EU Billion
Late Friday night, the EU finally agreed to provide 1 billion Euros of funding to struggling farmers in the developing world. Best of all, after crunching the numbers it looks like 76% of this funding will be new development assistance above and beyond what these countries currently give.
Congratulations to the 15,000 European ONE members who took part in the massive effort and great achievement. We’ll update you later today with more details on the final deal.
While this was a challenging campaign, the EU has shown, for now, that it will not forget people living in extreme poverty during these difficult times. But there are still two tests that remain. Firstly, when these countries write the check they must not simply reallocate other development assistance to fulfill their commitment. Secondly, we’ll be following the process to make sure the Commission spends these funds wisely.
- Roxane Philson, ONE’s EU Deputy Director
It’s been almost 5 months coming, but hopefully on Friday we’ll finally know if the European Union will dedicate an additional 1 billion Euros to help struggling farmers in the developing world. For the last month we’ve turned on the heat to make sure these farmers get as much help as possible.
It feels like Eloise Todd – our Government Relations Manager – doesn’t live in London any more as she has been constantly in Brussels and Strasbourg. Yesterday, she just delivered our petition with over 13,000 signatures to Alain Joyandet, Secrétaire d’Etat chargé de la Coopération et de la Francophonie (Minister of State responsible for Cooperation and Francophony) at the European Development Days in Strasbourg.
ONE members across the EU have also sent nearly 5,000 emails and letters to their national finance ministers and chancellors, urging them commit to giving as much additional aid as possible. On Friday, 21 November, these finance ministers will be signing off on the European Budget and we’ll know how well all our hard work as paid off.
The key thing to watch out for this Friday is how much will be additional within the EU budget. After that, we can’t afford to take our eye off the ball in case countries try to finance this from their bilateral aid budgets. If they take this money from within their aid budgets, we’re looking at this additional billion not being additional at all. The money must be additional and spent on the most urgent needs of farmers in the developing world. We want a political commitment on additionality at the budget negotiations on Friday. We’ll keep you posted on how things look.
-Weldon Kennedy
Our Government Relations Manager Eloise Todd checks in with an update on the EU Billion:
With just a week to go until the EU institutions negotiate the budget, we’re working hard to make sure that the EU’s governments and European Parliamentarians deliver on the billion for poor farmers. The main concern is whether the money will really be additional. There are rumours that some negotiators want to simply raid other pots of development money to fund this Food Facility which would be disastrous. This funding was intended to fill the huge funding gap that has been caused by the food crisis and to deliver swift aid to farmers in developing countries – the seeds, tools and fertilizer they need to get back on their feet again.
Despite these rumours, we know that there are lots of good people working on the inside and outside of this process to deliver this money and we’re working very closely with them. Just a few leaders and Finance ministers who keep putting new obstacles in the way of this Food Facility and we need to keep the pressure on to make sure they know we’re watching and we’ll name and shame those countries who are trying to deliver this money without stumping up fresh funding.
On Sunday I’ll be travelling to Strasbourg to the EU’s Development Days to keep passing the message on to the Ministers that will be there. After that I’ll be lobbying decision-makers in the European Parliament. We’ll keep you posted
-Eloise Todd
Here’s the latest from ONE’s London-based Government Relations Manager, Eloise Todd, on the EU Food Facility. The facility is based on a proposal in the European Union to channel 1 billion euros ($1.6 billion) in unused European farm subsidies to farmers in developing countries.
Although the European Parliament voted last week on the EU’s budget for 2009, the decision on how to finance the €1 billion for developing country farmers has been deferred until 21 November, mainly because it’s become such a politically-sensitive topic.
This new date is basically the last chance for the money to be directed to farmers in poor countries. The move to defer the final decision could be a good signal that the Members of Parliament are committed to finding a lasting solution. We sense a real political will by several people within the Parliament to deliver the money, including Jutta Haug, who wrote the 2009 budget report (called a “rapporteur” in EU-speak) and Reimer Boege, who heads up the Budgets Committee .
In these last few crucial weeks, ONE will be working to keep the pressure on EU governments, especially now that some seem to be favoring a creative accounting exercise that could mean not all the money will be new. Instead, it could pull from current aid budgets, which could mean pulling money from existing development programs to finance the proposal.
Whatever is decided on EU financing, we’ll continue to watch each member states’ aid budget closely, as there is a danger that many governments will sign on to the proposal at the EU and then undo their commitments when mapping out their individual agriculture budgets later this year. We will also keep up our lobby work on the content of the proposal, especially how the money will be spent once it’s made available to developing countries. We want the money to go to those in most need and to be spent through the most effective systems. In these difficult financial times, we also need the Council to remember that the world’s poorest are suffering most, and that investing in sustainable development through agriculture is the most prudent investment donor nations can make.
-Eloise Todd
In July, we told you about a proposal in the European Union right now to channel 1 billion euros ($1.6 billion) in unused European farm subsidies to African farmers as part of its response to the global food crisis. Now the EU has to decide how that money will get spent. Here’s an update from ONE’s Government Relations Manager in the UK, Eloise Todd:
This week the European Parliament’s Development Committee voted on how they would like the Food Facility to be spent when it is signed off in November. The Committee voted in favor of small-scale farmers getting money, supporting existing markets, and to guard against the money to be spread too thinly – Parliamentarians want the money to be limited to the 35 countries most in need, and to keep the focus of the funds as an emergency instrument for this year and next.
There is ongoing debate about where the money will come from to fund the Food Facility. The Development Committee wants to make sure the entire €1 billion is new money – after all, the Facility was suggested as a way to spend surplus funds in the EU budget. The Parliament will now negotiate with the 27 EU governments to finalize the content of the proposal and take a final vote in early December. Parliament’s Development champions will now be gearing up to persuade the people holding the purse strings that this additional €1 billion is definitely the right money, to the right place, at the right time before the big budget decision on November 21. We’ll keep you posted.
In the meantime, you can help give momentum to this effort by signing our petition to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is currently also President of the EU Council, asking him to support this initiative.
-Eloise Todd
Today the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) annual meetings begin with press conferences by IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick. All of the World Bank agencies, the IMF, and a broad range of NGOs are holding discussions and events on development issues this week. Many of the events are focused on complex challenges such as the global food crisis and climate change, and others provide an opportunity to discuss how these institutions are working with recipient countries and civil society.
The current climate of global economic uncertainty not only impacts Wall Street and global financial capitals, but will begin to create an additional burden for the poorest countries in the world, many of whom are already being adversely impacted by high food and fuel prices. Both Zoellick and Strauss-Kahn emphasized this point in the lead-up to this week’s meetings. The challenge facing finance ministers, central bankers, and World Bank and IMF officials this week will be to think creatively about how we can continue to keep our commitment to help the poorest people in the world. This may require utilizing innovative financing solutions, such as an additional 1 billion euro of EU budget money that could be provided to agriculture programs in poor countries, in order to keep these promises.
In their opening remarks today, both Strauss-Kahn and Zoellick stressed the need for rich countries to follow-through on their commitments to the world’s poor:
Strauss-Kahn said:
Countries’ budgets are strained, so it is difficult to deliver even when commitment has been made in the past. Advanced countries shouldn’t respond to the crisis by cutting aid to the poorest, most vulnerable countries.
Zoellick said:
Some 28 countries are already fiscally highly vulnerable from the twin shocks of food and fuel. Currently these countries, on average, are set to receive no increase in project and program aid. G7 countries as a group are still far behind on their Gleneagles commitments. The poorest cannot be asked to pay the biggest price. For the poor, the costs of crisis can be life-long.
Read ONE’s press release about the proceedings here.
We’ll continue to share what we see and hear this week as the meetings begin.
-Sara Rogge
There’s a piece in today’s Christian Science Monitor on the E.U.’s new pledge to give 1 billion euros in unused farm subsidies to African farmers.
“In the past, that €1 billion would have gone to paying for the so-called “grain mountains” and “milk lakes” that resulted when EU farmers produced more than they could sell. The European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which consumes 40 percent of the EU’s total budget, provides subsidies for farmers who produce surpluses of certain crops.
But with spiraling food prices (7.1 percent higher in EU member states this April than the previous year), European agriculture no longer needs the safety net. And with many parts of the world suffering food shortages, the EU, said agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel at a conference on the crisis last week, “needs to act now to boost harvests [in developing countries] over the next seasons.”
More info in the piece.
