In a meeting in Luxembourg on 14 June, the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) adopted conclusions on ‘Supporting the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015’ ahead of the upcoming European Council on 17-18 June. These Council conclusions constitute the EU position on the MDGs with a view to the UN General Assembly High-Level Plenary Meeting (HLPM) in New York in September 2010. Key issues included ODA quantity, innovative financing for development, aid effectiveness and policy coherence for development.

The Council committed to pay “special attention to countries most off-track [on MDGs], including those in situations of conflict and fragility, and those developing countries that make firm commitments through their development policies and plans by targeting progress on MDGs by 2015”.

Regarding ODA levels, the Council invites Member States “to share information on these actions and, within their respective budget allocation processes, on their planned ODA spending for the next budgetary year as well as their intentions for the remaining period until 2015. The Council will examine a report in the framework of the Monterrey process and will assess progress annually.”

NGOs welcome the role given to the Council of assessing annual progress on move towards aid promises, but deplore the lack of a reference to enacting national legislation on ODA targets which was present in previous draft versions of the conclusions.

On aid quality, “the EU and its Member States are strongly committed to significantly reduce cross country aid fragmentation and to further improve in-country division of labour, through better sharing of information and coordination among EU donors.”

“On joint programming, the Commission will present a proposal to the Council by 2011 for progressive synchronisation of EU and national programming cycles at partner country level and based on partner countries’ development strategies and taking into account their programming cycles.”

Some concern has been expressed by NGOs that too little attention is given to supporting social sector spending. "Access to social services for people in poverty is a pre-condition for achieving the MDGs" said Vagn Berthelsen, President of Alliance 2015 in a letter to Ministers. "ODA contributions to social sectors remain insufficient. The EU should advocate that the summit outcome includes a commitment of 20% of ODA to basic social services in order to reverse this trend".

Read the Foreign Affairs Council conclusions in full here.