European Commission calls on donors to stick to increased aid promises at UN financing conference in Doha
Ahead of the UN Conference on Financing for Development in Doha/Qatar 28 November – 2 December, the European Commission called on donors to stick to their promises and increase aid for poor countries. The Commission stressed that the financial crisis should not be used as an excuse to cut development assistance. The EU will reconfirm its commitment to increase development aid by 2015.
José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, said: "Developing countries face many crises: the food crisis, the energy crisis, climate change and now the financial crisis. We cannot let the poorest down when they need us the most. We face an historic choice: if we want developing countries to reduce extreme poverty as pledged in the UN Millennium Development Goals, we need to act to keep our promises. This is our responsibility but also in our own interest : it's an investment for the future that will benefit everybody".
Louis Michel, Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, said: "The main problem for developing countries is not the global financial crisis as such but a growing crisis of political will. We really hope that donors will not take the financial crisis as an excuse to shy away from promises made in the past. We need to stick to the collective commitments we have made. I launch an appeal in favour of development: as we tackle the financial crisis, let's not forget the human crisis".
At the Doha conference, the EU will reconfirm its pledges to increase substantially official development assistance. In concrete terms, the EU promises to collectively reach 0,56% of GNI by 2010 and 0,7% by 2015. The Commission will also call on other donors to stick to their promises and ask for fairer burden sharing.
The European Commission will also renew efforts to reach a "pro development" conclusion of the WTO Doha Round and launch a call to improve both the quality and the volume of Aid for Trade.
Finally, on the financial crisis, the Commission also calls for concrete proposals during this conference to ensure that the new global architecture is inclusive of developing countries.
EU commitments are expressed as a ratio between the total Official Development Assistance (ODA) donated by a country and its Gross National Income (GNI). To reach its objective, the EU will work on the adoption of annual timetables, showing how the member states intend to reach their targets. In 2007, the EU provided ODA totalling 0,38% of GNI meaning that official development assistance will be nearly doubled by 2015 when the target of 0.7% is reached
The EU – both Member States bilateral aid and European Commission aid taken together – represents nearly 60 percent of world wide official development assistance. In absolute terms, this is 46 billion Euro (2007) and makes the EU the biggest donor in the world. This means that, on average, each EU citizen provides €93 towards development assistance (Japan: €44, US: €53). The EU therefore calls for a fairer sharing of aid efforts among international donors. Europe accounts for around 90% of worldwide commitments to scale up aid levels. Around 90% of the increase in aid to Africa comes from the EU.
The UN Conference on Financing for Development was planned as a follow-up to the first Conference held in Monterrey/Mexico (2002). With the financial crisis and the G20 meeting in Washington, it now has a new dimension. It is the first global forum to discuss the impact of the financial and economic crisis on developing countries. It will give developing countries a voice in the discussion about the reform of the international financial architecture – immediately after the Washington Summit and early enough to express their views before the London summit in March 2009.
The UN's Follow-up International Conference on Financing for Development
http://www.un.org/esa/ffd/doha/
Monterrey – the first conference on Financing for Development
http://www.un.org/esa/ffd/monterrey/MonterreyConsensus.pdf
Millennium Development Goals
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/
Published on: 2008-11-28
Limited copyright is granted for you to use and/or republish any story on this site for
any legitimate media purpose as long as you reference 7thSpace and any source mentioned in the story above. Please
make sure to read our disclaimer prior to contacting 7thSpace Interactive. To contact our editors, visit our online helpdesk. If you wish submit your own press release, click here. Media releases on this web site are also distributed to thousands of international journalists via OTS Alert service.
Social Bookmarking
RETWEET This! | Digg this! | Post to del.icio.us | Post to Furl | Add to Netscape | Add to Yahoo! | Rojo
|
|
