aid budget

The report, "Who Profits from the Global Gateway? The EU's new strategy for development cooperation" attempts to answer the question: is the Global Gateway prioritising the EU's foreign policy goals and its own economic interests over positive development outcomes in its partner countries? This report builds on previous research and provides a timely and comprehensive analysis of the Global Gateway, including its financing, governance and latest projects.

In response to the publication today of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) preliminary data on Official Development Assistance (ODA) for 2024, Oxfam International’s Aid Policy Lead Salvatore Nocerino said: “Today’s figures lay bare an ugly truth: even before this year’s devastating cuts to aid, rich countries had already begun to renege on their moral obligations to the world’s most vulnerable communities. Not only had they been reducing aid, but also spending a significant share of it within their own borders to cover refugee costs. Only a handful of countries, including Luxembourg, New Zealand, Spain and South Korea, maintained or increased their aid budgets in 2024, and are expected to do the same this year."

The EU’s new global investment and development strategy, the Global Gateway, risks diverting the aid budget to big business, a new report by Counter Balance, Eurodad and Oxfam reveals. “Who profits from the Global Gateway? The EU’s new strategy for development cooperation” finds that over 60 percent of projects analysed benefit at least one European company. 

Oxfam among 20 aid organizations deeply concerned and outraged that some of the largest donors have suspended funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the main aid provider for millions of Palestinians in Gaza and the region. These aid cuts come amid a rapidly worsening humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. 

The European Union has adopted a new approach to foreign policy dubbed the “Global Gateway,” supported by a new European Financial Architecture for Development (EFAD). These policies are a direct response to the state of permacrises that the world finds itself in. It seeks to inject 180-300 billion euros over a period of six years into the EU’s partner countries in the form of infrastructure projects, a green transition and digitalisation. 

The global repercussions of the Ukraine crisis ―already being felt in fast-rising food, commodity and energy prices― could undermine official aid efforts to help people in other humanitarian hot-spots. 

The only way to avoid the pandemic devastating lives and livelihoods at an untold scale is for rich countries to mobilise all available resources, said Oxfam in response to a new European Commission plan outlining how the EU will support developing countries in the face of COVID-19.

EU development aid is for ending poverty, reducing inequality, and promoting gender justice. Oxfam advocates for the EU to make sure that aid serves these ends and that there is enough money in the aid pot to do so.

ONE and Oxfam welcome that the highest amount of funding ever has been allocated to refugees and development programs in the European Union's 2016 budget.