Reforming European Union Development Cooperation: Good Governance, Political Conditionality and the Convention of Contonou. ACES Working Paper 2002.4, August 2002

The European Union (EU) has initiated an ambitious, yet challenging process of reform. Improving external relations and the management of development aid is a key component of the current reform of the European Community (EC). This article reviews EC policies and strategies aimed at preventing conflict and responding to the crises of governance using political dialogue and governance conditionality as their main instruments. It explores the difficult combination of democracy assistance and governance conditionality and their applicability to the prevention of democratic decay in developing countries. It successively addresses the policy, strategy and implementation dilemmas of EC democracy and governance activities in third countries, reviewing the policy responses of the EC to the crises of governance in Niger, Haiti, Côte d’Ivoire and Fiji in the context of the suspension mechanism enshrined in the co-operation agreement between the EU and ACP countries. It is argued that conducting structured political dialogue puts further demands on the management of aid. While punitive forms of political conditionality have proved largely ineffective, an incentive-based approach to governance conditionality could yield, if well managed, greater results. The article concludes with a series of proposals for enhancing the European Commission’s ability to manage political dialogue and governance conditionality to encourage democracy and prevent conflict