PARIS: Aid to the developing countries fell last year and most donors are falling behind on their stated commitments to increase the amount of money they give, the OECD said in a report on Friday. Overall, most donors are not on track to meet their stated commitments to scale up aid and will need to make unprecedented increases to meet the targets they have set for 2010, it said in a statement. Additionally, based on a survey of donors future spending plans to 2010 - the date set by the Group of Eight Gleneagles and UN Millennium accords - there is a considerable shortfall looming, it said. Efforts to increase aid are being factored into some donors forward plans but it still leaves about 34 billion in 2004 dollars ... to be programmed into donor budgets if the commitments made in 2005 to substantially increase aid by 2010 are to be fully met. Reacting to the report, rock star and anti-poverty militant Bono said that while solutions (to world poverty) are not simple and of course not just about cash, or aid levels, ... it does make things more complicated when funds are promised and not delivered. I ve met health ministers in Africa who, with a little help from European donors, have beaten back malarial infant deaths by huge percentages, only to see child deaths from another easily preventable disease like diarrhea make a comeback because promised resources were not forthcoming. Explain that to a mother who has lost her child. Oliver Buston, head of DATA in Europe, an advocacy group mobilizing against extreme poverty and AIDS in Africa, appealed to France in particular. France, as European Union president in the second half of this year, must set an example by boosting its aid budget. It cannot lead Europe with empty hands. For 2007, the 22 member countries of the OECD Development Assistance Committee, the world s major donors, provided $103.7 billion, down 8.4 percent as large debt relief programs for Iraq and Nigeria ended. This Official Development Assistance (ODA) was equivalent to 0.28 percent of the members combined gross national income, down from 0.31 percent in 2006, the OECD said in a statement. The United Nations has a target of 0.70 percent of GNI for aid flows. Excluding debt relief grants, net ODA was up 2.4 percent. OECD secretary general Angel Gurria said Friday that despite concerns about the current global market and economic turmoil, donors must stick to the task given the security and other risks due to poverty. In the current global economic context, we must keep our attention actively focused on development assistance to the poorest, Gurria said in Tokyo. This is because poverty is the ultimate systemic risk. It is a breeding ground for the proliferation of terrorism, armed conflicts, environmental degradations, cross-border diseases and organized crime, he said. We have to persevere. The message to (donors) is - do not weaken the effort. The OECD, which groups the world s 30 most developed nations, said in its report that most donors remain committed to the 2010 goals. For 2007, the biggest donors were the United States, Germany, France, Britain and Japan while the only countries to exceed the UN 0.7 percent of GNI target were Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. The United States net ODA last year fell 9.9 percent to $21.8 billion with its GNI ratio at 0.16 percent, while Japan gave $7.7 billion or 0.17 percent. The combined ODA of the 15 members of the DAC that are also EU members fell 5.8 percent to $62.1 billion or 0.40 percent of their combined GNI. Commenting on the report, British charity Oxfam said the figures showed that rich countries were falling down on promises to the developing world. These figures ... leave us in no doubt that the world s richest countries are failing to meet their promises to the poorest countries, especially in Africa, said Max Lawson, policy adviser for Oxfam, in a statement. They must get back on track immediately and increase aid spending. The human cost of this failure is huge.
