Development

Ellie is a substitute member of the European Parliament’s Committee on Development (DEVE). That means she has full rights to participate in all committee work and speak in debates, but can only vote if one of the Greens’ ‘full members’ swaps places with her.

Before being elected as an MEP, Ellie spent over 15 years working in the field of international development, both for charities (VSO, Christian Aid, Concern Universal) and universities (Birmingham, Bath, Sheffield). She therefore has a keen personal and professional interest in international development.

Ellie’s particular interests include community participation; evaluation & learning; and cash transfers.

Ellie’s priorities in the DEVE committee include:

Ensuring ‘policy coherence for sustainable development’ i.e. making sure that all EU policies contribute towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Development prospects are influenced not just by international aid, but even more by policies on trade, migration, agriculture, technology, defence, etc. Ellie is working to ensure that all these policies are ‘joined-up’ and contribute towards twin social and environmental goals: tackling global poverty and inequality, and tackling the climate and biodiversity crises.
Promoting the use of cash transfers to tackle extreme poverty.
Ensuring effective evaluation of development programmes.