AidWatch Report 2010 launched around Europe

The 2010 AidWatch report “Penalty Against Poverty: More and Better EU aid can score Millenium Development Goals” was officially launched on 10 June, at a press conference in Brussels that was echoed in similar events around Europe.

The report, which chastises European governments for missing their official development aid targets and jeopardising global efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goals, was released the week before the European leaders’ meeting in Brussels to decide a common position to take to the September MDG summit.

The launch event in Brussels brought together representatives from the three main EU institutions as well as a spokesperson on the report, a representative of Southern civil society and a representative of CONCORD. The EU Commissioner for Development, Mr Andris Piebalgs, also commented on the report following its launch, saying that “This report comes at the right time [...] Europe’s credibility rests in sticking to our commitments. [...] We need to scale up aid, make it more effective and make other EU policies work for development. We have just five years for the Millennium Development Goals to become the Millennium Development Achievements. This is doable and the MDGs are just too big to fail.”

Other AidWatch events around Europe included launches in a number of the new member states. The Bulgarian platform for example is planning a launch event and most NMS will send out press releases and review the coverage they receive around the launch. In some new member states, such as the Czech Republic and Poland, the report will be launched with national reports after the summer break.

Links: The 2010 AidWatch report can be downloaded from the CONCORD website www.concordeurope.org or directly here (10MB, zipped)

Information provided by Rebecca Steel-Jasińska, TRIALOG