Tag: development aid

The European Commission pledged €650 million of additional aid for the next three years for Somalia at a conference yesterday (16 September), aimed at helping Mogadishu’s path towards peace and state building.

The European Commission is pushing for further public-private collaboration by seeking the closer involvement of development banks in financing bigger projects, but that requires governance reforms. EurActiv France reports.

Europe maintained its position as the planet’s biggest aid donor last year, stumping up €55.2 billion of overseas assistance, but the bloc has made no progress towards its target of providing 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) in aid by 2015, a yearly audit says.

A House of Lords committee has sent a scathing letter to the European Commission, accusing it of "culpable waste" in its water and sanitation projects in sub-Saharan Africa.

Brussels has opened its wallet to offer €100 million in regional funding for what it calls a “ground-breaking” infrastructure programme, as an EU-South Africa summit opens in Pretoria today (18 July), on Nelson Mandela International Day.

African governments are spending more of their own money to combat the AIDS virus, malaria and other health plagues, but a senior global health official says progress in preventing infectious diseases could slow if the EU and other donors skimp on their aid.

A plan to deploy European volunteers to respond to global humanitarian and natural disasters became a victim itself when EU leaders slashed funding for the foreign aid corps, but Lithuania wants to press ahead with a programme it sees as a priority of its EU presidency.

Amid growing concerns about sexual attacks on women in Africa’s Sahel region, a European Parliament report urges the Commission to press governments receiving EU aid to do more to protect women and girls.

There is no “difference on philosophy” between the European Union and United States, says Claus Sørensen, director-general of DG Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (ECHO). He says that the Prism intelligence-gathering operation is probably similar to what some of the bigger European member states are doing, though on a smaller and less obtrusive scale.

A new report shows that sub-Saharan Africa suffered disproportionately from cuts to aid spending by EU member states. This could endanger the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals at a critical time, says Eloise Todd.

Will anything change for developing countries as a result of the G8's agreement to tackle global tax dodging? Melanie Ward provides an answer.

It has no regular airline schedule, no first-class lounge and flies only to isolated areas prone to conflict or natural disaster. Backed by EU financing, a special United Nations aviation service flies only to the frontline of humanitarian need. EurActiv reports from the Paris Air Show.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking ahead of the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland on 17-18 June, said his country would not follow the mistakes of Europe that led to the eurozone crisis. In a wide-ranging interview he blamed the EU’s "mentality” for endangering the economy and the “moral basics of society”.

Poverty is aggravated by the absence of peace and security, so the EU should not only provide development aid to but also get actively involved in negotiating solutions to conflict, said the EU special representative to the Horn of Africa.

The charity group Save the Children is urging Prime Minister David Cameron to commit Britain to spending £132 million (€154.3 million) a year until 2020 to combat malnutrition in poor countries before a hunger summit in London.

Mexico, which sees itself as a privileged US partner, is concerned about the possible consequences of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), Spanish MEP Ricardo Cortés Lastra told EurActiv in an interview.

A week after pressing Europe to boost its trade ties with Africa in Brussels, the World Trade Organisation’s chief said in Nairobi that leading European economies should look at developing  and low income countries as the new globe’s economic growth engine, at a time of decreasing development aid.

An EU-led donor conference agreed on Wednesday (15 May) to provide €3.25 billion to fund a sweeping development plan for Mali, but European donors made clear that the interim government must live up to its promises to democratic and social reforms in exchange for the international lifeline.

The European Union will pledge more than half a billion euros to help Mali rebuild after months of conflict, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso said on Tuesday (14 May).

Europe and its global partners that are being asked to help finance a €4-billion development programme in Mali should be pressuring the government to address the executions, torture other abuses occurring in the divided country, human rights advocates say.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) club of rich countries has admitted it needs to comprehensively reassess how global aid figures are measured amid criticism that the value of assistance given is overstated by billions of dollars each year.

On the threshold of several prominent international meetings, there is no better time than this to boost resources for nutrition and to work together to tackle both the causes and symptoms of child malnutrition and stunting, writes British MP Stephen O’Brien.