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News Releases
No. 29/08
April 4, 2008
EUROPEAN COMMISSION URGES EU MEMBER STATES TO RAISE DEVELOPMENT AID AND EXPRESSES CONCERN ABOUT GLOBAL TREND
The European Commission called today on the European
Union Member States to increase
development aid levels
following the announcement of the 2007
OECD figures,
which show that the aid volume provided by Member States
has decreased for the first time since 2000. The
Commission is also concerned about the global trend. For
the second year in a row, global aid provided by the 22
biggest donors in the world has gone down, putting the
UN Millennium Development Goals seriously at risk.
 "We are worried about this trend because we cannot
afford to reduce development aid while trying to achieve
the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)," said
European Commission President José Manuel Barroso.
"We
need more money to cut extreme poverty by half, get
every child a primary education and improve other
conditions for people living in countries covered by the MDGs. As I already warned last year, debt relief
decisions are very positive but they are one-off
measures. We need more predictable and sustained aid."
"We strongly urge Member States to keep their promises
and substantially increase aid levels," said
Louis
Michel, Commissioner responsible for
Development and
Humanitarian Aid. "As the biggest donor in the world, we
should give a good example and lead also in attaining
higher aid levels, as we pledged in 2005."
Following a substantial increase in 2006, EU aid figures
for 2007 have gone down to 46.1 billion euros (2006:
47.7 billion euros). The decrease goes against EU
leaders' conclusions in the
2005 European Council, where
the EU pledged to increase aid levels collectively and
individually by all Member States. The decrease is
largely explained by the end of exceptionally high
levels of debt relief in the previous two years.
The global trend is also worrying. For the second year
in a row, global aid provided by the 22 donors of the
Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD went
down. According to the figures released, global aid went
down to $103.7 billion.
Background
The EU is the largest donor in the world, with Official
Development Assistance amounting to 93 euros per citizen
(Japan: 44 euros, US: 53 euros). Around 90 percent of
the increase in aid to
Africa comes from the EU.
For further information, please visit:
http://www.eurunion.org/newsweb/HotTopics/DevAid.htm
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Further Contact Information:
Press and Public Diplomacy
Delegation of the European Commission
2300 M Street, NW
Washington, DC 20037
http://www.eurunion.org/PressRoom
Tel: 202-862-9552
Fax: 202-429-1766
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