Introduction

This cd-rom is one of a series of three, which together form the SNV EU Guide. The SNV EU guide presents an overview of information relevant to development on the EU at various levels. The EU guide is composed of three CD Roms: (i) The EU Reference Guide 2003, (ii) EU instruments and (iii) EU programming.

(i)    EU Reference Guide (2003)

The EU Reference Guide gives an introduction of the European Union, its institutions, its organisation, and its development programmes. The EU reference guide is intended to give the user a general understanding of the European Union and an update of current policy and political issues.

(ii)    EU instruments (2004)

EU instruments provides an overview of all available instruments to support development activities in the three key areas of SNV expertise:

a.      Local Governance
b.      Natural Resource Management, and
c.      Private Sector Development

In each of these three areas the following information relevant to the sector is set out:

a.      Key definitions
b.      EU policies
c.      Specific EU instruments

The EU instruments are divided into general instruments relevant to the sector, and instruments within specific regions (geographic instruments). In the area of Private Sector Development also a categorisation is made related to the objective of the instrument, in order to facilitate a search for support for specific activities.

An additional instrument that applies to all three sectors is the programming of policies and development activities of the EU to third countries. Given the relevance of this to SNV partners a separate disk has been compiled to assemble information related to the programming in all developing countries relevant to SNV’s work (see below).

(iii)    EU programming (2004)

The activity of the EU in any specific country or region is arranged through the exercise of programming, in which Country and Regional Strategy Papers are agreed, followed by National and Regional Indicative Programmes. The latter describe specific activities planned by the EU in any-one country or region. Through these programmes many activities arranged with local actors take place and, therefore, SNV partners may find it interesting to engage more closely in this process.

The disk on EU programming gives an overview of the programming exercise and the roles of the main actors involved, including the EU delegations and the European Commission. 

Information on definitions, relevant EU institutions, nature of documents and geographic programmes is provided in the first chapter of the second and third disk to facilitate understanding of terms used in the text.

The EU Guides have been written and compiled by Mirjam van Reisen, with the assistance of Barbara Ann Delcourt, and under the joint leadership of Europe External Policy Advisors (EEPA) and Theo van Koolwijk, vKconsult. We are looking forward for any comments or suggestions for improvements.
 
Han Baartmans
Manager
Shared Service Unit, SNV