Benn hits out at development aid targeting

Date: 25/11/04

By David Cronin

A SENIOR British minister has rebuked the European Commission for reducing the proportion of development aid targeting the world's poorest countries.

Hilary Benn, the UK secretary of state for international development, said it was “simply unacceptable” that 56% of EU aid goes to low-income countries, down from more than 70% a decade ago.

Benn noted that assistance to the Mediterranean region is much higher than for countries in Asia, where poverty is more acute. “The European Commission spends $100 per person living in the Mediterranean and just under $1 per person living in Asia.”

Benn labelled Asia and Africa the “key battlegrounds” for achieving the UN's Millennium Development Goals. These commit the international community to reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than one dollar per day.

Although these targets are supposed to be reached by 2015, Benn predicted that “unless something very dramatic happens” they would not be met in Africa until the next century. Britain is promising that Africa will be a crucial foreign policy priority, when it chairs both the EU and Group of Eight (G8) top industrialized countries next year.

Benn urged Peter Mandelson, the new commissioner for trade, to ensure that the EU keeps the promise it made in July to end subsidies on agricultural exports, blamed for hurting farmers in poor countries by flooding their markets with cheap imports. “This is where developing countries are looking for movement,” he said, predicting that a 1% boost in Africa's share of world exports could bring more benefits to the continent than its current share of aid and debt relief combined.

Benn hopes that Louis Michel, the new commissioner for development, will look favourably on Britain's suggestion of having an international finance facility to double the amount of development aid to poor countries to l150 billion.

Under this plan, the additional finance would be raised by seeking commitments from donor countries for the period up to 2015. Such pledges would be used as collateral for bonds on the international capital markets, with the cash raised going to anti-poverty schemes.

Hilary Benn, a senior British minister, has rebuked the European Commission for reducing the proportion of development aid targeting the world's poorest countries.