Brussels, 22/05/2008 (Agence Europe) - With just a few days to go before the meeting of development ministers on 27 May, which will focus on the financing and effectiveness of European aid, as well as on the Millennium Development Goals, the 1,600 European emergency and development NGOs gathered under the CONCORD banner, are sounding a note of warning: The EU is not keeping to its promises and if, in 2008, the year of major aid and development financing summits, there is no increase in aid levels, then it could be too late for development.
According to CONCORD, the substantial fall in the level of official development aid (ODA) from the EU in 2007 (which fell from 47.7 billion in 2006 to 46.1 billion in 2007 - EUROPE 9637) seriously brings into question the ability of member states to meet the collective targets for increased ODA that they had set themselves for 2010 (0.56% of GNP) and for 2015 (0.7% of GNP). And, if current trends continue, the EU will have given €75 billion less between 2005 and 2010 than was promised.
This is the main point of the third international report on European aid, published on Thursday 22 May by CONCORD. Entitled “No time to waste”, it points a finger of blame at the tendency of member states, so often denounced, to artificially swell their aid figures by spending that does not strictly speaking come under official development aid, such as the cost of refugees, of students and of debt relief. What is worse, NGOs say, is that some member states are said to be planning to include in coming years spending linked to migration and security. In 2007, these amounts rose to €8 billion. If these are deducted, the average level of ODA of the EU would be 0.33%, stresses Jasmine Burnley, Coordinator for Aid Watch, at CONCORD. The report also denounces the lack of aid transparency, the tendency of donors to spend a great deal on technical assistance and to account for aid according to their priorities rather than seek to come into line with national strategies. (A.N.)