In advance of an informal meeting of EU Development Ministers (24-25 October 2005, hosted by Rt Hon. Hilary Benn MP), the Foreign Policy Centre, the Royal Institute of International Relations (Brussels) and the Commonwealth Secretariat held a one day conference on Monday 10th October 2005 that created an 'action plan' to help donor countries better target their policy priorities for EU development assistance to Africa.

This one day conference took three cross-cutting and distinct perspectives of the problems confronting African development which have all too often been overlooked or misunderstood:

• land reform;
• a political understanding of conflict prevention; and
• promoting African centres of excellence

The key-note speaker was Malcolm Bruce MP, Chair of the International Development Select Committee. He said: "Let's tackle AIDS and other health issues as practically as we can. Let's provide education and build infrastructure. Let's take responsibility for controlling the anarchic and destructive trade in small arms and let us tackle corruption at both ends of the spectrum." A copy of speech is available from the link below.

Download Speech by Malcolm Bruce MP (30 kilobyte PDF; need help viewing PDFs?)