Italy: EU inflates aid to development figures

Almost a third of the figures that European countries declare for aid to development funding are inaccurate, says Concord, the Belgian confederation that represents more than 1,600 European NGOs. In a conference called ?The future of cooperation and development in the EU. What is Italy?s role?? Stefano Manservisi, the European Commission?s Director General for Development added that: ?compared to 2006 the world trend in aid for development is decreasing, and this includes the EU, who is the world?s largest aid donor. This breaks with a period of positive continuity and, as far as the EU?s credibility is concerned, is very worrying?.

Although there have been important steps forward over the course of the past years, the central issue and problem for international cooperation remains the availability of funds, which tend to be slight and only barely transparent. According to Concord, almost a third of the Europe?s declared aid to development is not real: many governments include expenses for assistance to foreign students and refugees and the cancellation of debt into their aid for development figures.

At the top of the list of inflated figures is Austria, with an average of 59%, France follows with 50%, Italy with 44% and Germany with 35%. On average European countries inflate their figures by around 30%, an alarming figure that goes to show that in reality many countries do not reach their minimum individual objectives for 2006, that is to say to allocate 0.39% of the Gdp to aid for development.

More info:
www.concordeurope.org