Warning over poverty aid pledges

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A new report says aid pledges are being missed year on year - threatening progress towards the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals of halving global poverty and halting the spread of HIV/Aids by 2015.

At present rates, the EU will have given £60 billion less in aid by 2010 than it has pledged, according to "No Time Waste", a document published by Concord, an umbrella group representing 1,600 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) across Europe.

"One hundred thousand estimated dead in Burma, food prices rocketing and a woman dying every minute in pregnancy or childbirth: now, more than ever European governments must deliver the aid they promised to the world's poor," said Concord president Justin Killcullen.

The report points out that the UK aid budget is set to increase substantially, and welcomes UK Government commitments to ensure that aid is spent effectively on reducing poverty.

But it says those commitments have not yet been fully put into practice.

The UK has already promised to raise its annual aid contribution to 0.7% of national income by 2013, although figures released last month by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) show that European aid generally fell from 0.41% of national income in 2006 to 0.38% of national income in 2007 for the 15 "old" EU member states. Belgium, France and the UK recorded falls of between 10% and 30% last year.

If debt relief is taken out of the calculation - as NGOs say it should be - the EU15 average "genuine" aid contribution falls to 0.33% of national income in 2007, which was even less than the 2006 minimum pledge of 0.39%.

Max Lawson, of Oxfam, said: "Poor countries want more transparency and more predictable aid.

"The UK's total aid budget is rising fast, but each developing country needs to know that its share will arrive predictably. A poor country will not achieve targets on education if, having employed teachers one year, it has to sack them the next."