Aid to development is organized under the Minister of foreign and European affairs by a committee called Le Comité interministériel de la Coopération internationale et du Développement (CICID).
The key aims of French development policy are to foster growth, reduce poverty and ease access to global public goods, thus helping to achieve the Millennium Development Goals to 2015. [15]
French Official Development Assistance (OAD) represented 0.47 percent of gross national income (GNI) in 2006, it decreased to 0.38 percent in 2007, and moved back up to 0.39% in 2008. This figure was below the EU-DAC average (0.42 percent). [15]
According to the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC), France’s ODA increased from €7.56 billion in 2008 to €8.92 billion in 2009, 0.46 percent of its gross national income (GNI) in 2009. [13]
The French government agreed to increase ODA to 0.51% of gross national income in 2010.[14]However, according to the OECD/DAC 2008 Peer Review of France “the level reached in 2007 showed that the objective of 0.51 percent of GNI in 2010 will be difficult to achieve.” [15]
By region, in 2006-07 Sub-Saharan Africa received the greatest percentage of French bilateral ODA (49.3 percent), followed by the Middle East and North Africa (23.6 percent). By country, top recipients of gross bilateral ODA were Nigeria, Iraq, and Cameroon. [15]
In 2007, 92.6 percent of French aid was untied (tied aid is assistance given to developing countries which must be used to purchase goods and services from the donor country). [15]
