Brussels, June 14, 2016 — The European Commission (EC) and the World Bank Group (WBG) today announced their commitment to strengthen joint action on sustaining peace and increase development impact in situations affected by fragility, conflict and violence.
In a joint declaration, the two institutions expressed their commitment to accelerate efforts when extended humanitarian crises and other risks threaten global efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, where stronger and better partnerships among international actors have a particularly important role to play.
“Our partnership is grounded in our belief that together we can make a difference to the lives of millions of people and to the future of our planet. The European Commission has invested over two billion euro for World Bank Trust Funds in the last five years, supporting projects in areas such as education, health and social services. We share a common understanding of the key global challenges and the need for better coordination between development, humanitarian, security and political action," said Kristalina Georgieva, Vice President for Budget and Human Resources, European Commission.
According to WBG estimates, while the rest of the world makes progress in terms of poverty reduction, almost half of the world’s extreme poor will be concentrated in areas affected by fragility and conflict by 2030. The new framework recognizes that addressing this challenge is central to advance the sustainable development agenda.
“Global humanitarian crises are now at an unprecedented scale, and the world needs new solutions to help both refugees and people living in countries torn apart by conflict,” said Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group. “This agreement between the European Commission and the World Bank Group will enable us to work much more closely together, sharing data, preparing joint analyses, and creating projects that are much more ambitious than we’ve done in the past. I’m very much looking forward to seeing the results of this enhanced collaboration.”
This commitment builds on the long and fruitful partnership between the EC and WBG, at a time when both institutions are re-thinking how to implement development cooperation differently in response to the magnitude of challenges confronting the world; from an unprecedented forced displacement crisis to climate change, pandemics, and a slowing global economy.
The joint declaration was adopted following in-depth discussion between the EC and WBG, led by Vice President Georgieva, Commissioner Neven Mimica, and WBG President Kim focusing on five areas where collaboration was considered particularly effective – risk mitigation and analyses of root causes, implementing a development approach to forced displacement, early recovery and post-conflict engagement, job creation in fragility, conflict and violence situations and financing solutions.
To activate the new partnership the EC and WBG agreed to work together specifically on risk and resilience assessments, recovery and peacebuilding assessments, jobs diagnostics, and to explore potential collaboration in areas including social protection for forcibly displaced persons, subnational governance and prevention of violent extremism.
The EC and WBG are already working together in many of these areas. For example, in the Central African Republic, the EC, WBG and United Nations are co-leading an assessment to support early recovery and post-conflict engagement, using a jointly developed methodology.
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