Development aid: more rhetoric than practice?

As the biggest donor of financial aid to poor countries and with close ties to the former colonies of member states, the EU can legitimately be said to be trying to improve the world’s poorest regions.

The current Commission has been involved in major worldwide attempts to address problems in the developing countries. The UN’s Millennium Development Goals to reduce world poverty have been taken on by the Commission as benchmarks for its strategy. The Commission has also repeatedly stated its commitment to helping member states achieve the 0.7% of gross domestic product (GDP) target for development aid by 2015.

But the Commission has not been without its critics on how best to proceed on the development path. The Commission is currently negotiating economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with developing countries as a way to bring them into the world economy. The EPAs are a development instrument which will help build up fragile economies, prepare them for competing abroad and foster regional integration, the Commission insists. But some fear the EPAs will force developing countries to expose vulnerable industries to competition and that they result in loss of revenue from import tariffs. "The negotiation of the EPAs are continuing with a clear perspective to liberalise economies and this is not necessarily the direction the ACPs [African, Caribbean and Pacific states] want to go," says Simon Stocker, director with the non-governmental organisation, Eurostep.

The Commission has also been criticised for its strategy on governance for not ensuring sufficient consultation with developing countries and for dictating terms on how governance targets can be met. The Africa strategy has similarly been criticised for the lack of involvement by the states which will ultimately be affected by it. "It’s not based on mutual discussions: it is a European model," says Stocker.

The next multiannual European Development Fund, which is managed by the Commission and will comprise €22.7 billion, has also come in for criticism because of its broader definition of development to include issues such as immigration and security. But the Commission insists that these issues must also be tackled if the root causes of poverty are to be addressed.

For some, while the Commission has begun to start thinking in terms of including the developing world in plans to help them, there is little evidence that this has begun to happen. "The rhetoric is there; what’s of concern is the practice," says Stocker.

As the biggest donor of financial aid to poor countries and with close ties to the former colonies of member states, the EU can legitimately be said to be trying to improve the world’s poorest regions.

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