The Acting Spanish President, Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, cited the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as the key focus of his governments development and cooperation policies, while giving his inaugural speech in the Spanish Parliament yesterday.
Although the EU is by far the world’s largest donor of development aid, its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) – which represents almost half of the EU’s budget – causes poverty and suffering in developing countries and derails the EU’s own development cooperation efforts.
The UN Millennium Campaign Founder, Eveline Herfkens, will discuss how the CAP hurts the poor and undermines development efforts, during a seminar organized by the United Nations Millennium Campaign in Brussels on 29 April.
Release of the official development assistance provisional figures in 2007 shows an alarming situation. Development assistance from OECD countries fell 8.4% this last year. In 2007, 103.655 millions of dollars were earmarked; although it could seem a similar quantity to the 104.421 from 2006, it’s just equivalent to the inflate and exchange rate fixing 95.605 in constant terms in 2006.
Yesterday President George Bush reported on his recent trip to Africa to members of the diplomatic corps, NGOs, and development policymakers at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington.
