The European Union is set to fall 19 billion euros (23 billion dollars) short of its aid promises to developing countries this year unless it boosts funding rapidly, a coalition of leading aid groups warned on Thursday, according to dpa. The EU is committed to boosting its development aid to 0.7 per cent of gross national income by 2015, and to hit a level of 0.56 per cent this year. But key states such as Italy, Germany and France are well short of that figure. "EU aid is 19 billion euros short of what was promised to developing countries by 2010," Justin Kilcullen, head of European umbrella non-governmental organisation (NGO) Concord, said. Concord's 1,600 members include leading development NGOs such as Oxfam, Action Aid, Caritas and Save the Children. In 2000, EU leaders signed up to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), an ambitious pledge to end severe poverty and the associated disease, hunger and death by 2015. But few EU states have put those pledges into practice. Italy, for example, is estimated to be some 4.5 billion euros behind in its funding, Germany 2.6 billion and France 800 million. Funding has fallen even further behind over the last year as the financial crisis has swamped national budgets. "EU aid efforts are being crippled by a crisis of commitment ... They are well off-track on aid and abandoning their international commitments on aid effectiveness," said Hussaini Abdu, Country Director of Action Aid Nigeria. EU leaders are set to debate the MDGs at a summit in Brussels on June 17. According to internal papers, the summit is set to reaffirm the EU's "commitment to achieve the ... development aid targets." In April, the EU's executive, the European Commission, set out a 12-point action plan designed to get EU aid efforts back on track by, among other efforts, making them set out annual plans to boost aid, and then apply them. The summit must now "come up with an ambitious MDG action plan," Elise Ford, head of Oxfam's EU office, said. World leaders are expected to debate progress on the MDGs at a summit in New York in September. June's EU summit is meant to set out the bloc's position for that meeting.
