EU countries have cut their development aid

“As politicians, as citizens, we have to respect our commitments: no step back, no excuses will be and should be allowed. This is a question of dignity, of credibility, of trust, of mutual interest.”. These were the words of Andris Piebalgs, Comissioner for Development. But the reality in the context of the economic, food and climate changes crises and faced with a risk of not reaching most of them. If EU Member States continue the current trend and once inflated aid is discounted, EU countries will fall €19bn short of their promises in 2010.
In addition, CONCORD, which represents 1600 European development NGOs, has highlighted three broad overaching issues that must be adressed in order to create the conditions for the individual goals to be attained. The issues are 1) ensuring that a rights bases approach is applied across the goals including adressing gender inequality and targeting marginalised groups; 2) securing adequate financing for development; and 3) adressing incoherences across the policy spectrum that undermine development.

Important meeting next week in Brussels

The report, ‘Penalty against Poverty: More and better EU aid can score Millenium Development Goals’ is being released as Eu leaders are set to meet in  Brussels next week. In  this meeting they are going to discuss serious decissions and will have to take common position for the United Nations MDG Summit in New York this September. Because 2010 is an important year, is “the year of development”. In the words of the Secretary General of UN Ban Ki-Moon, “the MDGs are too big to fail”.
The Head of Oxfam International’s EU office, Elise Ford said “Europe’s credibility as a global leader on development is at stake. If EU leaders are serious about regaining the trust of poor countries, they must come up with an ambitious MDG action plan next week”

The aid is decreasing..

During the conference, some issues have been treated. As Javier Pereira, the reports writer said, “in 2009, aid decreased from €50 bn in 2008 to €49bn in 2009”, it means one billion less than the last year. Official sources estimate for 2010 put total EU aid at 0.46% of national income, far short of the 0.56% agreed by the member states in 2005.
From his part, Hussaini Abdu, Country Director of Action Aid Nigeria added “EU aid efforts are being crippled by a crisis of commitment. In 2005 leaders commited to allocating 0.7% of their national income to flight global poverty but 5 years later they are well off-track on aid and abandoning their international commitments on aid effectiveness”. Also, he said that they are not asking them to get ambitious on fighting against poverty, they just want them “to keep their existing promises on aid quality and quantity”.

..but is proved that it works

Despite notable succeses in getting children into primary school and reducing under -5 mortality from 12.6 million in 2000 to 9 million in 2007, world hunger is over one billion and rising. As Abdu suggested “I have seen that aid works in many countries of Africa”, EU countries should do one big effort to help this people.
There are some stories where we can see that aid works. One of the most important goals is the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger. Is the case of Malawi, where throught a combination of targeted input subsidies, publis procurement and expanded social protection, Malawi has put a decisive end to years of recurring famine, reducing the number of people requiring food aid from over 4.5 million in 2004 to less than 150.000 in 2009.
Some problems still has been solved. But as Hussaini Abdu said “ the aid to Africa has to wait until Europe solve their problems first” . He asked that because many EU countries have moved to cut their development aid because they are afraid of the economic crisis, breaking their commitments. After next week meeting, some issues should be clear if the EU countries want to achieve the goals they promised to the South countries.