AidWatch

2011 AidWatch Report

May 2011

The 2011 AidWatch report was launched in Brussels on 19 May, detailing the performance of EU members states against their agreed targets on aid quantity and quality.

Now in its sixth year, the AidWatch report is the annual flagship pan-European report that documents and analyses the aid commitments of all 27 EU member states. As well as country by country summaries, the report also offers a comprehensive comparative analysis and an in-depth investigation of key development issues. In the lead up to the high level forum on aid effectiveness (HLF4) in November, this year’s report focuses on the issue of aid quality.

Read the 2011 AidWatch Report and the CONCORD press release

Review the aid performance of each member state

Report highlights:

The EU is the world’s biggest aid donor but in 2010, only nine countries, including the UK,met the EU aid targets.
In 2010 EU member states inflated official aid spending by more than €5bn. This is equivalent to almost 10% of the total aid provided by the EU to partner countries last year.
Aid is becoming increasingly dictated by domestic political agendas and tied to security, immigration and commercial objectives

For more information about the 2011 report, please contact Joanna Rea, jrea@bond.org.uk

EU Foreign Affairs Council Conclusions on Aid quantity

On May 23 the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) agreed Council Conclusions on Aid levels. The document, 'The First Annual Report to the European Council on EU Development Aid Targets' is one of the many conclusions from the May FAC.

About AidWatch

AidWatch is an initiative by CONCORD, the pan-European confederation of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working on international development issues. AidWatch monitors and advocates on the quantity and quality of the Official Development Assistance (ODA)provided by European Union Member States and the European Commission. AidWatch represents civil society organisations (CSOs) working onthe quantity and quality of aid across the 27 Member States of theEuropean Union (EU). The AidWatch project is currently co-ordinated by Alessandro Bozzini.

As a member of CONCORD, Bond and its partner network the UK Aid Network (UKAN) actively contribute to the policy and campaigning work associated with the AidWatch initiative in the UK and in the EU.

AidWatch issues a report annually on how EU states are performing on the quantity and quality of aid. The 2010 report "Penalty against Poverty: More and Better EU aid can score Millennium Development Goals" stressed that EU Member States are missing their official development aid targets and jeopardising global efforts to reach the MDGs.

The 2009 report "Lighten the Loa d" highlighted that EU governments are still unlikely to achieve their aid commitments by 2015, and that aid quality and effectiveness is still problematic.

In 2008, the report was entitled "No Time to Waste". The report highlighted serious discrepancies between the levels of aid that EU governments had promised to deliver, and those that they actually did. The report also exposed that governments, including the UK government, were inflating the figures they claimed as aid by including items there that weren't really aid, such as debt relief and migration control measures.