Brussels, 25/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - With €53.8 billion (0.43% of GNI) paid out in official development aid (ODA) last year, despite the economic and financial crisis of the past few years, the EU has no need to be ashamed of how it has done, in that it has remained the world's largest donor. It has failed, however, to reach the intermediate target it set itself for 2010 of 0.56% collectively and 0.17% for the newer member states. The EU has pledged to increase its aid and encourages other donors to increase their ODA to levels similar to the EU's, said the Foreign Affairs Council in its Development configuration, discussing the European Commission's first annual report on the transparency of development funding adopted on 6 April. It adopted unanimous conclusions setting out recommendations for the June European Council.
It was, indeed, the heads of state and government who, last June, called for this peer assessment to bring pressure to bear on member states and help the EU meet its commitment to increase its collective official development aid to 0.7% of GNI by 2015 (0.33% for the newer member states). The unanimous conclusions were adopted without debate on Monday 23 May and the topic debated by ministers with responsibility for development on Tuesday 24, under the chairwomanship of EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton.
Speaking to press after the meeting, Ashton said: “Today marked the first time the Foreign Affairs Council in development ministers formation has adopted a report on Official Development Assistance. While of course, developing countries themselves bear the responsibility to make the best use of their resources we are committed to supporting their development efforts. In 2010, we gave collectively €53.8 billion for Official Development Assistance. This is 57% of total development assistance from all donors of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee. In other words, we are by far the biggest donor in the world. However, we did not reach the target set for 2010, so ministers agreed that substantial extra efforts are needed, and reconfirmed the EU commitment to increase aid to 0.7% of EU Gross National Income”.
Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs added that the EU must not lose sight of the Millennium Development Goals. “We have to step up efforts”, he said. To achieve the 0.7% target, an additional €50 billion will have to be found in the remaining four years, he warned. He did, however, find the debate “very encouraging as even those countries facing huge challenges and in enormous difficulties, such as Greece” reaffirmed their commitment. He said that “it is very important that the European Council confirm this commitment because it will maintain the focus and the credibility of development aid policy”.
In its conclusions, the Council notes that €53.8 billion in 2010 is an increase of €4.5 billion on the previous year for developing countries, but that the shortfall of some €14.5 billion resulting from failure to reach the target of 0.56% of GNI meant that promises made to the countries of Africa and to the least developed countries were unable to be honoured (in 2005, the EU pledged to allocate at least 50% of its additional aid to Africa by 2015). Consequently, “without substantial additional efforts, fulfilling the ODA commitments is at risk”, the Council points out. To fulfil these pledges, member states collectively will have to mobilise a further amount of some €50 billion by 2015, according to Commission estimates.
The EU repeats once more its commitments for 2015, and calls on member states to take “realistic, verifiable actions” for meeting individual ODA commitments by 2015 and to share information on these actions and their planned ODA spending for the next budgetary year, as well as on their intentions for the remaining period until 2015, “while taking into account that these issues fall within the competence of member states”, the Council says. It encourages all other international donors, including new and emerging partners, to raise their level of ambition and to increase their ODA efforts to a level similar to the EU's. (A.N./transl.rt)