Talking Europe interviews Jutta Urpilainen, the EU Commissioner for International Partnerships, who is in charge of overseeing official development assistance. She announces exclusively on FRANCE 24 a fresh €66 million package for Niger, to be spent on education. Urpilainen stresses that development aid is part of geopolitical competition, and that it would be a "huge mistake" for Europe and the West to turn their back on the Global South. We also discuss climate financing, corruption in recipient countries, conditionality of aid and the post-Cotonou agreement with African, Caribbean and Pacific states.
The EU is a global leader in official development assistance, spending over €92 billion on it last year. On the new support package for Niger, Commissioner Urpilainen says: "Niger is an important partner for the European Union in the Sahel, a region which is very young in terms of population; half of the citizens in Sahel are below 15 years old." This is why, she argues, "it is so important that we are able to provide access to education to all those young people and children, including women and girls".
When asked about the problem of corruption, and making sure official development assistance reaches its desired recipients, Urpilainen states: "We demand accountability, because we only use our taxpayers' money through the EU budget. I was in Zambia recently, and of course, there we are working very closely with the president, but also with the government, in order to fight corruption in their governance system. So we have very concrete objectives and also targets." If those are not met, she affirms, "we can redirect or even stop our funding to that country".
Urpilainen reminds FRANCE 24 that "development cooperation and international partnerships are part of geopolitics. So we are living in the middle of the geopolitical competition. And what we can see in our partner countries, including in Africa, but also elsewhere, is that it's not only about a battle of narratives, it's also very much a battle of offers." She goes on: "Despite the fact that Ukraine has been our priority and it will be our priority in terms of humanitarian assistance, microfinancing assistance and military equipment, we cannot turn our back to the rest of the world, because that would be a huge geopolitical mistake."
Following the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact, which Urpilainen attended in Paris last week, Talking Europe asks if the EU is doing enough for climate funding. She replies: "Together with our 27 member states, we are the biggest climate finance donor in the world. So we have been doing our part, but of course we have to encourage other global players to do their part. And then we also need to reform those multilateral development banks so that they can also provide more access to low-income countries but also middle-income countries in terms of climate finance. So we need to have a clear reform in our global financial architecture."
Programme prepared by Perrine Desplats, Sophie Samaille, Isabelle Romero and David Pinto
