Report: EU remains world's leading donor of development assistance

BRUSSELS, April 10 (KUNA) -- The European Union and its Member States continue to be the world's leading provider of Official Development Assistance (ODA) with an overall amount of 75.7 billion euro (USD 93.3 billion) in 2017, the European Commission said in a press release Tuesday.
Quoting figures released by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), it said that this amount represents 0.50% of EU Gross National Income (GNI).
However, the figures presented today show a 2.4% decrease of EU collective ODA for 2017 compared to the previous year, by 1.9 billion euro (USD 2.3 billion).
On the other hand, Global ODA, decreased from 131 billion euro (USD 161 billion) in 2016 to 130 billion euro (USD 160 billion) in 2017.
EU Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, Neven Mimica, commented that "the EU and its Member States continue to provide over half of the total Official Development Assistance globally, investing in people, stronger institutions and societies." "However, I am strongly concerned about the decrease of EU collective ODA and of development assistance worldwide.
Achieving sustainable development requires a persistent collective effort. We know we need to do more.
As the world's leading ODA provider the EU must show leadership and responsibility," he added. (end) nk.sd