Report 2007 on Development aid: Europe fails to live up to its promises

About this report "Hold the Applause! EU governments risk breaking aid promises"

For the second year in a row, an unprecedented number of European development NGOs have come together from all the major networks, national NGOs and NGO platforms from 27 EU countries to produce this report under the umbrella of CONCORD, the European NGO confederation for relief and development.

Following the release of OECD aid figures for 2006, NGOs from across Europe are calculating how much European governments and Commission have effectively given. First figures show that they are over inflating their aid figures and failing to live up to their promises. The European Union has only spent 0.30% of its Gross National Income (GNI) on genuine aid in 2006 missing their collective target for 2006 of 0.39% of GNI. Close to one third of EU development assistance in 2006 did not deliver any fresh resources for poor countries. Of this:

Nearly €11 billion euros reported as ODA was in fact debt cancellation - primarily for Iraq and Nigeria.
€1.6 billion went on educating foreign students in Europe and
€1 billion was spent on housing refugees in Europe.

NGOs want European governments to:

Provide genuine increases in European aid
Agree clear and binding year-on-year timetables to reach, at a minimum, the 2010 and 2015 targets with genuine aid resources
Stop including refugee, student costs and debt relief in official aid reporting
Improve transparency in aid reporting
End all tied aid
Ensure aid is focused on helping the world’s poor
Take further steps to make aid more effective

Send us your comments, click here

Report 2007 on Development aid: Europe fails to live up to its promises

Sub-menus