Between 2003 and 2011, Portugal allocated an average of 0.28 percent of its GNI to development cooperation.
The money allocated by Portugal to aid poor countries falls short of European targets, the funds earmarked each year are not spent and projects are mostly approved without a public tender, concludes a study released on November 20 in Lisbon. The study, carried out by the AidWatch group of the Portuguese Platform of Non-Governmental Organizations for Development (NGDOs), traces the profile of Portuguese official development aid (ODA) over the last decade and concludes that Portugal has never met the targets set internationally with regard to the percentage of Gross National Income (GNI) earmarked for Development Aid. Between 2003 and 2011, Portugal allocated an average of 0.28 percent of its GNI to development cooperation, around 380 million euros a year, while the European target in 2006 was 0.33 percent and for 2015 it is 0.7 percent, the study reveals. In 2010/2011, the percentage stood at 0.29 percent, with a slight increase from 490 million euros to 509 million euros. “Portugal hasn't met the European targets, it's a long way off, and all the indicators point to the fact that we won't meet the 2015 target,” Ana Filipa Oliveira, the study's author, told the Lusa news agency. The report, which monitors Portuguese cooperation, points the finger at the poor execution of funds earmarked for public aid, which is politically supervised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but most of which is managed by the Ministry of Finance and Public Administration (MFAP). In 2011, the budget execution of Portuguese ODA was the lowest since 2003, with only 62 percent of the total funds earmarked for cooperation being spent. The MFAP had 65 percent of the funds, but only 46 percent was spent, the report says. "The few funds allocated to cooperation are poorly executed. In recent years, we have had a greater allocation to the MFAP (...) and, in 2011, the execution rate is below 50 percent," she explained. For Ana Filipa Oliveira, this is due to the fact that funds are approved for projects that are not considered priorities by the recipient countries. The study also highlights the “significant increase” in so-called tied aid, which in 2011 reached the highest figure of the decade, 72.5 percent. “The viability of Portuguese cooperation is under threat and it runs the risk of becoming an instrument of economic diplomacy,” said Ana Filipa Oliveira, recalling that until 2008 there had been “a progressive decoupling” of aid, and since 2009 there has been “a slippage”. The authors of the study are also concerned about transparency in the approval of projects, considering that Portugal does not make public information available to monitor aid flows. “The considerable advances in the transparency of funding for NGDOs, through public rules and applications (...) have been compromised, with the funds made available out of competition exceeding, in 2011, those of the public application by three times,” the text states. "This is quite serious and once again penalizes the transparency of cooperation. Funding for bilateral cooperation between the government and certain NGOs is three times more than that funded through the application line," said Ana Filipa Oliveira. The study also points to the fact that Development Cooperation “is not recognized in Portugal as a state policy, transversal to electoral cycles, which allows for greater consensus, coherence and political relevance and stability at the institutional level”. Source: Lusa
