New figures confirm that the European Union and its member states have consolidated their place as the world’s leading aid donor in 2016. But NGOs and MEPs say the picture is distorted and the aid figures are inflated. Preliminary OECD figures show that Official Development Assistance (ODA) provided by the EU and its member states has reached €75.5 billion in 2016. This constitutes an 11% increase compared to 2015 levels. Highest level to date The EU’s assistance has increased for the fourth year in a row and reached its highest level to date, the Commission said in a press release yesterday (11 April). In 2016, EU collective ODA represented 0.51% of EU Gross National Income (GNI), having increased from 0.47% in 2015.
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The European Commission has announced humanitarian assistance of €47 million to help people in need in the Great Lakes and Southern Africa and Indian Ocean regions, who continue to face the consequences of years of conflict and displacement, as well as widespread food insecurity and natural disasters. Of the €47 million announced, €32 will go to populations in the Great Lakes region – including the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania, while €15 million will go to the Southern Africa and Indian Ocean region, including Madagascar, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland, and Lesotho.
THE African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved $450 million about (Rwf372 billion) trade finance facility for the African Export–Import Bank (Afreximbank). The facility consists of a three-year $150 million unfunded risk participation agreement and a four-year $300 million loan to support exporters. According to Dr George Elombi, the executive vice-president for corporate governance and legal services at Afreximbank, the composite facility will help to expand Afreximbank’s risk bearing capacity for the confirmation of letters of credit and to support more trade through the provision of increased funding to financial institutions and corporate firms in Africa. The project is aligned with AfDB’s priority goals, including lighting up and powering Africa, and helping to feed and industrialise the continent.
During an official visit to Kenya, the European Investment Bank (EIB) has pledged new support for projects in the power and transport sectors.Also, at a press conference In Nairobi with Cabinet Secretary for the Treasury Henry K. Rotich, the signature of a connectivity project was announced. The EIB’s three-day programme will include a site visit to the Lake Turkana Wind Park, the largest windfarm in sub-Saharan Africa developed by the private sector, which the EIB helped finance in 2014.At the Treasury the EIB signed the “Last Mile Connectivity” project, which will connect nearly 300.000 Kenyan households (equalling up to 1.5 million Kenyans) to the national electricity grid.
Experts have highlighted the importance “coherent global actions” to ensure the sustainability of the world’s fish stocks – a valuable export commodity for more than 60 ACP countries. Fisheries is particularly significant to the ACP’s 37 member states that are classified as Small Island Developing States (SIDS) as well as coastal economies.
The signing of the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community (EEC) 60 years ago in March 1957, came at a tumultuous time in relations between Europe and Africa. Just weeks earlier Kwame Nkrumah had declared Ghana a republic, an event which was a turning point in the decolonisation of sub-Saharan Africa. Nkrumah remarked that the treaty's inclusion of colonial territories was to neocolonialism what the Berlin Treaty of 1885 had been to colonialism.
More than 1800 sugarcane and 6000 produce growers and their families will benefit from an EU-funded $30 million cane access road project launched by Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama yesterday. The EU supported project, implemented by the Pacific Community's (SPC) rural access roads and associated infrastructure (RARAI) will be rolled out at Koronubu in Ba, Malolo in Nadi and Drasa in Lautoka. Residents living in Malolo Sector, Nadi, where work on 29 kilometres of roads began yesterday, had raised concerns about the poor state of the access-way for many years. While launching the project, Mr Bainimarama said the Government had a steadfast commitment to not just sustain the industry but to keep it growing well into the future.
Lead beekeepers from Vanua Levu went through a weeklong training (Feb. 20-24) in an effort to revive Fiji’s honey industry, which was devastated by Tropical Cyclone Winston. This training was one of the recovery activities of the European Union-funded “Increasing Agricultural Commodities Trade” project, implemented by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community. The IACT project provided approximately FJD 4 million in recovery support, mainly focused on rebuilding and strengthening key value chains in the agriculture and aquaculture sectors.
The sugarcane industry remains an important sector of the Fijian economy. The industry supports the livelihoods of almost 200,000 Fijians. The European Union (EU) is a key development partner for Fiji’s sugarcane industry and the people whose livelihoods depend on it. As part of its Accompanying Measures for Sugar Protocol programme (AMSP 2013), the EU is implementing 11 projects, with a total investment of around FJ$100 million, in partnership with a number of national and international agencies and relevant Fiji Government ministries. One such collaboration is with the Australian Government in the context of the Training Support to the Fiji Sugarcane Industry (FSI) project.The project focuses on training sugarcane industry workers across the sugar belt regions of Fiji to improve their productivity and efficiency by upgrading their technical and management skills.