Financing for development – ahead of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in Seville

11.6.2025 A10-0101/1

Amendment 1

Marc Jongen, Tomasz Froelich

on behalf of the ESN Group

Report A10-0101/2025

Charles Goerens

Financing for development – ahead of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in Seville

(2025/2004(INI))

Motion for a resolution (Rule 188(3) of the Rules of Procedure) replacing non-legislative motion for a resolution A10-0101/2025

European Parliament resolution on financing for development – ahead of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in Seville

The European Parliament,

– having regard to European Court of Auditors Special Report No 13/2012 of 28 September 2012 entitled ‘European Union Development Assistance for Drinking-Water Supply and Basic Sanitation in Sub-Saharan Countries’,

– having regard to European Court of Auditors Special Report No 17/2012 of 29 October 2012 entitled ‘The European Development Fund (EDF) contribution to a sustainable road network in sub-Saharan Africa’,

– having regard to European Court of Auditors Special Report No 9/2013 of 1 October 2013 entitled ‘EU support for governance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’,

– having regard to European Court of Auditors Special Report No 11/2015 of 20 October 2015 entitled ‘Are the Fisheries Partnership Agreements well managed by the Commission?’,

– having regard to European Court of Auditors Special Report No 9/2016 of 17 March 2016 entitled ‘EU external migration spending in Southern Mediterranean and Eastern Neighbourhood countries until 2014’,

– having regard to European Court of Auditors Special Report No 20/2018 of 18 September 2018 entitled ‘The African Peace and Security Architecture: need to refocus EU support’,

– having regard to European Court of Auditors Special Report No 17/2021 of 13 September 2021 entitled ‘EU readmission cooperation with third countries: relevant actions yielded limited results’,

– having regard to European Court of Auditors Special Report No 17/2024 of 25 September 2024 entitled ‘The EU trust fund for Africa – Despite new approaches, support remained unfocused’,

– having regard to World Bank policy research working paper 9150 of February 2020 entitled ‘Elite Capture of Foreign Aid – Evidence from Offshore Bank Accounts’,

– having regard to the Brookings Institution report of 2 March 2020 entitled ‘Illicit financial flows in Africa: Drivers, destinations, and policy options’,

– having regard to Interpol’s 2024 Global Financial Fraud Assessment,

– having regard to Rule 55 of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas Article 208 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) identifies the reduction and, in the long term, eradication, of poverty as the primary objective of the EU’s development cooperation; whereas Article 21(2) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) reaffirms the EU’s commitment to supporting human rights, preserving peace and preventing conflict, assisting populations, countries and regions confronting natural or man-made disasters, and contributing to the sustainable management of global natural resources;

B. whereas more than 700 million people worldwide are living in extreme poverty, a figure that keeps increasing; whereas a fifth of the world’s population lives in countries with high levels of inequality; whereas the wealth gap within many developing countries is widening;

C. whereas, currently, Africa is home to nearly 1.5 billion people with a majority under the age of 20; whereas the number of Africans will reach 2.4 billion by 2050, and the total will peak at 4.2 billion by the end of the century; whereas by around 2070, Africa is expected to surpass Asia as the most populous continent;

D. whereas financial fraud and corruption cost Africa more than USD 90 billion per year; whereas this enormous amount of lost resources could otherwise be invested in critical development needs including water, sanitation, health, food and energy infrastructure;

E. whereas most developing countries lack a sound public finance system, primarily due to bad governance, making these countries particularly vulnerable to tax evasion and avoidance activities of individual taxpayers and corporations;

F. whereas foreign direct investment and official development assistance (ODA) to sub-Saharan Africa reached nearly USD 2 trillion between 1980 and 2018, while illicit financial flows from that region reached USD 1 trillion;

G. whereas according to a 2020 World Bank report, 7.5 % of ODA finds its way into bank accounts in tax havens, and the greater a country’s dependence on development aid, the higher the share that ends up in tax havens; whereas in countries whose GDP is lowest in proportion to the foreign aid they receive, the percentage of ODA that finds its way into tax havens is roughly 15 %;

H. whereas in at least 18 African countries, high defence budgets consume 30 to 40 % of total public expenditure;

I. whereas ODA provided by member countries of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) amounted to USD 212.1 billion in 2024, representing 0.33 % of DAC members’ combined gross national income (GNI); whereas the United States continued to be the biggest ODA provider among DAC member countries (USD 63.3 billion), followed by Germany (USD 32.4 billion), the United Kingdom (USD 18 billion), Japan (USD 16.8 billion) and France (USD 15.4 billion);

J. whereas on 20 January 2025, the United States enforced a 90-day suspension of all foreign assistance programmes, including those administered by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and reaffirmed its withdrawal from the World Health Organization and the Paris Agreement; whereas officials working in USAID have refused scrutiny over the agency’s practices; whereas a government audit in 2024 found that USAID could not account for overhead costs of more than USD 142.5 billion;

K. whereas the upcoming Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in 2025 represents an ideal moment for the start of a necessary reform of the failed international and EU development policy;

L. whereas the EU and its Member States are confronted with a massive influx of migrants whose countries of origin mostly refuse to cooperate with regard to readmission;

1. Notes that the primary official objective of EU development policy is the reduction, and in the long term, the eradication of poverty, while also contributing to fostering economic development in developing countries;

2. Regrets that none of the major problems of ODA have been fundamentally addressed since they first appeared in the 1960s;

3. Regrets that there has never been a fundamental debate at the national and EU levels about the effectiveness of development aid, and that the obvious contradictions within existing concepts and instruments are not addressed;

4. Emphasises that for decades, EU development spending in various fields has been ineffective and regrets that this failed policy continues;

5. Reiterates that EU development policy must be guided by the principles and objectives of coherence, efficiency and effectiveness, and that it must learn from past mistakes;

6. Advocates, in accordance with the principle of responsible and sustainable fiscal policy, against any attempt at a blanket debt cut for countries that do not adequately control their spending;

7. Opposes holding private creditors in the EU liable for the restructuring of developing countries’ debt;

8. Demands that any discussion about possible debt relief for developing countries must be based on political preconditions that align with the interests of European citizens, with particular emphasis on cooperation regarding the readmission of immigrants;

9. Considers that the adoption of the functional target of 0.7 % of GNI for real aid budgets across all aid donors is a bad policy; is of the opinion that aid as a fraction of a country’s income does not constitute a meaningful metric for the adequacy of financial aid flows; considers that an efficient development policy needs to start from an estimate of the real aid needs on the recipient side, and then formulate a meaningful model and strategy for how aid can foster development; calls for the EU and its Member States to officially drop the 0.7 % aid target and calls instead for a new development strategy aimed at improving the quality of development aid;

10. Stresses the importance of quality management, involving error analyses and impact assessments, for increasing development aid efficiency; emphasises that the suitability and accuracy of the different support funds have to be assessed independently;

11. Affirms that tax challenges arising from the digitalisation and globalisation of the economy must not be misused as an excuse to interfere with the right of sovereign states to determine their own legislation; rejects, in particular, any attempt to introduce global minimum taxes as well as property taxes;

12. Emphasises the need to continue working on combating illicit financial flows, in particular out of developing countries, and corruption, inter alia by investing in human capacities, skills, and digitalisation, building up accessible and interoperable data sets, introducing tighter controls on financial flows between developed and developing countries, in particular curbing remittances from illegal immigrants to their countries of origin, strengthening governance structures, enhancing regulatory frameworks and promoting regional cooperation;

13. Welcomes the new strategy for Sweden’s global development cooperation on migration, returns and voluntary repatriation for 2024-2028; calls for the EU and its Member States to follow the Swedish example and make development aid conditional, ensuring that recipient countries cooperate regarding the readmission of their nationals, including by removing impediments to enforcement such as the refusal to issue travel documents;

14. Considers that aid cuts worldwide would provide an opportunity for developing countries to end their dependency on development aid; calls for the EU and its Member States to drastically reform their development policy, freeing them from ideology and focusing on quality instead of quantity;

15. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the governments and the parliaments of the Member States.

Or. en