Aid System Ill-equipped To Meet Challenges Of COVID-19, Conflicts And The Climate Emergency

A recent report from the Reality of Aid Network titled Reality of Aid Report 2020/2021: Aid in the context of Conflict, Fragility and the Climate Emergency sheds light on the urgent need to reform the aid system which is currently ill-equipped to handle the triple threat of COVID-19, conflicts and the climate emergency.

“The current aid system is ill-equipped to meet the challenges of this coming decade. Over the past 20 years the Reality of Aid Network has been consistent in calling for donors to meet the UN target of 0.7% of donors’ GNI for ODA,” according to the report.

Preliminary ODA figures for 2020 from the OECD DAC show that aid spending totaled 161.2 billion USD constituting a mere 3.5% increase in real terms. But while this increase is a welcome development, it is by all measures marginal compared to the magnitude of the crises the world faces today.

“With the severity of the situation we’re facing today, donor countries and development actors in general must do more and deliver better,” said Vitalice Meja, Reality of Aid Africa Executive Director.

“Faced with these compounding global challenges, there is an unparalleled and urgent need to maximize development finance, while focusing on the rapidly worsening conditions for poor and vulnerable people. Yet the evidence points to largely stagnant aid flows, an aid system with systemic ineffectiveness highly resistance to change, and a growing pre-eminence of donor economic and political interests in aid priorities,” the report continues.

ODA is one of the most crucial and most reliable lifelines for conflict-affected and fragile countries, and yet net ODA to sub-Saharan Africa, which suffers from the devastating consequences of poverty, conflicts and climate disasters, fell in 2020 by USD 310 million or 1% in real terms. This trend will be further compounded by recent UK aid cuts, which includes slashing the aid programmes in Nigeria by 58%, Somalia by 60%, South Sudan by 59% and Syria by 67% in 2021 and beyond.

Bilateral aid to Least Developed Countries remained insufficient, showing only a marginal 1.8% increase in 2020, representing only 0.07% of donors’ GNI which is less than half of the target of 0.15% to 0.2%.

On the other hand, aid to all low income countries were only USD 25 billion, a decrease by 3.5% in real terms. By contrast, aid to lower-middle income countries grew by 6.9% and to upper middle-income countries by 36.1%. The latter is likely a reflection of the dramatic increase in the use of loans in donor aid programmes.

“In exposing deep social, economic and political inequalities, the pandemic may also be an opportunity to drive the necessary policy reforms for radical change in development cooperation,” the report suggests.

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