Brussels – The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee (OECD DAC) released today its preliminary figures for 2020.

ODA provided by the EU institutions in 2020 reached EUR 19.4 billion, an increase of 25.4% in real terms as it mobilised a significant amount of additional funds for COVID-19 related activities and whose sovereign lending (mainly European Investment bank loans) increased by 136% in real terms over 2019. ODA from the nineteen EU member states that are DAC members was USD 72.7 billion, an 7.8% increase compared to 2019, representing 0.50% of their combined GNI.

Emily Wigens, EU Director for the ONE Campaign, said: “Whilst the figures look promising on paper, they are a mere drop in the ocean for the world’s poorest countries where an additional 88 million to 115 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty this year.

The COVID-19 pandemic has reversed decades of development gains in a year. The IMF estimated that low-income countries face a financing gap of $200 billion to recover from COVID and another $250 billion to get back on track with fighting poverty.

With EU ODA locked in for the next 7 years in the new MFF, the EU must do better to contribute what’s needed to finance a truly inclusive global recovery. For instance, the EU and its member states should support reallocating special drawing rights to low-income countries and prioritise aid going to key sectors to overcome the health and economic crisis like health and human development.”