Brussels, 09/04/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 8 April, Oxfam International said that EU finance ministers should demonstrate real leadership at the third United Nations conference on finance for development (Addis Ababa, 13-16 July) by being the first to renew their commitment to allocating 0.7% of their GNI to overseas development assistance (ODA), with a clear time schedule for achieving this. In so doing, they would lead the international community to mobilise the money needed to finance both ambitious new development goals and a new deal for tackling climate change.
Although the EU is the top global donor, it is the failure of the governments of the 19 EU member countries of the OECD to keep a pledge made for the first time “45 years ago” that brings Oxfam to make this comment when reading the preliminary figures for ODA 2014 published by the OECD (see EUROPE 11290).
“In times of ballooning challenges for the world's poorest, it is striking that European overseas aid has stagnated [€5.82 billion, or 0.42% of the EU's GNI]. This picture would be worse if it were not for the leadership of a handful of countries such as the UK, Sweden, Luxembourg and Denmark [Ed: which do better than 0.7%] masking the poor performance of the majority. Wealthy countries, such as France [0.36% of GNI] and Austria [0.26%], have failed to uphold their commitments to the world's most vulnerable people”, said Hilary Jeune from Oxfam International.
The NGO underlines that France has cut its aid budget for the fourth year in a row (-10%) and that Spain's ODA (0.14% of GNI) has reached the lowest level recorded since 1989. Germany and Finland have made some progress but are still far from their commitments. As far as the Netherlands is concerned, Oxfam is disappointed that this country is no longer among those that achieve the 0.7%.
“As flat overseas aid is also increasingly used to pay for climate preparedness and low carbon development in developing countries, it's clear that Europe is using the same pot of money to pay for multiple purposes, and hence robbing Peter to pay Paul (…) Yet with some one billion people still living in poverty, and climate change still posing huge new development challenges, the need for overseas aid is greater than ever before”, Jeune stated. (Aminata Niang)