Proposal for a Council Decision on the position to be taken by the European Union within the ACP-EU Council of Ministers regarding the revision of Annex III of the ACP-EU Partnership Agreement

The “Agenda for Change” mentions that inclusive and sustainable economic growth is crucial to long-term poverty reduction. Such economic growth requires a favourable business environment, increase of local competitiveness and new ways of engaging with the private sector via existing financial instruments or others yet to put in place.

The 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan called for a more direct private sector engagement in order to advance innovation, create income and jobs, promoting SMEs and entrepreneurship, mobilize domestic resources and further develop innovative financial mechanisms.

The above has guided the joint EU-ACP discussions on private sector development support that should be reflected in the programming and implementation of the 11th European Development Fund (hereinafter referred to as 'EDF').

These aspects and the evolution of the international context, in particular the considerable number of actors and modalities able to provide effective private sector support imply that programmes are to be implemented through organisations that have shown their capacity to deliver high quality expertise in a cost-effective way.

Based on this, the modification of Annex III to the Partnership Agreement between the members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States of the one part, and the European Community and its Member States of the other part, signed in Cotonou on 23 June 2000 (hereinafter referred to as the 'ACP-EU Partnership Agreement'), as last amended in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on 22 June 2010, concerns the deletion of references to the Centre for the Development of Enterprise (hereinafter referred to as 'CDE').

The Commission proposes that the Council of the European Union adopts the attached Decision.

• Primary Source

EUR-Lex: COM(2014)364: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2014:364:FIN

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