21 April 2010: The European Commission put forward an action plan for the EU to speed up progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The action plan also sets out a possible EU position ahead of the UN Summit on the MDGs, scheduled to take place in September 2010, in New York, US.
Proposed actions include: ensuring that EU policies such as security, trade, migration, food security and climate change work in coherence for development goals; and using as a test for aid effectiveness and coherence the EU climate change “fast-start” funding commitment of €2.4bn a year. The action plan also points to a work programme setting concrete targets and indicators to implement the EU commitments to policy coherence for development across policies impacting five global challenges: trade and finance; climate change; food security; migration; and security.
The action plan will be discussed in the Foreign Affairs Council in May and June 2010, and in the European Council in June 2010. [EU Press Release][The Action Plan]