According to OCDE, official development assistance (ODA) is “government aid designed to promote the economic development and welfare of developing countries.”
Although the EU and its Member States are the largest contributors to ODA (with a budget of around 84 billion in ODA in 2022), European ODA accounts for only 0,59% of its GDP, which is below the 0.7% target recommended by the OECD. The EU’s ODA dedicated to health is even lower – only 5% of the total amount according to OECD data from 2022. The Covid-19 pandemic originally provoked an increase in ODA dedicated to health, but this was unfortunately short-lived, with health ODA now having returned to pre-pandemic levels.
This gap was further exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which negatively impacted the progress made on development and poverty reduction, and which endangered the lives and livelihoods of millions of people.
We are light years away from eradicating poverty by 2030, as projected by the SDGs framework. Inequalities in terms of human development persist and this disparity even widened due to digitalisation and climate change. Hence, we call on States all around the world to increase their official development assistance in order to reach the 0.7% target before 2030, as did the Council of the European Union.
In order to sustain significant and long-lasting changes, the EU must adopt a comprehensive and ambitious approach to human development and social justice, focused on three key principles: establishing a strong connection between human development and the reduction of inequalities, breaking down silos and strengthen transversal public policies, and meeting financial commitments.
There is a growing shift from official development assistance to financing the private sector, or channeling funds to security and migration, which have not been shown to reduce inequalities.
Our asks:
- The EU must allocate at least 20% of its ODA to human development, including health, and direct at least 0.2% to the least developed countries
- The EU must amplify its support for Global Health Initiatives such as the Global Fund, Gavi, the WHO or the UNFPA and use its role within its governance structures to promote alignment with the priorities of partner countries and of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) implementation
- The EU must commit more funding to the fight against all forms of malnutrition in the upcoming N4G Summit
The EU must ensure transparency and accountability by consulting civil society organisations (CSOs) within the European Union and partner countries.
We welcome the communication on the new EU Global Health Strategy, as well as the Council Conclusions on the ‘EU Global Health Strategy: Better health for all in a changing world‘. However, we call on the Council to:
- Ensure that the Strategy is properly and adequately financed
- Ensure, that moving forward in the Strategy’s implementation, concrete provisions on immunisation, access, and equity are included
Furthermore, decisions relating to development aid and programming and decisions relating to the EU’s geopolitical interests are kept strictly separate
Last but not least, we call for the EU-Africa health pillar to be adequately implemented.
;
