HOW WE WORK

< ECDPM's Annual Report 2013: homepage | From our Board Chair >


The European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) is a ‘think and do tank’. Our main goal is to broker effective development partnerships between the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States, particularly Africa. We combine solid knowledge on how to formulate effective development policies with practical expertise on how to implement them. 

ECDPM’s mission and principles of engagement – established some 25 years ago – are still fundamentally relevant today:
  • Our strong niche in EU-Africa and ACP-EU relations
  • Our clear strategic focus on a limited set of key policy areas
  • Our proactive approach which anticipates major new trends in development and international relations 
  • Our non-partisanship
  • Our dual role as an independent knowledge broker and process facilitator
  • Our extensive networks of key actors in Europe and in developing countries, particularly in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific
  • Our focus on making policies work by providing guidance to practitioners in development
We apply a combination of roles and methods to bridge policy and practice. ECDPM co-organises and facilitates policy dialogues, provides tailored analysis and advice, disseminates timely information on key policy processes, and participates in South-North networks.

A major thrust of our work is engaging in strategic partnerships with institutions and networks in the developing world. Our goal in this is to contribute to a sound empirical base for policymaking, and also to ensure that there is sufficient institutional capacity for policy implementation and monitoring.

All of our activities emphasise political economy approaches. These ensure that our analyses and process facilitation are fully cognisant of the underlying drivers of change, from the local to the global level.

Picture: ECDPM head office in Maastricht, the Netherlands   

How we organised our work in 2013

To target our efforts, we organised our work in 2013 around four thematic priorities. These were put into practice through five Centre programmes:
*The Economic Transformation and Trade programme is a merger of the Centre's previous 'Economic Governance' and 'Trade and Regional Integration' programmes. 


< ECDPM's Annual Report 2013: homepage | From our Board Chair >