In a report published on Tuesday 22 October, Concord Europe, the European confederation of NGOs working on sustainable development and international cooperation, accuses EU countries of inflating and diverting official development assistance (ODA) to serve their own interests, instead of supporting the economic development and wellbeing of partner countries.
“Over one in every five euros reported as ODA by the 27 EU Member States fails to meet the criteria defining ODA. Worse still, OECD Development Assistance Committee rules allow this diversion of ODA”, Concord stated on Tuesday. According to the organisation, the failure to comply with the established criteria is largely due to the internal costs associated with refugees, which are falsely considered as international aid.
“More than fifty years after the United Nations set the 0.7% of GNI spending target for ODA in 1975, most EU countries still fail to meet this commitment. This has resulted in an ‘aid debt’ to partner countries of over €1.2 trillion”, said the organisation, hoping that the next International Conference on Financing for Development, scheduled for 2025 (see EUROPE 13488/20), will provide EU countries with an opportunity to realign themselves with their ODA commitments.
See the report: https://aeur.eu/f/dzk (Original version in French by Bernard Denuit)