MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION
16.2.2005
pursuant to Rule 108(5) of the Rules of Procedure
by Miguel Angel Martínez Martínez, Enrique Barón Crespo, Luis Yañez-Barnuevo García and Pasqualina Napoletano
on behalf of the PSE Group
on action against hunger and poverty
B6‑0116/2005
European Parliament resolution on action against hunger and poverty
The European Parliament,
– having regard to the initiative launched on 20 September 2004 by President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, along with the Presidents of France, Spain and Chile and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, on international action to fight hunger, overcome poverty and increase financing for development,
– having regard to the global commitment to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the review of progress towards their achievement that will be carried out in New York in September 2005,
– having regard to the conclusions reached by the G8 countries meeting in Gleneagles on 6‑8 January 2005 and the outcome of the World Social Forum held in Porto Alegre and the World Economic Forum held in Davos, both in January 2005,
– having regard to the conclusions of the 1995 World Summit for Social Development and the commitment that 20% of development aid should be spent on basic social services,
– having regard to the OECD definition of official development assistance (ODA),
– having regard to Rule 108(5) of its Rules of Procedure,
A. whereas the initiative of the 'Quintet against hunger' focused particularly on finding innovative methods to finance development,
B. whereas aid, debt relief and trade are recognised as being interrelated, and whereas measures in all three areas need to complement each other in order to achieve genuine development,
C. whereas it is estimated that at least a doubling of international aid (currently $50 billion) will be needed in order to achieve the MDGs, and whereas two-thirds of developing countries spend more on debt servicing than on basic social services,
D. whereas most developing countries are not on course to meet the MDGs by 2015,
E. whereas the EU and its Member States are lagging behind on their MDG commitments, and whereas only four Member States have thus far achieved the 0.7% of GDP target for development aid,
F. whereas the OECD divides developing countries into five categories according to their per capita GDP, the poorest of these being the least developed countries (LDCs), and whereas the EU and a majority of Member States do not focus their development spending on the poorest countries,
G. whereas the proposed International Finance Facility (IFF) would use aid pledges as collateral for issuing bonds on international markets in order to release money to be spent now, and whereas the IFF pilot project, the IFF for immunisation, has an agreed work programme,
H. whereas poverty alleviation must remain the heart of the EU's development policy, as stated in the new European Constitution,
Levels and effectiveness of aid
1. Congratulates the four EU Member States[1] that have surpassed the 0.7% of GDP target for development aid and commends the five Member States[2] that have set timetables to achieve this level of ODA, and particularly those new Member States that have dramatically increased their development budgets; urges the remaining Member States that have failed to reach these levels and have not set timetables to do so without delay;
2. Calls on the Commission to use its forthcoming communication on reviewing development financing commitments to suggest establishing an EU timetable for as many EU Member States as possible to meet the 0.7% target by 2010 and to set longer-term targets for the new Member States; calls for the establishment of intermediary annual targets towards increasing ODA, monitored by GAERC or ECOFIN;
3. Notes that in 2003 only 2.4% of spending was earmarked for basic education and 3.8% for health, despite consistent calls by Parliament for such spending to reach at least 20%; calls, in this regard, on the Commission to improve its own contribution to the MDGs by ensuring that development aid spending on the ground on health and education increases dramatically;
4. Calls on the EU to ensure that development aid remains geared towards alleviating poverty and achieving the MDGs, and calls, in this regard, on the EU Member States to ensure that the definition of official development assistance set by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) under the aegis of the OECD is not altered to include security expenditure;
5. Calls on the EU to ensure that the instruments to implement development policy remain totally separate from those instruments guiding economic cooperation; calls on the Commission to ensure that official development assistance can be clearly tracked in all aspects of the EU's external relations budget;
6. Underlines, in this regard, that the EU must endeavour not to jeopardise development policy by incorporating political or security concerns; emphasises that the ongoing work by Javier Solana on the external aspects of justice and home affairs must take this into account;
7. Notes that only two EU Member States have completely 'untied' their aid, the rest giving aid that may be conditional upon buying goods and services from the donor country; calls on all Member States and the EU to completely untie their development aid without delay; asks the Commission to monitor closely the levels of tied aid given by Member States to developing countries;
8. Calls on the Commission to make EU development spending more effective and visible by budgeting for large amounts of new money so that EU aid can spearhead global initiatives; calls on the Commission to look into providing €1 billion in additional funding to take the lead in the global fight against malaria, as suggested by Jeffrey Sachs, Special Advisor to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals;
International tax
9. Calls on the Commission and the EU Member States to give their political support to long-term innovative financing measures for development, such as taxes on international currency transfers, arms sales and air travel; stresses that all such funds must be additional to the standing commitment by governments to earmark 0.7% of their GDP for ODA;
Debt
10. Welcomes the example set by the G8 countries and other EU Member States in pledging to provide up to 100% relief on bilateral and multilateral debt for the world's poorest countries; calls on all EU Member States to cancel bilateral debt from the developing world, to implement such pledges without delay, and to investigate initiatives to cancel the multilateral debt of the world's poorest countries to the IMF and World Bank, such as the proposed use of the IMF's gold reserves;
11. Underlines that debt relief should prioritise all LDCs and countries where relief is needed to enable those countries to reach the MDGs; stresses that debt relief should only be undertaken on condition that money gained by governments from such relief must be channelled towards helping the poorest in their communities;
12. Insists that all money for debt cancellation must come from new funds and not serve to divert resources from existing development budgets - debt cancellation must not count towards donor countries' ODA target of 0.7% of GDP; to this end, calls for debt relief to be treated and reported separately from aid;
13. Stresses that without phasing out the debt repayments of developing countries, thereby enabling money to go into core services such as health and education, it will be practically impossible to achieve the Millennium Development Goals;
Complementarity
14. Calls for coordinated action by the world's biggest trade players to promote fair trade as a means of alleviating poverty whilst ensuring greater market access for the poorest countries and providing appropriate trade-related technical assistance, including capacity building, in order to maximise the development opportunities stemming from trade;
15. Reiterates the need identified in Article 178 of the EC Treaty for the Community to assess on a systematic basis, through the use of ex-ante impact studies, whether its development policy objectives are being undermined by other policy actions;
16. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to eliminate immediately all export subsidies and to make agricultural reform a political priority;
17. Underlines the need for developing countries to protect their fledgling agricultural sectors, and stresses that the poorest countries must not be subjected to demands for reciprocal trade liberalisation;
18. Stresses that cooperation with developing countries must in no case impose conditions that oblige these countries to liberalise their public services;
IFF
19. Welcomes the International Finance Facility (IFF) proposal, and the support shown by EU Member States such as the UK, France, Italy and Germany for the Facility; calls, however, for more information about how the IFF would be administered and assurances that funds will be used for poverty reduction, that beneficiary countries will be involved in the governance of the facility and that no harmful conditionality clauses will be incorporated into the mechanisms;
20. Stresses that the IFF should be used to raise additional development funds, not as a substitute for Member States adopting binding timetables to reach the ODA target of 0.7% of GDP, and that all countries supporting the IFF must publicly guarantee that repayments to the IFF will not be taken from aid budgets, nor be counted as ODA;
21. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council, the governments of the Member States, the Heads of State of the G8 countries, the governments of the Paris Club countries and the members of the London Club.