France further increases its official development assistance

Promises are kept. The 2023 finance bill does indeed provide for a further increase in the budget allocated to official development assistance (ODA). As it stands, it is planned to devote 5.9 billion euros to it, an increase of 15.7% compared to the previous year. This envelope is supplemented by an amount of 740 million euros in taxes from the income generated by the tax on financial transactions and the solidarity tax on airline tickets.

“This increase is very good news and we commend this effort. We are now asking for methods of allocating these financial volumes, in a period where crises are adding up, overlapping and feeding each other, which make it possible to achieve France’s geographical and sectoral priorities as defined by law. reacted Olivier Bruyeron, the president of the NGO Coordination SUD.

Last September, the Head of State Emmanuel Macron promised the means of France’s international action would be “consolidated and adapted”. Thanks to the the planning law relating to solidarity development and the fight against global inequalities on August 4, 2021, its second five-year term should lead to regular growth in French ODA. The finance bill already advances an amount of nearly 7 billion euros in 2025.

In the immediate future, for 2023, the efforts will focus on humanitarian action (642 million euros) via the contribution to the humanitarian emergency fund and the credits allocated to the FARM initiative (75 million) which will pass through the program global food. The government also plans to increase its contribution to the global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria beyond the commitment of 1.3 billion euros made over three years (2020-2022).

Paris also announces nearly 400 million euros for the Green Climate Fund and the African Development Fund. In addition to contributions to the International Development Association (IDA), the subsidiary of the World Bank intended to help the poorest countries, and contributions to the UN, the government has also announced an increase in credits to more than one billion euros for the financing of projects through recourse to the French Development Agency (AFD).

0.55% of gross national income

Because French public development aid is also complemented by the operations of this latter body, half-agency, half-bank. Emmanuel Macron had underlined the “key role” of the AFD, the main operator of France’s development policy, whose managing director has just been appointed for a third three-year term. The finance bill also provides for a strengthening of its own funds to the tune of 3% of the total amount of credits allocated.

Here again, the lights are green since AFD doubled its activity between 2016 (7 billion euros) and 2019 (14 billion) before stabilizing at around 12 billion. In 2021 alone, the agency funded 995 projects for a total of 12.15 billion euros . Projects in more than 130 countries have essentially focused on health, education and agriculture or access to electricity.

All in all, French official development assistance should continue to improve compared to to $15.4 billion in 2021 identified , last April, by the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD. Fifth-largest donor worldwide, France will nevertheless have to continue its efforts to catch up with the United Nations commitments to devote 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) to official development assistance. For 2022, the government announces that it should reach 0.55% of GNI. The percentage was 0.43% in 2017 at the start of the first five-year term.