The helping hand

Promoting trade and opening its market is one side of the EU’s international development strategy. Lifting poor countries out of poverty via direct technical and financial assistance is the other. More than 1 billion people around the world live on a euro a day or less. One third of them are in sub-Saharan Africa.

The European Union and its member states currently provide over 56 % of all official development assistance delivered by the major industrialised countries. In 2006, the total value was €47 billion, which translates to nearly €100 per citizen. This compares to €53 per citizen from the United States and €69 from Japan. In 2006 European aid rose to 0.42 % of gross national income (GNI), still short of the UN target of 0.7 % of GNI.

Only four EU countries, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden have achieved (and exceeded) the UN target. The EU has set 2015 as the year for reaching the collective target of 0.7 %, with an interim target of 0.56 % set for 2010. African countries receive €15 billion annually, the lion’s share of EU development assistance.

Empowering the poor

The primary objective of EU development cooperation is the eradication of poverty in the context of sustainable development, including the pursuit of the millennium development goals (MDGs). EU aid aims to improve basic physical and social infrastructures and productive potential as well as to strengthen democratic state institutions. This support can also help poor countries benefit from international trade opportunities and attract more inward investment to broaden their economic base.

The privileged relationship of ACP countries with the EU has not prevented many ACP countries from losing market share in Europe and becoming increasingly marginalised in the global economy. This is why the formula of economic partnership agreements has been devised.

The EU’s development cooperation aims to give disadvantaged people in the third world control over their own development. This means attacking the sources of their vulnerability, including poor access to food and clean water, or to health, education and jobs and a sound environment. It also means fighting disease and promoting access to cheap medicines to combat scourges like AIDS as well as action to reduce their debt burden that diverts scarce resources away from vital public investments back to lenders in the industrialised countries. The EU also uses development cooperation as a way to promote human rights and gender equality and to prevent conflicts.

The EU delivers its aid in many ways — direct cooperation with governments, the implementation of individual projects (often through NGOs), humanitarian aid, assistance in crisis prevention and support for civil society. An increasing share of the aid is contributed to partner countries’ general and sector budgets to support local ownership.

Small amounts can go far Over the years, the European Union has funded thousands of development projects across the third world. Often relatively small amounts of cash can go a long way. Recent success stories include: help for a group of 250 women in the Indian state of Gujarat to export handicrafts to Europe, North America and Japan, support for a local firm in Belize to switch to sustainable logging and forest-management techniques; assistance to farmers in central Cameroon to diversify production, training for small farmers in Uganda to share the cost of using essential business support services.