THE EUROPEAN UNION'S PROGRESS: 2004-10

The EU's institutions were restructured following the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009. The Treaty established the European External Action Service (EEAS), which became operational in December 2010. The EEAS now represents the European Union through its embassies in foreign countries, and will have a significant influence over development spending in those countries.

The Lisbon Treaty also confirmed that the eradication of poverty must be the objective of all EU development assistance, giving a legal basis to the use of development funds. This can be considered an obligation for the EU institutions to ensure that development assistance always has the maximum possible impact on poverty alleviation. It is within this context that the performance of the EU as a group and of the EC should be assessed.

The EU represents 27 member states and the EU institutions. 'EU' ODA in this chapter refers to ODA contributions by 15 member states (EU15) that are OECD DAC members – while references to the EC refer to European Commission resources and policy only.

European Union

The EU's pledge in 2005 to increase development assistance to reach 0.7% of GNI by 2015 was an ambitious one. Between 2004 and 2010, EU15 countries increased their development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa by $6.54 billion (€4.94 billion),delivering a total of $22.55 billion (€17.02 billion) in 2010 and meeting 35% of their 2010 target increases. Of the EU15 countries' global increases between 2004 and 2010, 28% were directed to sub-Saharan Africa.

Within the EU15 group of donors, only five increased their development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa between 2009 and 2010. Two of these were non-G7 members: Portugal (a 68% increase) and the Netherlands (a 7% increase).

Although the EU12 donors' development assistance data for sub-Saharan Africa is not currently available, global figures show that Bulgaria and the Czech Republic increased their total development assistance nominally between 2009 and 2010 (by 158% and 4%, respectively).

European Commission

Since 2005, the EC has launched a number of efforts to help achieve the MDGs. The largest commitment in development assistance has been its efforts to mobilise additional funding for the MDGs within the EU budget, such as the €1 billion ($1.32 billion) fund for the MDGs announced by President Barroso in September 2010 and the €1 billion ($1.44 billion) for the Food Facility (of which €760 million ($1.1 billion) ONE has calculated to be additional to existing funds).

Though EU member states are consistently among the top donors to sub-Saharan Africa, several top recipients of the Commission's development assistance are either countries located geographically near the EU or are security priorities. The top three recipients of development assistance from the Commission in 2009 were Turkey ($787 million), the Palestinian Administrative Areas ($539 million) and Afghanistan ($395 million).