Brussels, 15/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - The UN's fourth high-level forum on aid effectiveness (FHN4) is to be held at the end of the month (29 November-1 December) in Busan (South Korea). At the conference, the EU will promote initiatives to improve transparency of aid, increase the use of joint planning at country level, strengthen accountability and the evaluation of results, and introduce a new approach to situations of conflict and fragility, so that countries do not lose international aid. These were the main lines of the position finalised on Monday 14 November in Brussels by EU development ministers. It will constitute the EU's negotiating brief for Busan (see EUROPE 10483 and 10448).
In order to give greater weight to its resolve to work towards increased transparency of European aid, the Council undertook to disclose information on the volumes and allocations of official development aid, and publish indicative, country-by-country projections on EU aid flows.
The EU's commitment to put into practice what it had recommended came one day ahead of the criticism expressed on 15 November against EU member states in the “Publish What You Fund Pilot Aid Transparency Index”. The index ranks 58 donor agencies for transparency according to the information they provide on aid spending. It shows that 11 EU member states (Spain, Portugal, Latvia, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Cyprus and Malta) are among the 15 poorest performers, ranked as “very poor” (with a transparency rate below 20%). France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Slovenia and Slovenia are, for their part, ranked as “poor” (with a transparency rate of below 34%). The Foreign Ministry of the Netherlands (66%, 4th place) and the UK's Department for International Development (5th position with 63%) are the best-ranking European donors, followed by Sweden (63%, 6th place), Denmark (61%, 8th) and the Commission (61%, 9th). (AN/transl.jl)