“Lighten the load: In a time of crisis European aid has never been more important”. This is the title and the main message in the AidWatch report on EU's development aid that was launched on May 14th 2009. Diakonia is one of the organisations behind the report.

Quantity of aid and overall EU performance on official figures

In 2008, Europe provided 0.40 percent of its gross national income (GNI) in aid. This is a tiny increase from the previous year and clearly not enough to put them on track to meet their commitments. In fact, the distance between what the EU is providing now, and the target they have to meet in 2010 is an enormous €20bn. Moreover, if current trends continue, a maximum of only ten countries will meet their 2010 aid commitments.

Inflated aid

Official figures conceal, once more, significant amounts of “inflated aid”. When debt cancellation, student and refugee costs are discounted, European aid for 2008 decreases by more than ten percent, casting dark shadows over European aid pledges.  Between 2006 and 2010, European countries will have failed to provide billions of promised aid to developing countries, due to inflated aid practices and missed official targets.

Aid effectiveness

Despite all the reforms promised in Accra, no significant changes have been observed and most donors are failing to implement their commitments. Aid continues to be driven by donors’ own priorities, resulting in damaging in-country power imbalances and little developing country ownership of aid processes. Many of the core issues for aid effectiveness such as gender equality and transparency have never been fully addressed.

Other problems include:

• aid tied to goods and services from the donor country
• aid which is not predictable
• donors continue to attach harmful economic conditions to aid
• aid with little transparency from European donors
• aid which contains too much poorly provided, donor-driven Technical Assistance
• aid which is increasingly being used as a political tool, and not aimed at poverty reduction

Aid in a time of crisis

The financial crisis and the recent food and energy price crises, have had a significant impact on poor countries, but there is still time for Europe to step up to the plate. Europe still has the opportunity to have a huge positive impact on the lives of the world’s poorest people, and to leave a development legacy by poor people in a time of global crisis. 

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