Human rights approaches to development within the EU: Assumptions of change

This policy brief focuses on the European Union (EU), that is the Union as such, as well as the member states, as the largest donor of aid. The EU and its member states provide more than half of all development assistance, around 55 per cent. Initially, our research idea was to examine how the EU contributes, or may contribute, to the operationalisation of UN human rights approaches to development on the ground. Very early on, it became clear that given the recent major reforms of and within the EU,the EU is and will continue to be mostly inward looking in the years to come. We will therefore mainly focus on the EU’s approach to human rights approaches to development, and later suggest some opportunities for inter-­organisational learning between the EU and the UN.