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Aid allocation

Hold the applause!: EU governments risk breaking aid promises

Are European government inflating their aid figures?

Authors: L. Hayes
Publisher: European NGO Confederation for Relief and Development, 2007

Full text of document

This report provides and assessment of the European Union’s commitment to increase official development assistance. The report finds that European governments are falling short of their commitments while making misleading claims about their aid figures.

Key findings of the report include:

  • nearly one third of Europe’s reported Official Development Assistance (ODA) was not in fact genuine aid. Many European governments exaggerate their progress by inflating their aid figures with debt cancellations, particularly to Iraq and Nigeria. Governments also count spending within Europe on refugees and foreign students’ education as development assistance
  • official figures show that Italy, Greece, Portugal and Spain missed the individual minimum 2006 target outright and once non-aid items are deducted, this report shows that France, Germany and Austria also failed to reach the commitment
  • the worst culprits for inflating their aid figures are the French and Austrian governments, with more than half of their ODA consisting of non-aid items
  • several countries continue to outperform their peers with high overall levels of aid including Sweden, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Denmark
  • aid volumes to Africa have been static since 2004 and Africa is receiving a decreasing rather than a growing share of European aid resources
  • poverty reduction does not always seem to be the main objective of European aid. Security, geopolitical alliances and domestic interests often take precedence.

The report calls on EU governments to:

  • provide genuine increases in development aid
  • agree to clear and binding year-on-year timetables to reach, at a minimum, the 2010 and 2015 targets with genuine aid resources
  • stop including refugee costs, student costs and debt relief in official aid reporting
  • improve transparency in aid reporting
  • end all tied aid
  • ensure aid is focused on fighting against poverty and inequality
  • take further steps to make aid more effective