French public development assistance: which sectors affected by budget cuts?
The French government this week made ten billion euros in budget cuts in its spending.
Among the sectors affected: official development assistance (ODA).
In recent years, while Paris had displayed an ambitious policy in the area, wanting to allocate 0.7% of its gross national income (GNI) to this sector, France has become the fourth provider of aid in the world.
The decree has finally come down, there will ultimately be 800 million savings to be made.
Field work in Africa (illustrative image).
One of the programs affected concerns food aid and is managed by the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs.
Laurent Correau / RFI
By: Charlotte Cosset Follow
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Two programs are concerned according to the French government decree.
First of all, 110, which concerns
economic and financial aid
for development, under the responsibility of the General Directorate of the Treasury.
This concentrates a significant portion of credits intended for multilateral development institutions.
Among them: the International Development Association (IDA), the African Development Fund (ADF), the Green Climate Fund and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) as well as financing bilateral debt cancellations and multilateral agreements, sometimes decided several years ago, or even bilateral credits to help States borrow at favorable rates.
Priority is given to the Mediterranean and Africa.
No arbitration yet for the cuts
Second program affected: 209, relating to food aid and managed by the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs.
This program provides direct aid to various international organizations such as the WFP or the FAO.
It also makes it possible to implement French policy through various operators, including AFD, Expertise France, the Foundation for Agriculture and Rurality in the World (Farm) and the French organization for agricultural research and international cooperation, CIRAD.
Where exactly will the cuts take place?
No arbitration seems to have yet been made according to several players.
It's a safe bet that corridor negotiations at Bercy are underway and the balance of power is at work, suggests one of them.
There was no consultation, regrets another, who claims to have received no details on the measures to come despite requests for details.
The Treasury and Bercy have not yet responded to RFI's requests.
A “
negative signal
”
The Foundation for Agriculture and Rurality in the World (Farm) “
is concerned about this negative signal
”.
The latter, which has just organized a major conference in Paris bringing together nearly 900 participants, assures that it will however “
continue to call for greater mobilization of public and private financing in favor of the transformation of agriculture
”.
Following this announcement, around a hundred NGOs signed a forum warning of this decision which "
calls into question the principles of justice and solidarity, tarnishes France's reputation internationally and, even more seriously, endangers human lives.
»
French public development aid increased from ten to fifteen billion euros between 2018 and 2023 (from 0.43% to 0.56% of GNI).
The ambition to increase France's development aid to 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) will not be achieved as planned in 2025, but is postponed to 2030.
Read alsoAccording to the OECD, public development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa is declining
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