European aid figures ‘inflated’, says campaigners
Promises by European governments to increase their aid to poor countries are being broken, a coalition of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) has complained.

In the past week, the 30-country Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development reported that total official development assistance granted by its members amounted to $104 billion in 2006, a fall in real times of 5% compared with the previous year. The combined aid from the 15 EU countries that belong to the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) was $55.7 billion, a 2.7% increase in real terms.

But Concord, the European NGO Confederation for Relief and Development, has alleged that almost 30% of European aid – or €13.6 billion - was "inflated". Almost €11 billion of reported aid was, in fact, debt cancellation, mainly for Iraq and Nigeria, while another €2.6 billion went on educating foreign students in Europe and on housing refugees.

In 2005, EU governments undertook to allocate at least 0.7% of their gross national incomes (GNI) to development aid by 2015. As an interim measure, they promised that their aid would reach a 0.39% target by 2006.

Yet Concord estimates that the EU only spent 0.3% of its collective GNI on "genuine aid" last year, with Austria and France the worst performers. Over half their aid did not deliver fresh resources to the poor.

Sources:
www.concordeurope.org
www.eurodad.org
www.oecd.fr

Tepid African reaction to EU trade offer
The EU has offered to open its markets to virtually all agricultural goods from African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries if they sign free trade deals.

As part of its efforts to convince the ACP to sign Economic Partnership Agreements with the EU, the European Commission proposed last week (4 April) that the vast majority of tariffs and other import restrictions on meat, cereals, fruit and vegetables would be scrapped for the 77 countries involved. According to the Commission, the offer is designed to address concerns raised by agricultural exporters like Ghana and Kenya.

Yet diplomats from those two countries downplayed the significance of the offer. One told the Inter Press Service that the offer would not be enough to allay African concerns about the impact of an EPA unless it is accompanied by measures to help increase the capacity of poor countries to export.

The Ghana Trade and Livelihood Coalition recently warned that an EPA would make small producers more vulnerable by opening up the country’s market to heavily subsidised imports from the EU. Rather than making non-reciprocal offers to the ACP, the Commission is insisting that they scrap tariffs aimed to protect their economies from a flood of imports.

Sources:
www.europa.eu
www.epa2007.org
www.ipsterraviva.net

World Bank may cut social spending
The World Bank could reduce the importance it attaches to health and education as part of a review of priorities, it has been reported. Paul Wolfowitz, the Bank’s president, has asked François Bourguignon, its chief economist, to devise a new strategy for the institution.

Although some staff members at the Bank believe it should cut back on social expenditure and instead focus on promoting economic growth, Wolfowitz would not be drawn on his personal preferences in an interview with The Financial Times. Nonetheless, he said that there needed to be greater clarity about what "comparative advantage" the Bank has to set it apart from other organisations ostensibly committed to reducing poverty.

The review follows the serious criticisms in a report on relations between the Bank and the International Monetary Fund, both of which grew out of the 1944 conference on the global economy in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.

The report, authored by Brazil’s former finance minister Pedro Malan, found that there is "no robust dialogue" between the two bodies on their future strategies. It was prepared at the behest of Wolfowitz and the IMF’s Managing Director Rodrigo de Rato.

Sources:
www.ft.com
www.brettonwoodsproject.org

Climate change hampers anti-poverty goals
Up to 250 million Africans will face water shortages by 2020 and the achievement of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals on reducing extreme poverty could be endangered due to climate change, a major new study has concluded.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which bands together 2,500 scientists from across the globe, has found that the world’s poor will bear the brunt of global warming, even though they have caused the least amount of atmospheric pollution.

After the IPCC launched its latest report in Brussels last Friday (6 April), Friends of the Earth said it is especially worried by how climate change could cause irreparable harm to glaciers in the Himalayas. Billions of people in India, China, Bhutan and Nepal could suffer from disruptions to water supplies as a result.

Friends of the Earth called on the EU to show greater leadership on climate change by ensuring that it honours a recent pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% below 1990 levels by 2020. The Union’s leaders also undertook in March to increase their cut to 30%, provided that other industrialised countries do likewise.

Sources:
www.ipcc.ch
www.foeeurope.org

Crunch trade talks this week
Peter Mandelson, the European commissioner for trade, has predicted that no progress will be made in the Doha round of world trade talks during 2007 unless a breakthrough is achieved this week.

Mandelson is taking part in discussions between the EU, the US, India and Brazil in New Delhi (11-12 April), where agricultural issues are expected to dominate.

The talks are aimed at finding common ground between large-scale players in global trade before a ‘fast-track’ negotiating mandate granted by US Congress to Trade Representative Susan Schwab expires in June.

"These talks are timely and important," said Mandelson. "If we are to use the remaining window of opportunity open to us, we need to intensify and accelerate the process of negotiation. If we fail, Doha’s prospects for this year will be lost."

ActionAid recently called on the Indian government not to strike any deal in the Doha process that would hurt the livelihoods of poor farmers in the country. India has suffered a wave of suicides among farmers unable to pay back debts.

Sources:
www.europa.eu
www.eubusiness.com
www.actionaidindia.org