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Another poor year for overseas aid: OECD

Growing alarm over the amount of global aid to the developing world was justified on Friday when the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said financial assistance to the world’s poorest countries had fallen for the second year in a row. Campaigners said the figures showed that G8 and EU targets for tackling global poverty by doubling aid flows by 2010 were in serious jeopardy. Aid rose every year for the past decade until 2006.

The OECD said aid totalled $103.7 billion in 2007, a fall of 8.4 per cent in real terms. At the 2005 Gleneagles summit, G8 leaders, led by Tony Blair, committed to a doubling of their aid and to provide an additional $50 billion a year by 2010. Three years on, this target looks likely to be missed by as much as $30 billion a year, said Oxfam, enough to save five million lives. “These figures leave us in no doubt that the world’s richest countries are failing to meet their promises to the poorest countries, especially in Africa,” said Max Lawson, policy adviser at Oxfam. “The human cost is huge.”

The EU’s spending target on aid of 0.7 per cent of national income by 2015 also looks badly off track, with aid from the world’s richest countries falling from 0.31 per cent in 2006 to 0.28 per cent in 2007.

The OECD report shows only seven countries met or surpassed the 0.7 per cent target, with Norway (0.95 per cent) and Sweden (0.93 per cent) topping the chart.

Though the U.S. made the largest donation ($21.75 billion), it contributed the lowest percentage of national income, coming bottom of the charts at 0.16 per cent. — ©Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

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