Brussels, 21/04/2010 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has pulled out all the stops to encourage effective EU participation in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). The package of communications on development which it adopted on Wednesday 21 April and which will be submitted to the Foreign Affairs Council on 11 May calls on member states to ensure they have the means, including financial, to speed up progress towards the MDG and make sure that commitments are met, by means of annual national action plans to run alongside the Commission's annual report and by means of peer monitoring the outcome of which will be reported at the highest political level - the European Council (see EUROPE 10122). The Commission suggests, too, areas for reflection to help developing countries develop efficient tax systems and thereby strengthen the link between taxation and development.
Presenting the package to press in Brussels, EU Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs highlighted what is at stake for the 12-point action plan for achieving the MDG and the communication on taxation and development, the most innovative feature of which the suggestion of a reporting system, country by country, publishing company data (see following article). These two communications (like the previous communications advocating a European approach to food safety and food aid, and health promotion worldwide - see EUROPE 10110) are key to the preparation of the position to be argued by the EU at the UN high level conference on the review of MDG, in New York in September.
The challenge is great as, despite commitments made by the international community in 2000 to halve extreme poverty and hunger throughout the world by 2015, that target is still a long way off with global food, financial and economic crises recently accentuating the gap the poorest countries have to make up.
“We have to prepare for this conference. The EU's aim is to reach the binding goals, as they were set out,” Piebalgs said. While good results have been achieved on access to primary education (the number of children in school rose by 19% in 2009), child mortality has only fallen by 28%. The poorest performances have been on maternal and child health (MDG Nos 4 and 5). These targets will, therefore, be put at the top of the EU's priorities, the Commissioner said.
The amount of official development assistance (ODA) is of paramount importance in this. EU aid fell slightly in 2009, to €49 billion and with varied performances from member states (see EUROPE 10118), but the Commission hoes that, by the end of 2010, European ODA will be €55.3 billion.
“Other donors could be more ambitious, but so, too, could the EU, I feel,” opined Piebalgs. He noted that, with average aid currently amounting to 0.42% of European GNI, the EU, the world's largest donor, will still not reach its mid-term objective of 0.56% of GNI by the end of this year. “To reach the target of 0.7% by 2015, we will have to give €9 billion more per year until then. For some countries, such as mine (Latvia/ Ed.), it will mean €7 million extra per year, for others, between 1 and 2 billion per year. This is nothing compared with national budgets. This is not about taking on budget deficits, but showing political will,” he stated, convinced that the EU's continued credibility would depend on this political will.
The action plan put forward to raise standards is in three sections: 1) highlighting the chances of achieving the 0.7% target and mobilising resources by developing new ways of bringing the gap, for example national legislations, cooperation budgets and setting national paths; 2) putting in place the resources and fiscal capacities in the various countries, since budgetary aid granted by the EU to developing countries cannot last ever more, and finding innovative sources for funding development aid after 2015, given that aid of 0.7% of European GNI will not be enough in future; 3) improving the effectiveness of aid through better division of labour (in this connection, Andris Piebalgs mentioned the rebuilding of Haiti as a very interesting case study on the division of labour between the European Commission, responsible for governance and infrastructure, and the Member States, responsible for social and healthcare work), by ensuring joined-up EU development policies (trade policy, tackling climate change, food security, immigration and security) and reforming the global governance structure of development aid. The different countries must feel responsible, explained the Commissioner, adding that for that one had to keep an eye on the big picture.
The twelve-point action plan: 1) Asking Member States to draw up realistic and verifiable annual action plans to achieve their goals and publish their first plans by September 2010; 2) Increasing the effectiveness for EU aid through better coordination of national aid programmes to save some €3 billion to €6 billion a year; 3) Targetting the most fragile and neglected countries; 4) Focussing on the most neglected MDGs and taking sector-specific measures on sexual equality, healthcare, education and food security; 5) Promoting ownership of the MDGs by developing countries and working in partnerships like the EU-Africa Common Strategy; 6) Ensuring that EU policies match the MDGs; 7) Mobilising resources nationally through better taxation in developing countries, promoting good governance and supporting the fight against tax evasion in developing countries; 8) Strengthening regional integration and regional trade to encourage jobs and growth; 9) Supporting innovative funding measures with high revenue potential and ensuring that they are used to the benefit of the poorest people; 10) Providing €2.4 billion a year in rapidly implementable funding for 2010 to 2012 to tackle the fight against climate change in the most vulnerable counties and using this as a test of the effectiveness and coherence of EU aid; 11) Introducing a new plan to deal with conflict and intervene more effectively, ensuring better meshing of development and security work; and 12) Helping developing countries wield greater weight in international governance structures like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and supporting reform of the United Nations to strengthen its agencies. (A.N. trans fl)