The European Unions claim last week that it would double development aid by 2010 was greeted with joy by governments and some development charities, who regarded it as a significant breakthrough.
But there remain considerable doubts about the intentions of some EU member states, especially given a caveat (advarsel) that aid would be increased only as public finances allowed, the World Bank press review writes Friday.
Ireland, for example, seems to have abandoned a target date of 2007 to reach 0,7 percent. Germany and Italy, struggling with big fiscal deficits, are falling behind the last set of promises made by the EU – for aid to reach 0,33 percent of national income by 2006.
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the agency that collects aid data, says that five EU members still need to increase their aid “substantially” to meet the 2006 deadline.
Figures released last month showed that Italys aid fell last year, to 0,15 percent, while Germanys was static at 0,28 percent.
Italy—being the 6th richest country in the world—is the least generous country in terms of development aid, not respecting the commitments made in Barcelona to increase aid to development to 0,33 percent of GDP by 2006. Italys ODA decreased from 0,20 percent in 2002 to 0,15 percent in 2005.
Marco Zupi, a researcher of CESVI, underlines in a recent study “Transparency of International Aid” that from 0,16 percent of GDP in 2004, half went to the UN, World Bank, and EU, mainly to finance administrative costs.
The remaining 0,8 percent meanwhile go towards debt cancellation, though Zupi argues that this is merely a theoretical issue for at issue is the so-called zero-cost debt, i.e., debt that debtor countries would never be forced to repay anyway.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
