International
Aid Effectiveness
World’s biggest donor gears up for aid effectiveness summit
At the end of this month, South Korea will be hosting the next summit on aid effectiveness. This is the fourth in a series of high-level forums where donors get together to discuss how they can make development aid more effective.
This time round, in Busan, participants will not only need to look into fulfilling and deepening those commitments on aid, but also address broader issues. For example, many emerging economies are now also engaged in development assistance, and there is a recognition that development isn’t only about aid – it is also about other forms of revenues such as remittances and private sector investment.
The European Union, as the world’s largest donor, has been preparing for the High-Level Forum in Busan. On Monday the 14th of November, the European Foreign Affairs Development Council endorsed the common EU position. In this position, the EU members set out, among other things, to be inclusive of different development actors, agree on a single outcome document for the summit, and focus on results and accountability, ownership, transparency and reduced fragmentation.
Aside from this wishlist for the outcome of the Busan summit, the EU development ministers also outlined several initiatives they will take to put their own house in order. For instance, the EU wants to establish a special “EU Transparency Guarantee”, and start implementing joint programming to reduce the fragmentation of aid among EU member states.
However, we would like to see stronger language still from the EU. In the desire to be inclusive of new donors, it is tempting for Europe to dilute its previous strong commitments some of the new players aren’t so keen on, for example the principle of aid transparency. You can help us call on all the negotiating parties to make aid more transparent by signing this petition.
At ONE, we want to see countries making commitments to deliver and use aid in ways that promote transparent and accountable financing for development, and that focus clearly on results. This will enable citizens in both developing and developed countries to see what resources are available, how they are spent, and what results they achieve, so that they can hold their governments to account and ensure that all development resources – aid and beyond – are spent effectively in the fight against global poverty.
Stay tuned into our blog to follow the negotiations and activities at Busan from 29 November to 1 December!
How donors measure up on transparency
Publish What You Fund (PWYF)—the global campaign for aid transparency—has recently launched their pilot project: the Aid Transparency Index. By tracking aid information that has been published by 58 bilateral donors and multilateral organizations, PWYF has ranked them based on their level of aid transparency. And here’s what it said:
The results
Looking across 58 aid agencies, PWYF categorized them either as Good, Fair, Moderate, Poor or Very Poor based on their percentage ranking. The sad truth: none of the agencies ranked qualified for the “Good” category. The top 5 scorers on this index (and ranked as “Fair”) included the World Bank, the Global Fund, the African Development Bank, the Netherlands’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the UK’s Department for International Development.
The Conclusions
- Most information about aid is not published and many countries surveyed did not have a systematic method of providing aid information.
- If information is produced, it is not always made available and/or difficult to access
- Aid transparency is achievable and other organizations should follow suit
What does this mean?
Reports like PWYF’s Aid Transparency Index underscores the clear lack of information available about development aid. Without being transparent about how much aid is available, accountability becomes an issue as countries that are aid recipients cannot budget and allocate resources effectively, and citizens cannot hold governments to account for promised resources. Both recipients and donors must be more forthcoming about the resources available and where they are going because aid effectiveness cannot be achieved without transparency underpinning it.
In addition, with the 4th High Level Forum of Aid Effectiveness coming up in Busan in only 2 weeks, this new index comes at an opportune time. Commitments to aid effectiveness have been piling up since the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness in 2005. Action must be taken and Busan provides a key forum to secure commitments to delivering and using aid in a transparent and accountable way and focusing on actionable results, to improve the effectiveness of development aid.
How can you help?
Sign the Make Aid Transparent petition today.
A critical moment in the campaign for more transparent aid
Guest post from Publish What you Fund’s Claudia Elliot.
In the relative obscurity of closed-door meetings, donor governments are making last-minute attempts to renege on their aid transparency commitments. With only 2 weeks to go before the High level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, South Korea, time is running ..
Aid is a scarce and precious resource, which, if spent well, can make a major difference to the lives and prospects of the people and countries receiving it.
But right now according to new data from Publish What you Fund the majority of international aid donors are not publishing enough information about the money they give, undermining the effectiveness of development spending and damaging public trust.
The International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) was launched in 2008 to combat this problem. IATI offers aid donors a common format in which to publish their information, so that anyone can go to one place and see a ‘big picture’ of all aid activities.
However, without specific, time-bound commitments to aid transparency at the High Level Forum at the end of this month, countries receiving aid will continue to be left in the dark about what’s happening. Ironically, as more and more aid donors talk about ‘results’ and ‘value for money’, they are simultaneously failing to produce and publish the information that would enable them to measure, evaluate and coordinate their aid efforts more effectively.
Unless there is real public pressure on donors ahead of the meeting, there’s a danger that the entire aid effectiveness agenda will be derailed by the end of the year. Governments have been promising transparency since 2005. We can’t let them abandon this essential and entirely realisable reform now.
The Make Aid Transparent campaign was launched earlier this year to urge governments to maintain commitments to publish to the international standard. In the last 6 months it has gained real ground. It is now supported by over 100 organisations internationally and has been presented around the world.
The Make Aid Transparent campaign will be at the High Level Forum, hoping to hand over our petition urging ministers to open their books for good.
I hope you will join me in signing the petition today.
Claudia Elliot is Communications Officer at Publish What you Fund
Better Aid
International aid cannot solve all our problems, but it can make a real difference. It can save lives, put children into school, and reduce extreme poverty. But at the moment we don’t have a full picture of how much money is being spent, where, or on what.
At the organization I work for in East Africa, Twaweza, we help people get information to get things done and hold their governments to account. We’ve seen real progress as better informed people ask questions, discuss ideas, and make sure officials do their job.
If information on aid was openly available, citizens would be able to see where and how it is spent, which would help them track the money and demand results. Real transparency means aid money can go even further and also reduces the risk of corruption.
Please join me in signing ONE’s petition now.
We are at a critical moment. Governments are meeting later this month in South Korea to discuss this issue and we have the chance to hold them to account. Public pressure right now can make a huge difference to the future of aid.
Twaweza means “we can make it happen” in Swahili. Together, we sure can!
Rakesh Rajani is Head of Twaweza and a member of ONE’s Africa Policy Advisory Board
Aid and Beyond: Transparency, accountability and results
As negotiations heat up ahead of the Fourth High Level Forum on aid effectiveness (HLF-IV), many countries are keen to move beyond a narrow aid effectiveness agenda, bringing in a broader range of actors and issues in recognition of the changing development landscape. Emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil are becoming ever more important. The demand for Africa’s oil and mineral resources is growing, providing many African countries with new revenue streams. Traditional donors’ aid budgets are under pressure. And people are taking to the streets and the twitter-verse to demand more transparent and accountable governance, from north Africa to north America and beyond. However, broadening the conversation to include more actors and issues beyond aid, must not and need not be at the expense of clear, measurable and time-bound commitments on aid effectiveness.
At Busan, countries should make commitments to deliver and use aid in ways that promote transparent and accountable financing for development, and that focus clearly on results. This will put people and politics back in the picture, enabling citizens in both developing and developed countries to see what resources are available, how they are spent, and what results they achieve so that they can hold their governments to account.
On transparency, wealthy donor countries must commit to make aid transparent, publishing aid information in a timely, comprehensive and comparable manner, and in line with the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). In addition, developing country governments should commit to making budget information available and accessible to their citizens. As the International Budget Partnership puts it: “open budgets, transform lives”. And transparency should be promoted in relation to other development resources, including natural resource revenues.
On accountability, participants at Busan should promote open and inclusive decision-making in developing countries, not only on aid management but on development policies more broadly. Donors should commit to provide the support that key accountability institutions such as parliaments and audit institutions need to hold governments to account. And donors and developing countries should – alongside ensuring that civil society can operate and organize safely and effectively – commit to do what is needed to help citizens use information to demand accountability.
Across all of their discussions on aid and development effectiveness, participants at Busan must focus on results and measuring development outcomes. Without good information about results, there can be little learning or accountability. Investments in statistical capacity and results monitoring in development countries must be stepped up so citizens in those countries can measure their own progress towards achieving national and international goals. And country-led monitoring processes in developing countries should be complemented by a global monitoring framework.
By making clear and monitorable commitments on transparency (including IATI), accountability and results, Busan can put people and politics back in the picture, make aid more effective and help to ensure that all development resources – aid and beyond – are used effectively in the fight against poverty.
A Better Way to Better Aid: The Road to Busan
At ONE we spend a lot of time and effort making sure that citizens in developing countries get the resources they need to fight extreme poverty and preventable disease. We hold wealthy governments to account for commitments they made to increase development assistance, and we fight cuts to foreign aid—like in the US where it is less than 1% of the budget! But we’re not just about the money.
Greater financial investments are crucial to helping countries increase momentum and boost progress in the four years left to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)—but without mechanisms in place to make sure that those resources are properly targeted, delivered, and tracked, we cannot ensure that the investments are reaching those that need it most and are actually achieving development outcomes. So we have to be just as concerned with the quality of investments made as we are with the quantity of investments made, even more so in a time of constrained budgets and scrutiny.
Governments know this. That’s why in 2005 a group of donors and developing countries came together and signed the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, committing to pursue a set of principles focused on improving developing country ownership over development priorities; aligning resources with these priorities; coordinating efforts among donors; focusing on development results; and holding each other to account. In addition, the countries agreed on a set of targets to achieve in these areas by 2010.
Fast forward to today and the majority of those targets remain unmet. Developing countries have made great strides on their side, but wealthy donor countries have made little progress in meeting their promises. Thus it is with a sense of renewed urgency and even greater resolve that we look forward to the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF-IV) kicking off in Busan, South Korea later this month. With more than 2500 participants—from government ministers in donor and developing countries to civil society and private sector representatives—the stakes are high, but the potential for true change is even greater. While participants take stock of progress made on aid effectiveness commitments from Paris and Accra in 2005 and 2008, the true test will come in how countries and partners tackle key challenges to development effectiveness and commit to concrete action moving forward.
It’s not just about aid; other resources such as private investment, remittances, private philanthropy, natural resource revenues, and domestic resources all play a huge role in development outcomes in poor countries, so it’s just as critical that those resources are well coordinated and well managed to focus on development results. In order to go beyond aid effectiveness and to incorporate a broad range of international partners and the spectrum of development resources, we believe at ONE that key commitments around transparency, accountability, and results are necessary to put developing countries—governments, citizens, civil society and the private sector—in the driving seat.
In the next few weeks leading up to HLF-IV, we will be working internationally with ONE voice to ensure that discussions at Busan result in clear and monitorable commitments on transparency, accountability and results. We are also working to make sure that broadening the conversation to include more actors and issues beyond aid, is not at the expense of clear and monitorable commitments on aid effectiveness, and that previous commitments continue to be monitored. You can follow our efforts and updates on the ONE blog and help us keep the pressure on governments as we go into Busan!
Now for Action: Governments make commitments to openness, transparency and accountability
At 7.00 New York time, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, the Philippines, South Africa, the UK and the USA – the countries on the steering committee of the Open Government Partnership – published their Action Plans. They contain a wide range of exciting measures to enhance transparency and accountability and to make governments more open and responsive to their citizens. Efforts to tackle corruption feature heavily in many of the plans, including those of Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and South Africa. Initiatives to enhance budget transparency and to improve the delivery of public services feature in the plans of Brazil, Indonesia, the Philippines and South Africa. And welcome moves to enhance aid transparency feature in the plans of the UK and the USA. On transparency about natural resource revenues, Norway has signalled a commitment to consider passing legislation that would require multinationals to publish tax information on a country by country basis. And by signing up to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, the USA has continued the leadership it showed last year in passing legislation on extractives transparency.
The Open Government Partnership (OGP) looks set to be an important forum for sharing experience, encouraging and assisting governments to become more open. Africa’s involvement is currently limited with just three African countries – Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania – joining South Africa within the OGP. However, the partnership has great relevance for Africa and for ONE: the ability of African citizens to hold their governments to account is shaped by the actions of the USA, the EU and other countries that provide aid to Africa and whose companies operate in Africa; African governments can share experience with other emerging economies as regards transparency and accountability; and, over time, we hope that many more African countries will choose to take the path towards more open, transparent and accountable government.
We know that in 2012, Brazil will continue to lead the way on the open government agenda, hosting meetings of the Open Government Partnership, the Global Initiative on Fiscal Transparency and the International Anti-Corruption Conference, and perhaps joining with the USA in requiring its oil companies to publish what they pay to the governments of the countries where they operate. And we trust that Mexico will pick up the baton of transparency and accountability as it takes over the leadership of the G20 from France.
For ONE’s introduction to OGP and a link to our policy pitch see here.
Or check out ONE’s full analysis of the Country Action Plans from a development perspective
Opening Government to Accelerate Poverty Reduction
By shining a light on the ways in which governments in developing countries invest aid, natural resource revenues and other public resources, transparency can turbo-charge accountability, helping ordinary citizens to hold their governments to account. This can play an important role in reducing corruption, improving the delivery of essential public services such as health and education, enhancing the climate for growth and investment, and accelerating countries’ progress along the road out of poverty, towards prosperity and beyond aid dependence.
Transparency and accountability provide, in effect, a boost to the quantity and quality of resources available for development. To maximise this “resource dividend” it is essential that there is transparency and accountability for the use of all public resources, including aid, climate finance, taxes, and natural resource revenues, and that budget processes are open, with room for citizen engagement. The Open Government Partnership (OGP) – to be launched today (Tuesday 20th September) by President Obama of the United States and President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil – provides an important opportunity for governments to take a real step forward in enhancing transparency and accountability for the use of all public resources.
(OGP logo)
OGP is a new international initiative which aims to encourage and enable governments, in partnership with civil society, to promote transparency, increase civic participation, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance. By taking advantage of this moment of opportunity, governments can empower citizens with the information that they need to take greater control of their own development and make an important contribution to accelerating progress on poverty reduction.
At the OGP launch, the founding governments – Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, Philippines, South Africa, United Kingdom, and the United States – will endorse an Open Government Declaration and announce national action plans. The founding governments will also be joined by another 38 governments, including Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania, who will commit to developing and delivering their action plans at a follow up meeting in March 2012 in Brazil. The official launch of OGP event will be live streamed at www.whitehouse.gov/live
As well as participating in the launch, we will be analysing countries’ action plans to assess whether governments’ commitments – on aid, on budgets and on natural resource revenues – will empower people in developing countries with the information they need to hold governments to account. See our recent policy pitch for more information about the commitments that we believe governments should make to promote the transparent and accountable use of public resources. Over the coming months and years we will be working closely with a number of partner organisations to build a global movement on transparency and accountability, to keep transparency and accountability high on the agenda at the G20, the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in 2011, and in meetings of the G8 (US), G20 (Mexico) and the International Anti-Corruption Conference (Brazil) in 2012, and to make sure that governments meet their commitments to become more open.
Transparency alone will not deliver the accountability that is needed to ensure that resources are invested effectively in poverty reduction. Politics is key. But without transparency, political choices are poorly informed and there can be no accountability. With the demands of people across the Arab world for better governance fresh in our minds, now is the time to open government in order to accelerate progress on poverty reduction.
Making the Case for Overseas Aid
Last week, Ian Birrell wrote a piece in the Daily Mail supposedly busting the 10 “myths” that he claims are used to justify the UK’s outstanding commitment to help the world’s poorest people.
I profoundly disagree with his analysis – an analysis which will only hurt and harm the people that Britain’s investment in smart aid is helping. Here I argue the alternative case.
‘Myth 1: We can afford to spend a few billion pounds to help the world’s poor’
To pretend that cutting spending on aid is the answer to Britain’s budget problems is woefully misleading. Total government spending in the last financial year was £697 billion. The government made an £850 billion commitment to our banking sector at the height of the financial crisis and we pay £44 billion annually in debt interest. The 0.56% of national income, or £8.7 billion, we currently spend on development assistance and the 0.7% we have promised would not put a significant dent in our deficit even if it were cut completely.
‘Myth 2: We must hit the UN target to give away 0.7 per cent of our GNP in aid’
This was an internationally agreed commitment which was signed and reaffirmed in this very country in 2005 to global acclaim. It is Britain that leads larger developed nations on meeting this target – and the practical benefits are immense. It adds to our wealth. It plays to our strengths. It lends stature to our nation. It significantly increases our influence. It means Britain can be trusted. And it was empirically justified by analyses such as that done by the Commission for Africa. But beyond the empirical and practical, is there not something especially fundamental and dare I say sacrosanct about a promise from one developed nation to the very poorest people in the world?
As the Prime Minister said in a speech last month, “most people in our country want Britain to stand for something in the world, to be something in the world. And when I think about what makes me proud of our country, yes, I think of our incredibly brave service men and women that I have the honour to meet and see so often; and yes, I think of our capabilities as an economic and diplomatic power; but I also think of our sense of duty to help others. That says something about this country.” He’s right.
‘Myth 3: Aid works’
Smart aid in Africa often works extremely well. Charles Kenny’s new book ‘Getting Better’ sees an important role for aid in the hugely positive trends in global development. It helps communities stabilise themselves at the basic level of healthcare, education, infrastructure, and agriculture. This allows for society to sustain a rudimentary but viable standard of living, and creates the conditions for a decent level of economic growth. Charity – in the form of short-term handouts – can keep people alive at times of crisis but without some smart aid, combined with other policies, catalysing longer term economic opportunity and jobs they will usually be unable to lift themselves out of poverty. Smart governmental aid is simply the next step up from a pound in the charity tin – it is the structured charitable will of the people.
Alongside other prerequisites for progress – trade and investment, improved governance, stability -smart aid plays a vital role in promoting development in the poorest countries. In Africa in the past decade 18 non-oil exporting countries grew at an average of 5.5% per year (good, but many would argue that’s still not fast enough). But they could not have done this without debt cancellation and aid. Ghana and Zambia are now classified as lower middle-income countries, a fact that should be celebrated, and the role of foreign assistance has been acknowledged as an important part of the equation.
‘Myth 4: OK, it hasn’t worked in the past, but it will in the future’
We know that in the Cold War era aid was given more to win friends and influence people than to help tackle poverty and save lives. Too much emphasis was put on paternalistic handouts. Back then results weren’t tracked, and aid was often tied to Western companies in ways that significantly reduced its effectiveness. That’s the bad old aid approach we’ve been shaking off ever since and especially since the advent of the Millennium Development Goals.
The UK has been at the forefront of this smart aid revolution that is demanding transparency and results, and is improving efforts to ensure that there is accountability to both taxpayers in rich countries and crucially the poor in developing countries. ONE is campaigning to ensure that all donors publish their aid spending data in an easily comparable format. Aid has improved and so have the results.
‘Myth 5: We will ensure 100 pence of value for every £1 spent on aid’
Value for money is not a principle to be scorned at – taxpayers want it, donors want it and poor people need it. That’s why the British Government has conducted a thorough review of all its spending, rooting out the least effective and asking all its country offices to be clear in what they can deliver in return for taxpayers’ money. A new Independent Commission on Aid Impact will evaluate whether those targets are being met.
A rigorous focus on results is also helping to increase value for money in other parts of the system. Innovative programmes like the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations (GAVI), which deploys private sector expertise, are closely monitoring what they can achieve with every penny of their budget. Over the next 5 years for example, GAVI will spend $4.3 billion on vaccinating 250 million children and save over 4 million lives as a result. This is just one example – but what a magnificent result.
‘Myth 6: Aid changes the world for the better’
Poverty clearly will not be solved by aid alone, but what smart aid can do is help create the conditions needed for sustainable economic growth. And that means a well-fed, healthy and educated work force. This is happening throughout Africa, which last year according to McKinsey had more discretionary spending than Russia or India. This is the story – backed by statistics – of an ‘Africa Rising’. But clearly there’s still a story in countries like Somalia and Ethiopia of an ‘Africa starving’. That doesn’t mean we should ignore the great progress and only focus on the challenges that remain. The world has changed. This century’s giants will be China, India and Brazil – but an integrated Africa will also be a leader. By supporting this trend through smart aid within a broader strategic development partnership Britain is in pole position to benefit from Africa’s progress.
‘Myth 7: The slew of statistics prove that aid is a success’
It is a very twisted sort of cynicism that dismisses hard factual evidence of development progress as ‘grief-stained’ and a ‘stunt’. These statistics are real, and are worth repeating. The number of deaths of children under the age of five declined from 12.4 million in 1990 to 8.1 million in 2009, which means nearly 12,000 fewer children die each day. Much of that decline has happened in the last five years since campaigns like Make Poverty History called for increased investments in vaccinations and anti-malarial bed nets. Increased funding and intensive control efforts have cut deaths from malaria by 20 per cent worldwide – from nearly 985,000 in 2000 to 781,000 in 2009, with most of the decline concentrated in 12 African countries. New HIV infections have also declined steadily. In 2009, 2.6 million people were newly infected with HIV – a 21 per cent drop since infections peaked in 1997. The number of people receiving antiretroviral therapy has increased 13-fold from 2004 to 2009 with 5 million Africans in need now on life preserving antiretroviral therapy. That is down to effective, innovative and donor-supported mechanisms such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. From 1990-2008 an estimated 1.1 billion people in urban areas and 723 million people in rural areas gained access to an improved drinking water source. Primary school enrolment in sub-Saharan Africa increased by 18% between 1999 and 2009, the best improvement of any region. It is absurd to argue that aid played no part in making this staggering statistics of progress happen.
‘Myth 8: Britain will no longer tolerate mis-spending of funds’
Badly spent aid is unacceptable and must not be tolerated. But let’s not kid ourselves that corruption can be eradicated overnight, or that inefficiency and human error can be banished in aid any more than it can in other endeavours. What can be done is to make it as difficult as possible for money to go missing, through maximum transparency and severe sentences for those caught stealing or corrupting. Initiatives like citizen report cards can make sure feedback loops operate to improve efficiency. The Independent Commission on Aid Impact will help with this. Its board includes fearless anti-corruption activists, and hard-headed accountants to crunch the numbers and crush the perpetrators. But while problems remain, the majority of aid is now spent effectively – which is why we are seeing such significant results.
‘Myth 9: Aid is in our interest to prevent immigration’
People don’t like to leave their own countries and families. They do so only because they are driven to out of necessity. If a country thrives and gives its people access to jobs and a livelihood the population are much less likely to leave. It is clear that the way to prevent immigration is to help countries develop, grow and thrive. It is unarguable that there are practical and self-interested reasons to support spending on smart and effective aid programmes.
‘Myth 10: Developing nations are desperate to be saved’
Aid alone cannot ‘save’ a country. It pump-primes progress by helping the growth drivers of a national economy – its people – stabilise themselves. Africa is building itself up with a little help from its friends. And it is very good news for our mutual futures that Britain in particular – as it has demonstrated admirably and endlessly in the public, private and political sphere – means what it says and has been a true ally.
Africa’s economies are growing strongly, they are attracting private investment, spawning new technologies and are home to a burgeoning middle-class of consumers and entrepreneurs. This is not the activists speaking. This is the hard boiled analysts of McKinsey and the harder nosed investors now pouring their vast billions of investment money into Africa. For example, Helios announced last month that their £900 million African private equity fund is ready to go. This is a story of ‘Africa Rising’ and it is being told by African citizens like Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Ory Okolloh and Rakesh Rajani – not well-meaning Western hand wringers. Yet it is essential to understand the supportive and transitional role that smart aid has played, and will continue to play, in this process.
So the pragmatic view based on solid analysis is that aid supports countries through tough times, helps them build up systems and expertise, and as soon as possible puts itself out of business. In fact, if there’s one thing that both the sceptics and those that support evidence-based spending on aid can agree on, it is that a world without aid is the ultimate goal.
This blog post was originally published on the Huffington Post
Great news: another campaign success!
Following the huge success we had with our recent vaccines campaign, when world leaders made pledges that could save the lives of over 4 million children over the next 5 years, I want to share another astonishing success that you and other ONE members have contributed to.
In March we asked you to help us put pressure on the European Commission to continue leading the fight against extreme poverty as it sets out its next 7 year budget. Over 54,000 ONE members signed the petition, which we delivered to the President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso. Your amazing response, combined with continuous lobbying by ONE staff and other organisations across Europe, encouraged President Barroso and Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs to act. They have proposed an increase of over 25% in the amount the Commission allocates to fighting extreme poverty.
ONE Brussels Director Eloise Todd delivers the petition to president Barroso’s team.
This is great news. If these proposals are adopted it will mean billions more Euros will be available for smart aid programmes. And we know that previous EU funding has delivered real results. More than 9 million children in the developing world have access to primary education and 31 million people have access to clean drinking water thanks to EU aid. The additional money will allow to build on these amazing successes in the fight against poverty.
But the important work does not stop here. These are just proposals, so we’ll be keeping up the pressure on the European Parliament to adopt them, and also ensure that they introduce measures to improve the effectiveness of EU aid so that every cent reaches the people that need it. We hope you’ll join us in this fight over the coming year.
Your voice contributed to achieving this massive step towards making sure the world’s second biggest aid budget is as strong as possible, which will help the poorest people in the world lift to themselves out of poverty.
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About the Blog
The International ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, with guest contributions from ONE volunteers, members and allies.
The content of each post and each comment represents the views of that author and does not necessarily reflect the views of ONE. ONE does not support or oppose any candidate for elected office, and any post expressing support or opposition for a candidate is not endorsed by ONE.
TAGS: Aid Effectiveness, Transparency