Interaction
NGOs alert over aid cuts
Cuts in the respective Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) budgets for 2009 of several EU states as a result of their shrinking economies will cost lives in developing nations, says a leading Irish NGO.
Central Africa.
© Francois Groemans/EC ECHO
In December 2008, Italy announced aid cuts of 56 per cent. At the beginning of 2009, Latvia slashed its spending by 100 per cent and in March 2009, Estonia cut its budget by 10 per cent. Now a further reduction in Ireland’s aid budget means the original €891M pledge for 2009 has shrunk to just €696M.
Hans Zomer, Director of Dóchas, the Irish umbrella Association of Non-Governmental Organisations, says this cut is disproportionate to the decline in Ireland’s economy: “An eight per cent fall in national income should proportionately result in a cut of €71M to the aid budget, not a cut of €195M.” He added: “Vital programmes providing clean water, health care, food and support to victims of disaster will now have to be cut.”
Meanwhile, figures of the Paris-based Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), show a slight increase in aid given collectively to development nations by OECD EU* states from 0.39 to 0.42 per cent of Gross National Income (GNI) compared to 2007. But NGOs say that EU collective spending targets of 0.56 per cent of GNI for ODA by 2010 are lagging. The OECD report highlighted the severe effect the world’s economic crisis is having on poor countries in lost earnings from exports, reduced foreign direct investment and other financial flows.
* 19 EU states are Members of the OECD: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
