With 75.2 billion euros in 2019, the collective Official Development Assistance (ODA) of the EU and its Member States represented 55.2% of world public aid, a performance of which it has no reason to be ashamed, according to the European Commission, even though the latter considered, on the evening of Thursday 16 April, that more needs to be done, being alarmed by a slight fall in the level of this European aid for the third year running.
Last year, collective aid from the EU and its Member States amounted to 0.46% of EU GNI (compared to 0.47 in 2018), according to preliminary figures published by the OECD (see EUROPE 12468/20), a decrease mainly due to a decline in EIB lending to the private sector.
Stressing that the EU remains “the world's leading donor of Official Development Assistance”, the European Commissioner for International Partnerships, Jutta Urpilainen, said “however, I am concerned that our collective effort on GNI is at its lowest since 2016” and called on “all Member States to re-double their efforts” to step up support to partner countries with regards to the coronavirus.
Only Luxembourg, Sweden, Denmark and the United Kingdom (which was still a member of the EU last year) have met or exceeded the target of 0.7% of their GNI.
Austria, Cyprus, Finland, France, Luxembourg and Malta increased their ODA/GNI ratio by at least 0.01%. Conversely, this ratio decreased by at least 0.01% in eight countries (Belgium, Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Sweden).
While EU ODA to the Least Developed Countries increased in 2018 (19.8 billion euros or 0.125% of GNI), the 2019 figures will not be known until December.
Since 2015, based on flows, ODA from the EU and its then 28 Member States has increased by 10% (7 billion euros) in nominal terms, but the ODA/GNI ratio has been steadily declining since 2016, when ODA reached a record level of 0.52% of EU GNI. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)