Neven Mimica

2030 development agenda: from committment to action

With the landmark agreements reached in Addis Ababa, New York and Paris in 2015, the global development landscape has changed fundamentally – and so has the role that the European Union is called to play within it. Watch #KAPTalks as Neven Mimica, European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, speaks about the role of Europe in 2030 sustainable development agenda.

Wednesday 20.04.2016

While continuing to pull our weight as the world’s largest provider of official development assistance, the EU and its Member States need to re-define our ambition as part of a new global partnership to implement the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development. A partnership that involves countries at all stages of development in a spirit of shared responsibility for our common future, and one that goes beyond governments, to meaningfully involve all partners – from local authorities to civil society, to the private sector and academia. In designing the future of EU development policy, our ambition should be to do away with traditional interpretations of what does or does not constitute development, and to use instead the real challenges that our partner countries face as the starting point for providing comprehensive solutions.

We need to formulate policies that address poverty and environmental degradation together – not as competing objectives; make sure the benefits of our actions are spread more evenly, helping to address inequalities within and between countries; put the focus on women – not just as beneficiaries, but as drivers of development; and we need to bring development into the policy mix to address the great multifaceted crises of our time: building peaceful and resilient societies, combating climate change, managing refugee and migration flows of unprecedented scale. To succeed, we will have to effectively mobilise all available resources and move beyond just measuring aid, towards a culture of results, transparency, inclusive follow-up and review. By putting its wide array of tools to good use, EU development policy can have a catalytic effect in the implementation of the SDGs worldwide. It can be a game changer.

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Neven Mimica is a Croatian politician and diplomat, currently holding the position of European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development. During his career, Mimica has held many public office positions. From 1987 to 1997, he was in diplomatic service of the SFR Yugoslavia and Croatia holding posts of Minister-Counsellor at the Embassy of Croatia in Cairo (1993-1996) and Minister-Plenipotentiary at the Embassy of Croatia in Ankara (1996-1997). He was then Deputy Minister for Economic Affairs (2000) and acted as Chief Negotiator for the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the European Union (2000-2001). He served as Minister for European Integration (2001-2003) and, after the general elections in 2003 he became the Chairman of the European Integration Committee in the Croatian Parliament. He was re-elected to the Croatian Parliament in 2007 and between 2008 and 2011 he was the Deputy Speaker and the Chairman of the European Integration Committee. From 2011 to 2013 he was the Deputy Prime Minister responsible for Internal, Foreign and European policy. In July 2013 he was appointed as Member of the European Commission for Consumer Policy. Neven Mimica holds a Bachelor's degree in Foreign Trade and Master's degree in Economics from the University of Zagreb.
Neven Mimica

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