Europe’s foreign ministers yesterday pressed on with efforts to fulfil commitments to the millennium development goals (MDGs), in a session held in Brussels, to collectively donate 0.56% of their combined GNI by 2010 in overseas development aid (ODA).
ODA is meant to be channelled towards poverty eradication in poor countries, but organisations like Concord, a European development NGO, reports that European governments inflate their aid statistics with debt relief and refugee costs in their own countries.
Official statistics released by the OECD in April, show that European aid fell sharply in 2007, with Belgium, France and the UK recording falls of 10-30%.
But Malta has been reticent about revealing its development aid figures, and to show how this money has been spent. Questions sent by MaltaToday have remained unanswered since last April by the foreign ministry, which was asked to reveal its development aid figures for 2007 and how this money was spent.
Maltese development organisation SKOP (Solidarity and Cooperation) also claims much of Malta’s ODA is spent on housing asylum seekers in their first year in Malta – money spent on detention centres rather than the eradication of poverty in developing countries.
It is believed that Malta was still the highest donor of ODA (0.15% of GNI) in 2007 among the EU’s 12 new member states, but that the aid is inflated by including money spent on detention centres and repatriation of migrants.
The Maltese government has so far failed to comply with requests by SKOP to publish “a clear and transparent breakdown of its ODA expenditure”.
According to the European Commission’s figures, Malta spent €7 million or 0.15% of GNI on ODA in 2006 – less than what it contributed in 2004, when it spent 0.18% in overseas development aid. The figure then was already claimed to be inflated by over 40%, according to Concord.
Yesterday, the EU’s foreign ministers, including Tonio Borg, declared that concerted action was required to sustain the MDG’s all the way to 2015. “The EU strongly reaffirms its commitment to achieve the collective aid target of 0.56% of GNI for 2010 and 0.7% of GNI for 2015. Projections suggest that meeting these commitments could mean that the EU will account for 90% of the OECD aid increases in the period 2006-2010. The EU calls on others to share this burden. The Council also called on member states to establish rolling multi-annual indicative timetables to show how they aim to reach their aid targets.”
Foreign ministers pledged to undertake “radical reforms to improve the effectiveness of its aid” after the European Commission showed that EU aid was below expectations in 2007, having been slightly ahead in 2006.
The EU still accounts for 57% of global aid, reaching €47 billion last year.

mvella@mediatoday.com.mt