EU ‘stingy’ on development

EU poverty relief and debt cancellation to poor countries is falling below commitments set to halve world poverty by 2015.

With 2005 set to focus on development, a report released on Monday argues that the EU must do more to curb global poverty and to pressure “other stingy donors” to do likewise.

The report published by international development NGOs claims that rich countries are “way off track” in meeting commitments to help poor countries meet the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.

“Of the €295 billion owed by 52 poor countries – only 36 billion has been cancelled as of today,” said Louise Hilditch of Action Aid International.

This leaves many countries in a situation where they pay “more in debt relief than in healthcare for their own countries,” she added.

The report also criticises the EU’s trading rules arguing that despite pro-reform rhetoric, there has been a failure to make international trade work for poor people.

The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy “devastates livelihoods in developing countries,” said Oxfam’s Luis Morago, arguing that it leads to the dumping of subsidised exports on world markets and blocks imports from poor countries.

The UN Millennium Development Goals, agreed in 2000, aim to improve the lives of half the world’s poor over a period of 15 years.

World leaders agreed to raise over 500 million people out of abject poverty and to prevent 250 million from going hungry.

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