OECD demands more Swiss development aid

from Peace Journalism

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has demanded Switzerland to increase its development aid from 2009, Swiss Radio International (SRI) reported on Thursday.

In a report published on Thursday in Berlin, OECD looked at its overall aid volume and examined whether donors were on track to reach their goal of increasing aid to 130 billion U.S. dollars globally and doubling aid to Africa by 2010.

The report said Switzerland's contribution of 0.44 percent of gross national product (GNP) in 2005 was 0.03 percent below the average of the 22 member countries that make up the OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC).

In absolute figures, Switzerland was 14th among the 22 donor countries, with a contribution of 1.77 billion Swiss francs (about 1.43 billion U.S. dollars) in development aid in 2005.

Although Switzerland's 2005 contribution was in line with the objectives it set, from 2009 new funding goals have to be established and volumes re-thought, OECD said in the "Development Cooperation Report."

The United Nations has called on countries to raise spending to 0.56 percent of GNP by 2010 and to 0.7 percent by 2015 to combat global poverty.

The Swiss government has pledged to meet the percentage set out in the UN Millennium Development Goals. But NGOs have accused it of artificially boosting its aid figures by adding assistance to asylum seekers from developing countries in Switzerland.

The latest OECD report said donors would have to increase funding for aid programs faster that any other public expenditure in order to fulfill their commitments to increase aid to 130 billion U.S. dollars and double aid to Africa by 2010.

Aid funding, recently rising by 5 percent per year, would have to rise by 11 per cent every year from 2008 to 2010, it stated.

The majority of European Union member states have committed themselves to raise contributions to 0.7 percent of GNP by 2015, and four have already achieved that target, according to the report.