Brussels unveils action plan for EU states to keep aid pledges

Apr 21, 2010, 12:53 GMT

Brussels - The European Union's executive on Wednesday outlined a 12-point action plan to make EU states live up to their pledges on development aid, after official figures showed that the bloc will have to raise billions of euros to hit its targets.

The EU's 27 states have pledged to boost development aid to 0.56 per cent of gross national income (GNI) this year and 0.7 per cent in 2015. But current spending stands at just 0.42 per cent, leaving a shortfall of some 9 billion euros (12 billion dollars) a year.

'If I compare this (sum) with national budgets, this is not really big money. It's really the political will that is necessary to achieve this target,' the EU's commissioner for development aid, Andris Piebalgs, told journalists in Brussels.

Piebalgs was speaking as he unveiled a 12-point plan designed to get member states to live up to their promises under the Millennium Development Goals, agreed to by the United Nations in 2000.

The plan for example calls for member states to set national aid targets, which would be published and verified annually, and to coordinate aid efforts systematically so they do not waste resources through duplication.

It also urges them to direct more of the funding to the world's most fragile states, where problems of governance, poverty, disease and radicalization are most acute.

And it also calls on the EU to give poor nations more power, both by helping them raise more taxes at home and by lobbying to give them more weight in international bodies such as the World Bank.

UN leaders are set to meet in New York to review progress towards the millennium goals.

The EU is the world's largest collective aid donor, but its contributions fell last year, leading EU leaders to fear a loss of credibility in UN talks.