioned, and it's not surprising that SDG 6 is one of the worst performing SDGs globally. Over the past decade, financing for the water sector has consistently underperformed, leaving as many as 695 million people still relying on limited or unsafe water sources.
Speaker 15
We have also seen shifts in funding priorities within the sector as financing of small to medium-scale water supply infrastructure has decreased in favor of large-scale, mostly urban infrastructure, water resource management, and water digital innovation, among other emerging priorities reflecting the direction of the EU water resilience strategy. However, a small to medium infrastructure investment is still needed in developing as well as in humanitarian contexts. Beyond the EU water resilience strategy, the role of water access must be recognized in other objectives, including the EU global health strategy. We can appreciate that strong health systems with quality service delivery and effective disease prevention need water. In trade and economic investment, we recognize the need for water in agriculture value chains and the need to mitigate water-related environmental and social risks in industrial operations.
As Global Gateway responds across the priorities of SDG six, it should intensify efforts to deliver on the commitment to achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all. Coming into the partner countries, Zambia where I'm sitting has a national development plan, that's the 8th NDP, which allocates 3,500,000,000.0 annually for water and sanitation. But actual spending is only half of this at best, which reflects the situation across the globe. In Zambia, only 62% of the 19,700,000 population have at least basic access to water. In rural areas, which account for 51% of the population, those levels dropped to as low as 44%, according to the JMP data.
The country does face mounting climate risks alongside public health threats, rapid urbanization, as well as unplanned settlement, among other issues in a rapidly evolving national, regional, continental, and, yes, global context. Zambia, therefore, does present multiple investment entry points that can be leveraged to advance the agenda of increasing access to safe water. Maternal health. One third of health care facilities lack safe and reliable running water. As WaterAid, we have been able to upgrade 91 facilities using multi-donor support, and the result of that has been more safe deliveries with increased utilization of quality maternal health services.
Over seventy-six percent of births, or three and four births, if I can put that into context, in Sub-Saharan Africa are taking place in unsafe delivery rooms. If we come to Zambia, one of our partner districts, Monze, that we have supported, is nearing 100% coverage with added public investment from the constituency development fund. And this week, I'm very proud that we've been able to launch the Time to Deliver campaign that advances this particular agenda, and that's just one example of the small incremental steps. One community, one district at a time, one province, one country, and we can get there. Cholera elimination and control.
Responding to the worst recent outbreak of cholera that killed as many as 764 people in Zambia in 2024, we partnered with the Lusaka Water Supply Company to install a piped water system in Sylvia Masebo community, which was a cholera hotspot that now reports zero cases of cholera, a known, simple, and cost efficient solution. Climate adaptation. As the country continued to experience a drought and is still recovering from 2024, Nteme community that we supported remains water secure with an integrated pipe system serving households, livestock needs, gardens, the local school, and the health care facility. Increasing access to education. With the adoption of a free education policy, increasing enrollment also means increasing demand for water in schools, especially for girls' needs.
With support from the EU delegation in Zambia, we modeled safely managed water supply in 10 rural schools, completely redefining what the standards should be. You can imagine bringing in flushable toilets and a piped water system to a community that has never known such kind of an intervention, and that's the type of transformation that we are working towards. Strengthening service delivery as well through programs such as the NUSA that was mentioned. There are a lot of initiatives that are strengthening commercial utilities who continue to struggle with tariffs that are not cost reflective, high non-revenue water, coupled with limited capacity that undermines their financial viability. Water operator partnerships such as the one that WaterAid has facilitated between Kafubu Water and Northumbrian Water are helping to develop locally led solutions informed by global expertise, mitigating social and environmental risks.
In Zambia, you will hear the new buzzword, which is the Lobito Corridor, an excellent initiative. But we have seen as well through the 2025 Sino Metals dam spill into the Kafue River, the essential role that social sectors have to play in mitigating risks linked to trade and economic investments, including critical raw materials and agricultural development. In conclusion, I would say that what is working for us that we can tap into for the investments under the EU global gateway, Nexa's programming across water, energy, food, health, climate, education, and livelihoods, blended multi-donor financing, partnerships and alliances that are being brokered locally and internationally across the public sector, private sector, and civil society, gender and social inclusion ensuring nobody is left behind, strengthened communities and institutions that are leading locally with global support, aligned political will, integrating sanitation and hygiene, as well as sanitation and hygiene behavior change, as well as evidence learning and innovation to inform policy development strategy as well as adaptive programming. You may call me biased, but not wrong by saying that water sits at the very foundation of the development continuum. So once again, let me thank you for recognizing its critical importance through this hearing today, and thank you for giving WaterAid, an organization whose mission aligns deeply with this agenda, the opportunity to contribute to these deliberations.
I submit. Thank you.
Speaker 6
Thanks a lot. Our final speaker now on this panel is Professor Ansua Mensa. She is a freshwater ecologist and has done intensive research on water pollution related to illegal mining activities in Ghana, as well as sustainable water management and the role of women. Building on your research in West Africa, we look forward to your perspective on the protection of water-related ecosystems from harmful economic practices and what role science can play in this regard. Thanks a lot for being with us remotely.
Speaker 5
You have six minutes. I'm like, I have to be strict on the timing. My colleagues are saying yes, sorry. Oh, we cannot hear you now. Okay.
Yes.
Thank you.
Speaker 17
Very much for having me. Please, can you hear me? Can you hear me, please? We can. Okay.
Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to say something to the development committee of the EU parliament. I will structure my presentation on what happens in Ghana and from my experience of the nearly 30 years of research in Ghana. So I'll concentrate on Ghana. Ghana, unfortunately, the freshwater ecosystems in Ghana, including the major river basins, are under severe stress from rapid, largely unregulated pollution, with approximately 60% of water bodies in the country now considered heavily polluted. This pollution is primarily driven by illegal artisanal mining, also called galamsey in the local palace.
Industrial effluent, agricultural runoff, and poor domestic water management, which combined have degraded water quality to the point of causing water treatment plant shutdowns and significant biodiversity loss. So with illegal mining, heavy metals have been found in these river systems and have destroyed our fundamental wastewater resources. The use of dangerous chemicals like mercury and cyanide to extract gold, along with the dumping of mining slurry directly into rivers, has led to extreme turbidity and toxic concentrations of heavy metals in these rivers. There are also these rivers are extremely turbid and have high sedimentation. There is microbial contamination and sewage.
There is industrial and agric runoff. And unfortunately, there's also plastic pollution. But illegal mining, as I said, has polluted 60% of the country's water bodies, which is a large percentage and has affected health, water security, health security, and environmental security. And there's been extreme destruction of aquatic ecosystems, and also there's been water scarcity and high treatment costs. So it shut up the cost of water in Ghana.
There have been health hazards, including skin infections, deformed babies being born, and heavy metal poisoning. While policies exist to manage these water resources, their effectiveness is limited by weak enforcement, lack of political will, and the complexity of addressing the economic drivers of illegal mining. Why do young people go into illegal mining? And why are companies in Ghana doing illegal mining? And some of the solutions the government has done has been to regulate the area with stricter regulations, which hasn't really worked, community-based management, promoting cleaner, artisanal mining techniques, and investing in advanced locally relevant water treatment.
In Ghana, water funding has been through the World Bank, Denmark and UNICEF, the Spanish government, the EU, and other development partners. The EU has been doing quite a lot, and they've been providing support. But the EU can scale up support in targeting infrastructure investments, providing wastewater and circular economy, climate-resilient agriculture, and nature-based solutions as had been mentioned earlier. And if it is innovating financing using the Ghana sustainable financing framework, the EU can help align projects with international green bond principles. What I can suggest is that with wastewater management and assets, then you can fund projects that modernize our water treatment plants.
Quite a lot of them are shutting down, and we can deploy technologies to remove heavy metals and sediments from the contaminated rivers. Can promote alternative livelihoods and training, and this is especially important for women and young people to sustain agriculture with smart solar-powered irrigation systems, encouraging them, supporting education and awareness creation, especially for our chiefs and communities, as to why the impact of illegal mining. Rainwater harvesting, that may seem low hanging fruit in a cake, but it is not, because quite a lot of the groundwater has been contaminated, but boreholes can also be done. Rainwater provides a sustainable local source of fresh water that can reduce reliance on contaminated surface or groundwater, offering a clean alternative for various uses like domestic consumption or sanitation. So I would urge rainwater harvesting.
Maybe we can support technological advances for mining, promotion of the Minamata Convention as to the use of mercury and its effects, and facilitating the adaptation of the gold catcher, which is a mercury-free processing technology. Environmental monitoring, it's very important that these rivers are monitored, and satellite and drones which are being used, but I think can be used more effectively to monitor the rivers and their water quality and identify illegal mining hotspots. We can provide funding for data collection on water quality, existing flora and fauna, and health issues that have arisen, especially for the deformed babies I told you about, and social issues. We can support the strengthening of environmental regulations, facilitating the informants of mining laws, and promoting the restoration of degraded forest and water bodies. The socioeconomic drivers that drive people to engage in illegal mining need to be addressed by providing alternative employment and economic opportunities.
Also, agencies can ensure fair and effective enforcement of laws. But with the EU, as I mentioned earlier, there can be scaling up of the innovative financing that you are doing at the moment to help fund research. Also engage in targeted infrastructure investments, like our wastewater treatment plants. And I think I shall stop here. Thank you.
Speaker 5
No. Thanks a lot. It was very interesting. Also, thank you very much again for the other contributions. I will now hand over to my Co Chair, Helgiard Benteler, for the next part and come maybe back later with asking a question.
Speaker 4
My side to all the speakers for your valuable contributions, and I'm amazed at the quality of sound coming from Africa. Thanks a lot for being with us this afternoon. And I would like now to invite Mr. Beyada. Mr.
Beyada is Mr. Water Resilience of the Parliament because he did the initiative report at the beginning of last year, and set the tone, I think, for the whole issue. Please, you have the floor for two minutes. And if you want to ask a question directly to the speakers here, you are invited. And then I will open the floor to all the other colleagues.
Please.
Thomas Bajada
Thank you. Thank you both for organizing this public hearing. I want to start with something that is very important and is happening right now while I speak. A damaged Russian shadow fleet tanker is currently drifting in the Central Mediterranean, an unmanned vessel carrying hundreds of tons of fuel and gas. A single incident that can have serious consequences for the fragile ecosystems of our shared sea and for the Mediterranean coastline.
But for Malta, this is not only an environmental concern. There's also a water concern. Because for island communities, drinking water depends on the sea through desalination. Therefore, when the sea is threatened, our water security is also threatened. And that is why water resilience truly matters, not only managing scarcity, but protecting the systems that sustain life.
And these risks do not stop at borders. The Central Mediterranean is also surrounded by non-EU countries, and they are often left mostly acutely hit by such crises with the least capacity to respond, and hence, one single shock can become a systemic crisis. And that is why the pact of the Mediterranean matters. It offers an opportunity to move from fragmented action to real cooperation on water, for example, investment, and also on resilience. But cooperation must also be operational. Because today, while risks are shared, our investment and responses remain too often disconnected and fragmented, and therefore not strategic.
The parliament has stressed through my report that we need stronger cross-border cooperation, shared data collection, and regional approaches in order to prevent risks from being passed on from one territory to another. And in our external action, water resilience must also become a strategic priority as a guiding principle for how we invest, how we cooperate with partners, and how we actually build long-lasting partnerships. Because water is not just a resource, it is security, it is health, and it is dignity. So I would like to take the opportunity to also ask the commission before they come to speak later on how they will ensure that EU external investments under global Europe through the EIB and within the pact of the Mediterranean are no longer delivered as fragmented and project-based interventions, but are instead made effective through real regional coordination, basin-level planning, and enforceable requirements on data sharing, risk prevention, and infrastructure protection so that no region, including desalination-dependent communities, are left exposed to foreseeable and preventable water risks. And to close a question to Miss Bogart, you highlighted the importance of integrated water management across sectors.
So how can IFAD and the EU better translate this into truly transboundary and basin-level cooperation models, bringing, for example, the Mediterranean, especially where both water stress and migration pressures interact? So how can we actually devise together a plan which is at basal level in order to actually target these issues? Thank you.
Speaker 4
Thank you very much, Mr. Bayada. You addressed one of our panelists and also the commission. I look to other colleagues. Do you want to have the intervention of the commission or first ask questions to the speakers? I would then open the floor to colleagues too, and then we'll bring in the commission.
So I open the floor, and I see Beatrice already. Please.
Beatrice Timgren
Yes, thank you. This is a really important topic. But I would like to ask about the financial part. Based on your experience, how can we make sure that money spent on water projects brings real clear results in partner countries and not just more spending? And also from your experience, how can we make sure that the investment in water project deliver clear, measurable result in partner countries and not just to no, I mean, oh, sorry, I messed it up.
What practical step can donors and implementing partners take to avoid creating a long-term spending external funding or progeny technology? Thank you.
Speaker 4
Thank you, Béatrice. Would be Charles Gurens next, and then I would have Mrs. Moratje. Yes, okay.
Yes.
Speaker 23
I've got a simple question for the panelists. Investment in water provision requires a great deal of investment. In Africa, I have the impression that in the field there are people who can put in place basic infrastructure, but we've got a gap in water. Do you have an idea of the scale of the need, the way in which that need can be met, and the role which Europe could play in doing so? Thank you.
Speaker 24
Well, thank you. I mean, in the field, we see that these projects, which actually work well, depend on infrastructure, but they also really depend on good governance. They work best when communities are involved in the management too, when women have a role in the decision-taking process, and when the local institutions have proper technical and financial resources. This is particularly true in rural and fragile settings, as was referred to before, where water really is a question of fairness and equity, and also in the fight against climate change. Now if the EU wants to contribute to achieving the goal number six, well, you've got to make sure that you invest in the systems and people, and also look at the basic systems and shore up the local authorities.
Speaker 25
So in this context, what are the most important lessons we've learned from managing water that the EU can apply in future programmes? And what are the types of minimum conditions required when it comes to participation of women and local authorities and ensuring this continuity of service for different projects that we might be investing in?
Speaker 4
Any more colleagues? Erik, do you want to come in for the greens? Yes. Yes.
Speaker 6
Thanks a lot, sir. I'm interested in one question about water grabbing. So I make it short to leave enough time for the answers. But, of course, I think everybody of the speakers is aware of the risks of water grabbing. And I think from a development perspective, it's, yeah, very interesting to understand how we can ensure that such investments do not come at the expense of equitable access to water, or more concretely, like, what safeguards or governance mechanisms are needed to prevent water grabbing?
And do you see a role for the EU in introducing stronger mandatory water-related due diligence and reporting requirements for companies? That's one broader question. I don't know who likes to answer the question. I leave it to you. And the last question I have is when it comes to public-private partnerships, I very much agree.
And we heard that, of course, it's an important part of what we are talking about today, and it can have many positive consequences. But what I ask myself is, like, how to bring companies to invest in least developed countries. You know? Like, there is always also, when it comes to instruments of blended finance, you have SD Plus, for example. We see that, especially in these developed countries, the environment for, yeah, companies is not as attractive as it should be. So how can we reach these developed countries with public-private partnership projects?
Speaker 4
Just one question. I would like to step in for EPP, also with a question which is similar. I mean, as it was mentioned, it's not always the priority of partner countries to invest in waterbed management. So I'm wondering, can't we steer a little bit more also by if you give budget support in which sectors our partner countries should invest? And that would be interesting also for you to hear, Mr.
Cargill, what countries would you consider most suitable to be approached? I mean, where are the conditions as mature, you would say, we could come in if we get a little bit of help from the EU? Is there like three to five you could mention to us that would be super interesting? So I would now give the floor back to the panel, and then we would go to the commission and to the EIB and to DG ECHO. So we go in the different orders.
So we would go again with Mr. Bogard, excuse me. Yes. Two minutes only. Sorry.
Two minutes.
Speaker 7
No problem. I think that the question that was directed to me was in the cross sector, not only cross sector, but cross border. Very valid point. And how can we work together? This has to come, from my perspective, really from the ground or from the field.
We have regional and country offices. There are embassies also from the member states and European representation. They need to communicate on a regular basis to make sure that when we talk to governments on country level and regional level, they include the cross borders. Now this is different in every region and different countries because the problematics, the problems are also different. Some countries get along, others do not, to put it very simply.
So, but in definitely, this is a big issue. Bangladesh and India have cross border issues with water very clearly. How can we facilitate that discussion? That's what we're trying to do, and we need to work together on that. But it has to be look.
I don't think we can design that from Brussels or out of Rome for that matter. We can make it a strategic priority, of course, and say this is what we need to focus on. But it has to come from here.
Speaker 11
Thank you. I'll try to stick to two minutes, but a lot of elements are in that. So how can we make the EU more involved in water? I think very basically, it's to make water a key subject, a dedicated subject for Europe, not a subject which is going to be included in climate change with energy mixed and so on. I think it really deserves to be a totally anonymous subject.
How to reinforce the attractiveness of countries for water? Basically, the risk elements which need to be in the table in order to make them attractive for the country and for potential investors or operators. It's probably to reinforce the legal framework and the structure of the government, to be able to detect and frame projects. Otherwise, nobody will go if you don't understand what's the topic, the governments who are going to be the players in the long term, so they need to be reinforced. The second thing is purely finance.
They need to have subsidies and very cheap money, sometimes pure subsidies. Otherwise, it's not going to be affordable for the population. And, you know, on the long term, the water has to pay for the whole sector itself. And most of the time, you cannot ask people to pay for the real cost of the water, so you need subsidies. We need to include whatever we do and whatever the investment operations are because, you know, for years and decades, people have been financing infrastructure.
If there is no operation coming along just in order to train the people and to transfer the autonomy, after a few years, the infrastructure is just abandoned or they are not working anymore. In the end, there is no water. And probably to have a derisking mechanism in terms of financing. FMO does it a lot, and we work with you and with a lot of other financing institutions, which are de-risking for the private investor the risk not to be paid by the government. And the last point is probably about water becoming very clearly a diplomatic tool.
There is a whole water to be taken as a diplomatic tool, and I believe the EU has a real role to play in that. We can see that there's a huge acceleration in this topic from The US and China, which understood very well that water is becoming a very strong foreign affair enabler. And I think Europe should use this tool in order to assist and create links with countries which have a direct interest for us.
Speaker 4
Yeah. Thank you very much. Then we bring in Missus Matthija again for two minutes.
Speaker 15
Thank you very much for the questions and the opportunity to respond. I would start by responding in terms of the access gap. So when we look at the global gap in access to safe water supply, actually, the bulk of it is in Africa. And you do see that East and Southern Africa has as many as 281,000,000 people that lack even access to basic water supply. Now some of the earlier speakers and questions also responded to the issue of how do we ensure that we have inclusion, that we're addressing the gender needs, and that we're approaching things systematically.
I would say that in the system strengthening approach, sustainable services are the result of bringing together these key pillars around gender, around empowered communities, around service delivery, with the right management models to ensure long-term operation and maintenance. And also by generating evidence, so there is no one solution that works universally across the board. The system strengthening framework only gives you a basis with which to assess a context, the basis on which to plan and to program and provide solutions to review and to adapt progressively in a bid to achieve full coverage. There are, of course, naturally some non-negotiables. Taking water in the human rights principles, for example, inclusion is nonnegotiable.
We must ensure that the voices of all people, particular.
Speaker 4
Matthijs? Then I would try, because we are a bit short in time. I would bring in Mrs. Encewa Mensa just for another two minutes. Can you hear us?
She's coming.
I need my okay, good.
Speaker 4
Super. Okay. You have two minutes. We can bring you in for another 2 minutes. Okay.
Speaker 17
I'd like to answer the question of how you're going to make sure that you get value for money in your investments. And I suggest that there should be phased investment, making projects into phases and linking them with loan disbursements directly to the completion of the projects. You can have midterm reviews. You can have development capacity for reusing tools that have been used before in the EU Water Partnership program. But I like to come, and then you can use remote sensing to see if what you are doing is going on.
But I like to agree with Mister Kagro and say that subsidies would really help. And then for Ghana, the water treatment plants that are shut down because of high turbidity levels in the rivers can be activated. Data collection is also very important. And because I'm an ecologist, there is lots of aquatic biodiversity to see the extent of it and how we can sort of do something about it. That's a long term project, but I think that is also very important.
So, getting value for money, monitoring, and evaluation is very important. Subsidies are important, and then revitalizing, reviving the water treatment plants that have been shut down because of the high turbidities. And I must say that what I said with regards to illegal mining pertains in Burkina Faso, pertains in Senegal, pertains in Liberia, Mali, and Nigeria. So, I mean, if the program is rolled out in Ghana, it's the same thing with other African countries that have illegal mining as a problem. And because of illegal mining, 60% of our rivers are polluted.
It's a very serious business. And EU, help would be very much appreciated. But if you want to get value for money, you have to make sure that you have phased investments, you have midterm reviews, and you have a very robust monitoring and evaluation system in partnership with the countries that you are going into. And especially, I enjoyed what the other man said about women. When you involve women, they always make sure that you get value for money in the rural areas with whatever water projects that you are engaged in.
Thank you.
Speaker 4
Thank you very much, all of you, for your very concrete answers. I think that was really helpful in all the variety. I have now the honor to bring in the commission and give the floor to Mrs. Chantal Marinsen. She's the Head of Unit Environmental and Sustainable Natural Resources in DG INTPA for three to four minutes, unfortunately, because we are almost running out of time.
Please.
Speaker 29
Thank you very much for the invitation to this hearing on water. I think this discussion is very timely. As we've heard, we're working in an environment both of climate stress, biodiversity loss, and also rivalry over resources. In this context, we believe that investing in water resilience is not only an obligation for development cooperation, but it is also a strategic necessity for the European Union and our partner countries. We also are lucky in this sector to be working with the water directive and the water resilience strategy that's been established for Europe and that has encouraged our private sector to be one of the most technologically advanced, with 80% of the patents in the world, providing lots of very good solutions, both environmental, social, and economic, both in Europe and in partner countries.
Speaker 30
Now we know that the capital that's employed for water security globally is expected to rise from $33,800,000,000,000 in 2024 to $12,600,000,000,000 in 2034. Sorry. However, when we're talking about capital, private capital that is used in the water sector, we're talking about barely 3%. Whereas we know that this is in stark contrast with the energy sector, where we've got 5439% for transport. There is therefore a financial gap, which we believe is the consequence of a market failure that is impacting on the SDGs, including on climate change and peace and stability.
Speaker 29
So under the global gateway, we are changing the way that we've been working to meet these demands, and our goal is to use European public funds and financial instruments to unlock sustainable private investment and deliver on concrete water and sanitation projects in partner countries. We also know, having analyzed our portfolio, that we are already mobilizing 2,000,000,000 investment grants since 2021. This includes, for instance, 550,000,000 in blending that has been leveraging 9,600,000,000 in total investments. Indeed, EU public funds are not only used for leveraging, but they're also anchoring investments in high environmental and social standards that we have developed in Europe. And this is how we manage to align our commitments to human rights and public goods while harnessing investment opportunities that can make clear results in reality.
For instance, in Cambodia, Team Europe, with the EIB, the IFD, and European companies, we've invested 600,000,000 to provide access to 2,300,000 people, and actively support reforms for lasting impacts. In Guinea, we're investing in the grant, Conakry, potable water, with a 25,000,000 grant from the European Commission, we've leveraged 606,000,000 from the EIB. So there's a loan from the EIB, from the World Bank, 181,000,000, but also from partners like India where we have a 155,000,000 loan. So we're seeing that our money can actually leverage, and I can also talk about Ghana where we're having the same kind of effect. So under the water action agenda, the EU has pledged to the UN Water Conference to improve water services to 70,000,000 people by 2030.
This is a common pledge with the EIB, DG MENA, and DG NST. Delivering on this pledge was going to require a dual approach, both deploying European technology and capital while supporting policies, institutions, and capacity to make the investments viable, affordable, and inclusive, which is the approach that we take in all of our water investments. Now I've got my colleague from DG ECHO who is going to be able to complement what I've been saying in fragile situations. So I'll let her take this point, but needless to say that as the European Commission, we would be very happy to work with the parliament more closely on the implementation of the global gateway in water security. Thank you very much.
Speaker 4
Thank you very much, Mrs. Marinsen. And now we come to the EIB to Mr. Hunt for the complexity of the financial instruments. Four minutes, four minutes max.
Speaker 31
I'll try to be quicker if I possibly can. EIB has been around a while. In fact, it's even older than I am, which is quite a challenge. We've been doing these investments, as my colleague from the commission pointed out. We've been lending quite a lot of money in this field.
Speaker 32
But I would like, if I may, to save a couple of minutes of your time. I have a written statement. I'll send it to you. I think Timothy Cargill raised a really important point, which is about financial sustainability of service providers. And you heard the lady from Ghana talking about subsidies.
Speaker 31
I'm not, for one moment, as a bank, suggesting subsidies are necessarily the answer. But I think we do if we really want to chase down SDG 6. You need to reflect on the position of the people who are providing the service. Now my colleague from IFAD was a bit offhand about solar-powered water pumps, but the reality is they can't pay their energy bill, so solar-powered water pumps are part of the answer. Now at the EIB, we try with the assistance, I have to say, of the European Commission to engage in the design of projects that are sustainable.
Our colleague from Zambia mentioned NUSA. It's an acronym, it stands for Nexus Energy Water Zambia. If I may, I'd add food to that. We have compartmentalized the policy in the past. We need to get away from that.
Building a project in Zambia as and elsewhere, where you are able to help the water company to help themselves by providing them with expert support through the likes of Suez or Veolia or many others, water partnerships, energy saving measures, cost saving measures, and then helping them monitor and implement what are sometimes very complex projects. So just providing the investment funds is not the answer. And just looking at the water aspect is not the answer. We need, as we have in Europe, to help them to build a sustainable industry, which eventually will be able to survive without the need for subsidies. I could tell you a whole lot more about what EIB does, but I think you'd be bored.
Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your time, and I'll pass on to the next speaker.
Speaker 4
I had a pleasure to listen to you yesterday. I would call this almost a perfect final word, but we have another representative of the commission from DTECO, Mrs. Carolina Lasson abaro. She's the deputy head of unit on humanitarian aid policies and international humanitarian law. Please, you have the floor for three minutes, I have to say.
Speaker 33
Thanks very much. Good afternoon. And I'm lucky to be the last one, so I can kind of complement my colleagues from DG Impa and also the colleague from the European Investment Bank in the sense that they have mentioned the nexus a couple of times. I think this is a key element, not only the nexus humanitarian development piece for the water section sector, but in general, for implementing an integrated approach to fragility. The wash sector, by the way, was also mentioned that water should be considered as it stands as a sector separate from others.
In humanitarian settings, we do have the traditional water, sanitation, hygiene sector. So that has been with us. I think, you know, it's one of the most important sectors in humanitarian settings. I just wanted to mention that. And it is very much connected to protecting health, restoring essential services, and linking to longer term solutions.
The wash sector is a critically humanitarian crisis because access to safe water, sanitation, hygiene protects public health and helps prevent disease outbreaks. In many crises, the water and sanitation systems are among the first services to collapse. DGFCO therefore supports rapid wash interventions to ensure affected populations have access to safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, and hygiene services. Our operations respond to different phases of the crisis, and this is where the nexus becomes very important because we not only provide immediate life saving response, but also to stabilization and rehabilitation of essential services. In acute emergency settings, our operations focus on rapid life-saving activities, as I mentioned.
This can include restoring access to water supply through emergency repairs to wells or pumps, installing temporary water shortage, constructing emergency sanitation facilities, and distributing hygiene kits. In fragile and post-acute context, interventions increasingly focus on stabilizing and rehabilitating existing water and sanitation systems. This may include repairing damaged infrastructure, rehabilitating boreholes, restoring water networks, restoring sanitation services, and supporting operations and maintenance of systems. Strengthening the capacity of local service providers, and there I go back to what the colleague was mentioning about the service providers and introducing technologies that can be managed locally, such as solar power pumps, is also important. This helps communities regain a minimum level of self-sufficiency and reduce environmental health risks while preparing the transition to longer solutions that normally our colleagues from DG and IMPA are getting for those longer-term solutions.
Humanitarian wash is closely linked with health, as I said at the beginning. And in our case, normally, the wash sector represents, like, €200,000,000 a year of our humanitarian assistance. It's a very important sector, as I said, after food, which is the biggest 30% of our humanitarian assistance a year is for food, and secondly, wash. However, humanitarian alone cannot address the scale of global wash needs. Around 2,200,000,000 people worldwide still lack safely managed drinking water.
Many of them living in fragile or crisis-affected context. This is why DG ECHO increasingly looks to link humanitarian wash interventions with the longer term responses through the nexus approach. I think I'm going to mention, I think it's worth mentioning at least three examples.
Speaker 4
Sorry. No, I think we are really running out of time. So if you can wrap up a sentence or
Speaker 33
Just wanted to mention that we have some concrete examples of where this nexus is working, especially in Uganda, Syria, and Ukraine. So if you want more information on those examples, I'm happy to provide them.
Speaker 4
Thank you very much, colleagues. And with this, we come to the end of our hearing, which I'm really glad that we did. I think this is one of the assets of DEV that we can bring together colleagues from ENVY, from AFFED, our foreign affairs colleagues, and our environmental colleagues. And at the end, we'd impalize the money. So I think for all the concepts we have heard, which are necessary, I think we have a steering role here.
And we want to tackle this issue. We brought it, put it on the agenda, and we'll keep it on the agenda at least until the end of the year. And further on, you see many colleagues who are engaged. And I think this is a new impetus. And thank you very much for your insights from the private sector, from the international community, from the ground, from Africa.
That was extremely helpful and informed our work and our recommendations. And I think I speak on behalf also of Eric. We will keep on working on it, and we would like to also participate in the UN Conference on Water. We're working on that, that also the parliament will be there so that we can keep in touch with you and carry on the work also after the conference. I think that was a good motivation for all of us.
And with this, I close the hearing and hand over to my colleague, Charles Gurens again.
Speaker 34
Can you take your seat, please? We are a little bit short on time. Okay. Dear colleagues, at the beginning of last year, our coordinators decided, please. At the beginning of last year, our coordinators decided to use part of our committee's expertise budget to request a study that would provide a deeper understanding of the principles underpinning our policy area, including international commitments and EU treaties, strategic objectives, and ethical commitments.
Speaker 23
This study was also requested to explore the balance and frictions between supporting partner countries and the treaty objectives of development policy, which stipulates the eradication of poverty as its primary objective on the one side. While on the other hand, there is an increasingly stated request to advance European interests through external action and funding. The study was commissioned to the Austrian Foundation for Development Research with Doctor. Lukas Slugle as the lead author. He is with us today to present his study, and he will be joined by his colleague Simela Papadio Filou, who has worked with him on this study.
Speaker 35
She will join remotely. With this, I would like to give the floor directly to the Doctor. Schlagell. You have the floor for 12 minutes.
Speaker 36
Thank you. Dear Chair, honorable members, thank you very much for the invitation to present the study on the foundations of EU development and cooperation policies. The study was requested by this committee, and its core question is, as EU external action becomes more strategic and more geopolitical, how can development policy remain faithful to its legal and normative foundations. I will make 4 points. First, what has changed in the current policy environment?
Second, the study's central analytical frame, which we call conflicted continuity. Third, where coherence risks are highest in our assessment. And fourth, what this means for Parliament. EU Development Corporation is operating, we argue, in its most charged political environment since the end of the Cold War. External action is increasingly shaped by security concerns, migration politics, climate risks, and the more competitive geo-economic landscape.
At the same time, tighter fiscal space creates pressure for external spending to deliver returns, visible returns for European constituencies. The study argues that this is not a break, not a clean break, but it is a far-reaching reconfiguration. The canonical goals remain formally in place, yet the priorities and instruments are being recalibrated. The spending pattern shown in Figure 1 is useful here. It suggests a relative reweighting away from social infrastructure and governance and toward economic infrastructure investment, and in practice, also security-linked priorities.
So the shift is not only rhetorical, it is also reflected in the policy mix. The study summarizes this basic tension through a simple matrix. On the one axis are partner country-oriented development objectives and EU self-interest objectives. On the other hand are law and politics. Legally, there is a clear anchor.
Article 208 TFEU makes poverty reduction, and in the long term poverty eradication, the primary objective of development cooperation. At the same time, interests are not outside the Aki. They are already embedded in it, since Article 21 TEU places development cooperation within the union's broader external action objectives. And NDICI Global Europe itself refers to promoting the union's values and interests worldwide. These interests are framed broadly and remain politically open to interpretation and prioritization.
Politically, the EU also continues to affirm a values-driven development policy, most notably through the European consensus on development. Yet, strategic framings have become much more explicit, above all through the language of strategic autonomy, mutual benefit, and global gateway. That is why the study speaks of conflicted continuity. The normative core of EU development policy has not disappeared, but it now operates in a more contested political space, and practice can move away, we argue, from the union's own benchmarks unless trade-offs are made visible and are disciplined. The study is careful not to overstate the case.
It does not argue that poverty reduction, human rights, humanitarian principles, the rights-based approach, the SDGs, multilateralism, or partner ownership have disappeared altogether. These all remain part of their key and the political canon as well. At the same time, the study stresses that European interests are not new to development policy either. Historically, EU development cooperation has repeatedly been intertwined with trade, political influence, and security concerns, among other things. What is new is less existence of interests as such than their greater breadth, explicitness, and institutional centrality in the current period, we argue.
Competitiveness, strategic autonomy, and geopolitical relevance have moved much closer to the core of the development discourse. The security development migration axis is now much more explicit in programming and communication. Guarantee, splendid finance and investment platforms have become much more central. And energy, connectivity, and raw materials now occupy a more prominent place in external action. So the tension does not stem from formal abandonment, but from a relative deprioritization in narrative instruments and institutional practice.
The study treats policy coherence as its central, legal and normative benchmark. Its conclusion is that risks for policy coherence are concentrated. We argue the lower relative risk domains are those where development or humanitarian logics remain visible: poverty reduction and human development, humanitarian aid and crisis response, and democracy, human rights and gender equality. Then there's a middle group, which contains mixed domains: climate and energy, trade and economic partnership, the private sector and investment agenda, and peace and security. In these areas, alignment, we argue, is possible, but it depends heavily on design, safeguards, and credible development metrics.
The highest structural tensions in the studies assessment are migration and mobility, raw materials and industrial policy, and geopolitics or systemic competition. In those areas, the risk is that development objectives become residual unless strong counterweights are in place. And our coherence assessment is an indicative one, but it is a qualitative assessment based on a review and synthesis of a pretty substantial body of literature and evaluative evidence. We pick out three episodes to illustrate the argument. First, migration linked to external financing.
The key point here is not that all migration-related programming is non-developmental. It is that when the operative benchmark becomes cooperation on controlling irregular migration, development cooperation can become a bargaining chip. That risks distorting partner priorities and weakening ownership. Second, climate and energy. This is one of the most plausible mutual interest domains, and alignment is certainly possible.
But the study warns that partner country needs can be subordinated to EU energy security and industrial priorities if the design of partnerships is weak, if local value addition is limited, or if the benefits are described as mutual without being made substantively mutual. Third, investment mobilization. The shift to guarantees, blended finance, and investment platforms is one of the most important structural changes in the current agenda. The study here highlights recurring concerns also from our interview partners around transparency, additionality, development impact demonstration, debt sustainability, and the risk of reintroducing what we call tight eight dynamics by the backdoor. The study's recommendations are practical, and we think or we hope speak to the parliament's levers.
First, we recommend setting guardrails. Any measure reported as ODA should be justified by a clear development rationale, including poverty reduction and inequality impacts. Parliament could protect core targets from a sort of quiet dilution, including by preserving meaningful floors for poverty-focused spending, human development, and civil society. If flexibility mechanisms are kept or even expanded, they should come with transparent triggering criteria, time limits, and strong explicit reporting. Second, strengthening transparency and scrutiny.
We argue that parliament needs timely programming information that is substantial enough for real scrutiny, not only aggregated, exposed reporting. The study recommends open data on projects and contracts, including Global Gateway, alongside publication of project information. One useful idea, we hope at least in the study, is a public transparency hub to that end. Third, making the private sector agenda development-proof. The study here recommends strict application of economic, social, and environmental standards, treating debt sustainability as a first-order constraint and preserving open competitive procurement so that European preference does not quietly become tied aid in a new form.
My concluding point. The issue is not whether we argue European interests matter. They do. And as the study shows, they always have to, to a certain extent. The real question is whether development objectives remain operational when priorities collide.
The question is also whether a more transactional, conditionality-heavy culture of development cooperation may end up weakening precisely the enlightened self-interest it claims to serve. By eroding soft power, credibility, partner ownership, and ultimately, the development effectiveness on which the union's long-term interests also depend. What matters is whether the system is built to manage trade-offs openly, transparently, and against credible development benchmarks. That is where we see parliament's role as decisive. The more flexibility the system grants to the executive, the more accountability needs to increase.
So the study's final plea is for stronger guardrails, stronger scrutiny, and a more honest narrative that moves beyond automatic win-win language. Thank you.
Thank.
Speaker 23
thank you very much. You introduced that in a very precise way, and I think it will help our debate. I'm turning to my colleagues now to see who would like the floor. I see Odehuhlmann. Go ahead.
Udo Bullmann
Well, thank you, chair, and thank you, doctor Schlergel and colleagues, for this study. I'm not doing that too often, but let me also compliment DG Expo and the external policies analysis and support unit for having chosen you because I did not have too much time to run to the study. Half an hour is not enough, but I was reading quickly from the beginning, roughly to the end. And I really think that you are precisely describing where we are. And I see Charles with his experience, nodding in the chair.
You confront the reality with the promises, and you do a job which I would like to describe as absolutely worthwhile. Because the most dangerous thing at the very moment, not only in development policy, generally in policy making, is not so much this or that paradigm shift, can always be discussed against the backdrops of current challenges. The most worrying development is the abuse of language. The use of language in political speech, which is not affiliated with the heritage of enlightenment anymore, which is not really giving clarity and telling the truth of what you think the truth is, but becomes an element of propaganda, of defense, of vested interests, of what you intend to do anyhow, and then you find wonderful language for that. And having learned that so often in various places, also here in the European institutions, I would say, yes, this is one of the reasons why people do not listen anymore to political speech, and why people are disappointed about their representatives.
Coming back to our issue of development policy, you have made that clear in the analysis of the category of mutual interest because you described the justifiable use of that word, but also the trap if it's used only or merely for ideological purposes. And this is a great stuff for us, for our teams, but even more, I would say, for our communication with the other European institutions, for the communication with the commission, for the communication with national institutions, parliamentarians, etc., etc., because there is nothing more boring here in the seat in the European Parliament than permanently listening to the same codes of abused language. This is what I cannot stand anymore. And let me quote it similarly to what you finally described in the last chart. But I came across about page 52, last paragraph, and this is what we can learn from that or what I take away as my learning for the European Parliament, a practical question is not whether European interests should matter.
The question is rather how to ensure that interest alignment is guided by development objectives, partner ownership, and credible standards. This is what it is all about, and I recommend that, for our staff, for our teams, and for our colleagues, to be read and used very carefully and thoroughly.
Speaker 23
Thank you. Would anyone else like to take the floor? I can't see anyone, so I will say a few words. I haven't studied your study, but I've listened very carefully to what you've said, and a number of our concerns have been confirmed in what you said because, as you said in your introduction, I come from the old world as it were, and, in the old world, we believed in values. And it was important to have a certain kind of approach to humanitarian aid.
Even article 208, which calls for the eradication of poverty as a goal, seems to be abandoned at the present time. And so our worst fears have been confirmed. And this is something we note in your study has confirmed as a utilitarian gap now in European humanitarian policy. The link between development and external action in the EU is not a key concern. We talked about European values, and the answer used to be vague.
And today, we say very clearly that what we want to do is to promote the development of our own industries. And what we want to do when we have projects is to try to find partners on the ground to work with. And if we can't find them on the ground, then we look for partners nearby or in another developing country to act as service providers. Now all this is what happened in the past, but it doesn't seem to be a priority today, and this is the reality we are confronted with. So my question to you, I'm sure you're familiar with the way in which the European Parliament works.
We have a triple role. We are legislators. We are currently examining the Global Europe draft, confirming the gap which I've identified. We have a political role to play that's in our initiative reports, and we also have a monitoring role. Now on this last point, the best elements which we can confirm in what you have described, I would say, its limitations is where we have a situation where member states vote on proposals from the commission, on important responses in the European Parliament is excluded from that.
Now I think the best monitoring system would not be abstracted from what is happening at this level. And this is the problem in the European Parliament. Who is doing what when we have this very close reading of what is happening in the committees? We will have the confirmation. It maybe depends, but we'll have the confirmation of what we fear.
So those are our worries, and I'd like you to respond. Do you think I'm exaggerating? Are we right to be worried? Looking at us as legislators in the field of development. From our point of view, from my point of view, this new transactional approach is not good news.
Okay. Unless the commission wants to take the floor. We've got Mark Way, the head of unit of Impa.
Speaker 39
You want, you can take the floor for 3 minutes. Is that okay for you? You could maybe speak for a bit longer, because we've got time till 06:00.
Speaker 40
Honorable members, firstly, I'd like to thank the authors of the report. We exchanged, and I think, very timely reflections, and very much we welcome this report and the invitation to the DEVA committee. I think it's not for me to explain the changing world we face. I think we all know the challenges of the geopolitical and geo economic situation. But I think what is very nice we put in this report is the different historical phases that we've seen in terms of development cooperation and the way that it has evolved over recent decades.
I think for us, it shows that development cooperation does not stand still and is not set in stone. And I think that is very nicely put in the report. So for us, for the European Commission, the policy is evolving. There has been a paradigm shift. I think we've all seen it in the way that we approach international partnerships, looking beyond the donor-recipient dynamic that we've seen previously.
Speaker 41
And I think in terms of the response to our partners, a very clear preference that we see, I think you saw that in Namibia, and you see that elsewhere in terms of reciprocity and that partnership, that collaboration. But it's also that paradigm shift is a recognition of the desire to reduce the EU's dependencies and to create benefits for European citizens. And I think, as the authors of the report have just said, it is not a new concept in development policy. This is also very much rooted in our assessment of the results on the ground. I think you've heard this statistic before, but I repeat it, that since the inception of the least developed countries concept in 1971, only eight countries of the original 52 have graduated.
The traditional donor-recipient country model has not achieved the results we need despite all our collective efforts. The countries that have seen most people lifted out of poverty are those that have invested in investment, infrastructure development, domestic manufacturing, and education, integrating into world trade and investment circuits. I think as has just been said both by the honorable members and also by the authors of the report, the correct policy response, it's about getting that balance. It's, you know, it's not opposing, and I think that's what we very much appreciate in this report. It's not about opposing values with interests or interests with values.
Speaker 40
It's about how do you find that right balance and how do you find that alignment that you, the chair, has just, I think, set out. The complementarity and the mutual benefit priorities. So that's why for the European Commission, we don't look at international partnerships as just a global gateway. It is an increasingly important part, I think, you all see, looking to address that investment gap both through public and private sector support. But it does also mean, secondly, looking at supporting our partners to create decent jobs, comprehensive partnerships on migration.
Speaker 41
It means our engagement and our commitment to the most vulnerable in countries facing instability and complex settings. Focusing on the immediate needs, in terms of food, health, education, etcetera. And fourthly, it is about how we respond in this changing geopolitical situation on global initiatives and global funds, our commitment to multilateralism as a core element of our values. But the one constant that we have in all of this, and I want to underline that point, is the fundamental principles and the values as enshrined in the treaties that underpin everything we do. So we have not deprioritized our values.
The eradication of poverty remains at the forefront of our policy response, and you will recall, I think both of you, the first paragraph of the mission letter of Commissioner Sicola says exactly that. So, we see Global Gateway as central to our response towards the sustainable development goals. We've put in place a number of key elements. The inequality marker is just one example of that. If we look even at global gateway in 2023, 42% of Interpus spending contributed to human development, far exceeding the 20% target.
And I think it's also important to say that when we look at Global Gateway, we do it's a word I don't like to use in public because it's impossible to explain to a citizen the 360 degree approach, but it is this whole idea of looking beyond purely hard infrastructure and looking at the enabling environment whether that be on sustainable and quality, investments, human rights, climate emergency, etcetera, etcetera. Full respect for the ESG standards, which I think from our perspective is the element that sets us apart from many of the others that are also putting proposals on the table for our partners. Three examples of that, just to name them, whether it be the local production of health products in Africa, the MAF Plus initiative, whether that be digital connectivity in Kyrgyzstan as another example, or whether that be Green Amazon in Brazil. You take each one of those and dig into the detail, and you look beyond the pure hard infrastructure part, and you start to see the skills, education, or in Kyrgyzstan the data protection or the e-governance or the digital skills that you're building into that particular proposal. And I think there you start to see a different proposition to ones that others are putting on the table.
So to conclude from our side, we believe this approach, making sure we get that balance, making sure we get that alignment with our key development principles, is one that can bring real tangible benefits and help us address the reality that ODA alone can't achieve all our objectives. So it is important that we look at this, you know, across the board. The feedback we get from our partner countries, whether that be in summits, in missions, in the joint mission that the commissioner has done with you in Namibia, whether it be in the Global Gateway Forum, is this is actually what they are asking for. They want a different proposition on the table. And I think, that is, very much what we are trying to achieve.
I won't go into all the individual recommendations and obviously issues from flexibility to ODA to transparency. Obviously, there are a number of key elements in the Commission's proposal, whether that be in the horizontal regulation in terms of the gateway portal, whether it be in terms of some of the individual targets set out there. But I just want to finish with a real thanks to the authors. It's quite a substantial piece of research, and I'm sure a huge amount of work has gone into it. And I would also like to thank from the commission side the openness that you showed to, you know, consult our views.
We don't necessarily agree with every word, but that's not the point. It's really been, you know, a very collaborative exercise, and I want to thank you for that. Thank you.
Speaker 23
You. Udo Bulman has asked for the floor to add some comments, and I'm sure you're going to respond to the commission.
Udo Bullmann
Minute, and thanks to the commission for being with us and for commenting the study because I think it's also courageous to face the intellectual challenge. So I'm happy that you are here. I'm seriously grateful for your comments. For us in the European Parliament, of course, it's Charles and myself. It's not the first time to have sorts of debates like that.
Of course, we know the ideas behind strategic moves. To make the long story short, whether we come together and whether there is proof if the 300 so-called 360-degree approach is going to work or not is for me purely empirical. And to find proof whether it works or not, there is predominantly for me also one answer that is the study, advises us to do that scrutiny, parliamentary scrutiny. And the LACMOUS test for whether that is seriously meant by the commission is Global Gateway and Global Europe. Because only if we make use of the so-called inequality marker, providing the money and the support goes to the lower 40% of the population, our partner countries.
And only if we in the global Europe concept are ready to establish relevant quantitative distributional assessment methodologies, techniques to measure what we are doing, there will be proof. Nobody believes anymore in trickle down, that is yesterday, and it was yesterday already wrong. So we need to give empirical proof of what we are doing. And in the constructive mindset of the study, I would hope that we can get there.
Speaker 23
Thank you. Before I give you the floor, I'd like to respond to what I've just heard, both from you and from the commission as well. I think that expectations of those who want European interests in development, that these be taken into account. They often are counter to what we say that we want. So if there's a link between the action which we undertake and human development.
So looking at the global gateway and if that's going to become more structured, for example, to help a country in Africa to industrialize and look at that in relation to the link with human development. Well, if that structural aspect, there has to be a response to the need to link with human development, a structural response. So access to social security. That's what we want. But listening to what's said on both sides of the argument, what we hear is all about doing business.
So I think what we need to do needs to be more than Trump's transactional approach, and that needs to be clear to the outside world. In the framework of this policy, then, we need to define from now the terms of reference for a good evaluation. And I agree with Udo on this. The terms of reference are very important. It needs to be a results-oriented policy, and that's what we've been talking about just now.
And I'm gonna stop there, because we're running out of time. I thought we'd have a bit more time than we do, because, of course, we've got to have our coordinators meeting. So I'd like to give the floor back to you, Mr. Schlager, for your response.
Speaker 36
Well, thank you very much for this constructive discussion and also for the praise the study received. I really appreciate that, and I'm very grateful to hear that this is of use to the honorable members and to the commission as well. I won't go into much detail now, but I think we have moved to an integrated model already. We say in the study that a differentiated model that keeps development policy funding separate is also not a safeguard for protecting the policy field. So we need to work with the integrated model.
The three sixty degrees approach is something that came up repeatedly as an avenue of promise and as a concept that should be further developed where the procedures are perhaps not yet clear enough or it's not, or the institutionalization of it, but it was among our interview partners, viewed as something of potential, in that regard. In terms of priorities for the parliament, I think we share your worry, Mr. Chairman, about preserving the development character of these instruments. We now have the Global Europe proposal on the table. And I think this will be the important test case of how this proceeds.
It is notable that at the moment, there's sort of an absence of poverty reduction from the main objectives in that proposal. Also, disappearance of several development-specific targets, wider moves towards simplification, more flexibility. So there is going to be a need for finding a political compromise on that and for insisting on clear guardrails along the lines of what the study argued. And thank you also to the honorable member, mister Bullman, for your point on language, which we don't delve too deeply into this, but I think it's a very important point. And what we say is that this cursive element is quite significant, the way that development policies are talked about.
So we argue that interests are not only sort of negotiated behind closed doors or openly, but they are also legitimized through public and bureaucratic language. So phrases such as mutual interest, win-win partnerships, tackling the root causes of irregular migration, and strategic autonomy. They play an important role in rallying support and also sometimes in smoothing over tensions. So that we see as a challenge. They allow very different objectives: poverty reduction, export promotion, migration control, climate mitigation, critical raw materials, and so on.
The geopolitical role to be presented as something coherent, which it may not always be, as we point out. So thank you very much again for the feedback. Sorry for the length of the study, by the way. It's long, but.
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