African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries and the European Union signed an updated version of the Cotonou Agreement on trade and development in Ouagadougou, on 22 June, focusing on making aid more effective and incorporating more recent concerns, such as climate change.

“The revised Cotonou Agreement reflects our common goals of battling poverty, promoting sustainable development and promoting the ACP economies in the global economy, notably through trade relations,” Andris Piebalgs, the EU’s development commissioner, said.

The 27 European and 79 ACP countries, which agreed on the new text in March, emphasised the importance of a regional approach to solving problems, particularly in Africa, where major crises of food supply, weather and political instability tend not to affect single countries but cross borders. Addressing issues by regions, they believe, will provide more effective responses.

This second five-yearly revision of the Conotou Agreement also addresses the Millennium Development Goals, particularly poverty, the proliferation of small arms, and attempts to tackle the problem of unstable and fragile states. It promises extra assistance to ACP countries in adapting to the effects of global warming, to which developing nations are both the most vulnerable and particularly ill-equipped to cope.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) welcomed the revised agreement, noting it would strengthen the bank’s work in ACP countries and allow it to enhance its financing of regional infrastructure projects with ACP sponsors. Since the entry into force of the Cotonou Agreement, in 2003, about €4.2 billion worth of projects have been signed by the EIB under its Cotonou mandate in ACP countries, more than a third being in the infrastructure sector.