With €74.4 billion in 2018, EU Official Development Assistance (ODA) fell by 1.9% compared to 2017, according to preliminary OECD data (see EUROPE 12233/17), but the European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, Neven Mimica, chose on Thursday 11 April to look at the glass half full, while NGOs were alarmed by this decline.
The fact that the EU maintains its position as the world's largest donor (56.5% of the total, or 0.47% of the combined GNI of Member States compared to 0.31% for the average DAC member) and that it has increased its aid to the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), unlike other donors, are the two trends that the Commission welcomes.
“The EU and its Member States have invested over €74 billion in development in 2018 – over half the world's development efforts. In the future, the EU and its Member States should not only maintain our leading position, but also keep up efforts to further increase our development assistance”, the Commissioner commented.
In 2018, EU ODA to LDCs increased for the first time to 0.12% of GNI (€18.2 billion) – up from 0.11% in 2014.
The Commission also recalls that in May 2015, the European Council reaffirmed the commitment of the EU and the Twenty-Eight to collectively increase ODA to 0.7% of EU GNI by 2030 and that, since 2015, ODA from the EU and the Member States has increased by 11.7%.
NGOs, for their part, point out that the UN figure of 0.7% has been in play since the 1970s and are particularly concerned about the decline in aid from OECD Development Assistance Committee countries to countries most in need, particularly in Africa (-4%).
Oxfam deplores the fact that “many rich countries use their development aid to subsidise the private sector – in too many cases this means big companies at home”.
The NGO ONE, which campaigns against extreme poverty, believes that OECD figures should trigger a boost from the EU to redouble its efforts and contribute to the achievement of sustainable development objectives by 2030. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)