The EU Council welcomes the fact that with €70.2 billion in 2021 (compared to €67.3 billion in 2020, a nominal increase of 4.3%), the EU has collectively remained the world’s largest donor of official development assistance (ODA), while insisting that more needs to be done, especially for the least developed countries.
This report to the European Council is based on the European Commission’s analysis of the 2021 preliminary data published by the OECD Development Assistance Committee in April (see EUROPE 12932/16).
Adopted following the High Level Forum on the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the report states that, with this increase, “the EU and its Member States confirm their leadership in the global agenda on sustainable development”.
The Council recalls the commitment of the EU and the EU27 to effectively use all financial flows as well as non-financial means of implementation to achieve the SDGs and the objectives of the Paris Climate Agreement, with a focus on national action and sound policies, in line with the 2015 Addis Ababa Action Agenda on Financing for Development.
However, the Council says it is “concerned by the slight decrease of EU collective ODA/GNI, as the nominal increase in EU collective ODA was not commensurate with the high nominal increase in GNI due to the economic recovery” in 2021 and reiterates that further efforts are needed to reach the collective and individual targets and to collectively provide 0.7% of GNI as ODA by 2030.
In contrast to development NGOs, which criticise Covid-19 vaccines delivered to low-income countries being counted as development aid, as allowed by the OECD (see EUROPE above), the Council “welcomes that the EU and its Member States still remain the biggest Covid-19-related ODA providers”.
Concern for the least developed countries. The Council is “increasingly concerned that the EU has still not met its collective target to provide 0.15% - 0.20% of GNI to LDCs in the short term” and reiterates the need to “urgently scale up efforts” to achieve 0.20% of GNI as ODA to LDCs by 2030.
According to the Council, “the impact of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine adds to the ongoing effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the already visible impacts of climate change [which] gravely jeopardises progress on the [UN] 2030 Agenda, increases poverty and inequalities and causes global food insecurity, inflation and disruptions of supply chains”.
See the conclusions: https://aeur.eu/f/2o6 (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)