26 France “I would also like to emphasize the need – the absolute necessity – for us to offer our support to the poorer nations. They are the victims of this crisis. Some now face the real risk of seeing their considerable efforts in recent years towards achieving the millennium development goals being completely nullified if we do not show solidarity.” Nicolas Sarkozy, London G20 Summit, April 2009 In 2009, France increased its ODA by 17%, reaching 0.46% of its GNI. Despite the significant increase, France still remains far from its 2010 target (0.51%). Moreover, official figures conceal €1.6bn in inflated aid, the highest amount among the EU Member States. This figure amounts to 18% of all ODA and, when discounted, shows that genuine aid represents a meagre 0.38% of the GNI. In addition, France has decided to start counting the revenues generated by the air ticket levy as ODA, despite the commitment made in 2006 not to do so. In 2009, €153m from the air ticket levy were reported as ODA. • Aid quality The quality of France’s ODA is declining steadily as the country increases the amount of bilateral aid it disburses through loans rather than grants. In 2009, loans have almost tripled - a 178% increase - from €469m in 2008 to €1,306m in 2009. A significant share of these funds is allocated to emerging and middle- income countries. On top of this the French Secretary of State for Cooperation, Alain Joyandet, stated that providing direct assistance to a given country was the best way to maintain the French flag up, as well as the strong influence needed to allow French companies to develop their activities. By the end of 2008, China, Egypt, Indonesia, Morocco and Pakistan represented 34% of ODA loans owned by France. In most cases, these loans have been granted to the benefit of French companies. Statistics available indicate that, in 2008, 51% of markets tenders launched by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) went to French companies. The good news is that France has been able to keep its multilateral commitments. In 2009, there has been some progress on gender issues in France. The main operator of French aid, Agence Française de Développement, has included gender issues in its social and environmental procedures for all its projects. Moreover, a specific project dedicated to the promotion of women as actors of development in West Africa has been initiated; with a parliamentarian being commissioned by the Secretary of State to make recommendations on how to increase the importance of gender issues in development policies. Funding is still lagging behind however. In 2009, France did not have earmarked funds for gender quality and women’s empowerment, making it really hard to quantify funds allocated to address these issues, and by extension, to know exactly how much has been done. Migration is increasingly being mainstreamed into ODA programmes. The Ministry dealing with migration, integration, national identity and ‘cooperative’ development is reinforcing its influence on French development policy. Migration is systematically mentioned in partnership framework documents (which are negotiated with partner countries and define the priorities of French aid for five years). Moreover, ODA resources are being mobilized in bilateral agreements for the “concerted management of migratory flows and cooperative development”. This suggests that, in some cases, development policies are being used for migration control objectives. French NGOs call on their government to: • Ensure that the new strategic framework for development cooperation, which is currently being prepared: - has a rights-based approach and focuses on fighting poverty and inequality; - incorporates three fundamental (and binding) principles: ownership, participation of all actors and mutual accountability; - includes a gender perspective. • Adopt a programming law setting annual milestones to increase genuine aid in order to meet the 0.7% target by 2015 at the latest. • Increase funds dedicated to gender equality and women empowerment and adopt OECD markers on gender equality and women empowerment in order to improve the monitoring of existing commitments. Will France achieve the 2010 target according to the budgeted aid levels? No Will France achieve the 2010 target without inflating its aid? No France's genuine and inflated aid Organisations consulted: Coordination SUD 0 2 000 4 000 6 000 8 000 10 000 12 000 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 € m 2 0 0 7 c o n s t a n t Genuine aid Refugees in donor country Student costs Debt relief 2010 target, 0.51%