Development aid: what is needed and what is possible?
At a time when developing countries are struggling with massive debt and industrialised nations are cutting aid budgets, how can development cooperation continue? This is the question that dominated the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development which ended on Thursday in Seville. The US, which has scrapped more than 80 percent of USAID projects under Trump, didn't even send a delegation.
A huge financing gap
El País comments on the joint declaration:
“The document issued by the UN Conference on Financing for Development is a commitment to multilateralism at a time marked by the dismantling of international structures for development cooperation and the financial vacuum left by the United States. ... The Sevilla Commitment does not set a new agenda but rather reaffirms the goals agreed upon at the previous three conferences, although it falls short of civil society expectations and real needs in the current context. ... The financing gap now stands at four trillion dollars, an alarming level almost equivalent to the annual GDP of Germany or Japan.”
Sustainability is not a left-wing conspiracy
El Mundo laments a negative trend:
“Ending hunger and poverty, guaranteeing health and high-quality education, reducing inequality. These are some of the goals set for 2030 at the UN General Assembly ten years ago. ... They are so reasonable that one wonders who could possibly be against them. ... But the fact is that more and more people are embracing an ideology that opposes multilateralism and development cooperation. ... They see all this as a left-wing conspiracy. ... The countries of the Global South are getting deeper and deeper into debt, while the countries of the North are investing more of their resources into rearming. The world is in a much worse state today than it was ten years ago.”
Dangerous wave of cuts
The cuts to US development aid under Trump are having a devastating impact, The Guardian explains:
“A study published in the Lancet predicted that Donald Trump's aid cuts could claim more than 14 million lives by 2030, a third of them among children. ... Its move encouraged others to follow suit. The UK, Germany and France are slashing their aid budgets to spend more on defence. ... It is not just grim news for aid recipients. It bodes ill for all. It would be naive to imagine that aid is a high‑mindedly altruistic endeavour. Just as conflict breeds hunger and poverty, so injustice and deprivation breed instability and a more dangerous world.”
Financial support and climate action must go hand in hand
A collective of NGOs demands in Libération:
“Ten years after the Paris Agreement, climate financing must support projects that enable vulnerable countries to commit to ambitious measures to mitigate and adapt to climate change without increasing their debt burden. ... What people are demanding today is not charity but a fair global financial system that meets their needs and those of the planet, and in which decisions are no longer taken solely by rich countries in their own interests.”