Africa: Some More Unequal to EU Than Others

from All Africa

Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)

David Cronin
Brussels

The European Union's development aid chief has been accused of prioritising central African countries for which he has a personal fixation at the expense of other needy nations.

Louis Michel, European commissioner for development, is currently assessing how aid for the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) bloc that was not spent within its stipulated timeframe should be used.

Of the 400 million euro (533 million dollars) already earmarked for particular countries, about a quarter has gone to three central African nations: Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Anti-poverty activists have complained that Michel may not be respecting the European Commission's own guidelines in distributing this aid. These guidelines state that recipient countries which have a good track record in ensuring that aid is used should be given preferential treatment when unspent money is being earmarked.

"What we are seeing is that there is no clear link between those who perform well and those who receive more money," said Rein Antonissen, European policy officer with the Belgian organisation 11.11.11.

"Some countries that are on the radar screen of the European Commission (the executive arm of the EU) receive much more money than others. The procedures being followed to reallocate this money are unclear."

Antonissen said he was not arguing that central Africa should not be granted increased funding. "But there should be transparency about why certain countries and regions are losing money, when others are gaining so much," he told IPS.

The sums being reallocated come from the European Development Fund (EDF), which was established following a 1957 decision by European leaders on financing former colonies. A total of 13.5 billion euro (18 billion dollars) was allocated to the EDF for the 2000-07 period.

As 3 billion euro (4 billion dollars) of money available to the fund had not been spent by the end of 2005, a large amount still has to be earmarked to particular countries.

Michel, who was Belgium's foreign minister from 1999 to 2004, has made no secret of his interest in central Africa. He has paid particular heed to conflict resolution efforts in Congo, a former Belgian country. The war that erupted in Congo during the late 1990s is estimated to have claimed four million lives, making it the deadliest the world has seen since the 1940s.

His spokesman Amadeu Altafaj defended the singling out of Congo.

"If four million dead is not a good reason to make the DRC a priority, then I don't know what is," he said. "The DRC is at the centre of a continent. It has huge potential for development but also has huge potential for springing violence onto its neighbours."

For a long time, he said, the DRC did not benefit from the attention of the international community. "In some way, we are partially responsible for the years of death and darkness there. We are emerging from a very dark decade, so we have to invest a lot of resources there."

Unpublished data seen by IPS indicates that 37 of the 78 ACP states have an above- average performance rate in making sure the aid they receive is committed to particular projects. Yet just 13 of these have so far received additional aid from the EU.

Uganda, Malawi, Angola, Chad, Swaziland, Botswana and Kenya are among those considered good performers not to have received any fresh aid.

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have long complained that they cannot hold the EDF under proper scrutiny. Because the fund is managed separately from the EU's main budget, the parliament does not have the same right to sign its accounts as it does with other areas of the Union's expenditure.

MEPs have demanded, too, that a minimum of 20 percent of the EU's development aid should go to health and education. Yet the proportions directed to these sectors from the EDF have fallen well below such targets.

Marta Monteso from ActionAid said that health and education will each be allocated 2 percent of the 23 billion euro (31 billion dollars) promised to the EDF from the Union's governments for 2008-13. This is lower than the proportions allocated in 2000-2007, when each of the sectors got 4-5 percent of the total.

Monteso described as "alarming" signals that unused money will not be used to any significant degree in the fight against AIDS and other leading killers of the poor.

Rather than use unspent sums for this purpose, sums have been taken from the EDF to cushion the blow for ACP sugar-producers from the EU's agricultural reform measures and for supporting the African Union peacekeeping mission in Sudan's Darfur region. This is despite the fact that expenditure on military operations does not meet the eligibility criteria for development aid drawn up by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, a grouping of 30 rich nations) in Paris.

Monteso also urged Michel and his officials to explain the grounds on which reallocation decisions are being made. "Non-governmental organisations have been asking for more transparency for eight months now," she said. "We still haven't got that."

The European Parliament has been pushing Michel to give it a formal role in monitoring the new set of aid plans for ACP countries which the Commission is currently finalising. Last month, though, Michel said he was precluded from doing so by rules covering the EDF.

Altafaj argued that it would be wrong to draw general conclusions from the reallocations that have taken place so far. "There are a number of situations we have to consider, so there is no one-size-fits-all approach. In some countries, health and education are a priority, in others they are not.

"If you look at the DRC, we have put together a package of 165 million euro (220 million dollars) to provide fast-impact actions. This is already showing dividends in terms of democracy and we see benefits in healthcare and water. We are working very hard not to lose one euro between now and the end of 2007."