With crises and conflicts multiplying around the world, it is more necessary than ever to strengthen international solidarity. Yet the exact opposite is happening, with donor countries turning in on themselves, and unprecedented cuts in official development assistance budgets. With catastrophic consequences for the lives of millions of people.
France recently cut €2.1 billion (a reduction of 35%) from the 2025 budget for international cooperation, also known as Official Development Assistance (ODA). This budget cut comes at a time when many European countries are also abandoning their commitments in this area: Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden... to name but a few. In the United States, the Trump administration has abruptly suspended development aid (with a few exceptions) and closed the USAID cooperation agency. Paradoxically, these decisions come at a time of intensifying crises: protracted conflicts, climate change, economic instability.
What is Official Development Assistance?
To carry out their missions, NGOs rely on various sources of funding: donors, companies & foundations and "Official Development Assistance" (ODA). The latter represents the financial support of 32 official contributor countries to the least developed countries. It consists mainly of grants or soft loans, and accounts for more than two-thirds of external funding to the least developed countries.
Adopted in 1969 by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ( OECD) ODA plays a key crucial role in the fight against global poverty and inequality. For example, it helps to finance international programmes in the fields of health, access to education, food security and adaptation to climate change. It is also used to finance a number of multilateral funds, in particular the Global Partnership for Education (GPE)The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which is helping to improve access to education around the world. Or the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which has saved more than 65 million lives worldwide since 2002 (1).. In addition to guaranteeing access to essential services for the most vulnerable populations, ODA is also a formidable tool for building peace and promoting and protecting human rights, particularly children's rights.
The ODA is subject to strict rules defined by the OECD. In France, it is governed by the Law of 4 August 2021 on inclusive development and the fight against global inequalities. It is regularly evaluated by a wide range of stakeholders, including the Cour des Comptes, the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), government ministries and French parliamentarians. Projects run by NGOs and financed by the French international cooperation budget are systematically evaluated several times during the life of the project [upstream, several times during the project and once the project has been completed]. This ensures that the funding is used properly. It should be noted that civil society is also mobilising to produce regular reports and recommendations to increase the transparency of official development assistance and make it ever more effective. For example, the Education Coalitiona group of associations working for education around the world, of which Action Education is the lead organisation, produces an annual Observatory of French funding allocated to educationwhich tracks all the funding that France allocates to education worldwide.
What impact will budget cuts have?
According to the standards set by the OECD, ODA donor countries are committed to contributing 0.7 % of their GDP to the least developed countries. In reality, very few countries have reached this target. France, the world's seventh largest economy, is only in 11th place in the ranking of donor countries and has never contributed 0.7 %.
The recent cuts in ODA, both in Europe and in the USA, mark an unprecedented turning point, which will have major repercussions on the world economy. disastrous consequences on the daily lives of tens of millions of people. And the most vulnerable populations - in particular women and girls - will be the first to be affected. Poverty, disease, famine and lack of access to education will increase, and initiatives to promote peace, stability and sustainable development will be seriously jeopardised. For Southern Coordinationa platform bringing together 184 French solidarity organisations, the mere cutting of 2.1 billion euros in France is equivalent to 17 million children not going to school (2).. "Calling into question the validity of official development assistance is tantamount to denying France's values and its responsibility in the world", says Coordination Sud in a statement (3). signed by Action Education.
The sudden closure of HIV programmes as a result of the disappearance of USAID will in itself lead to the collapse of the AIDS epidemic. 6 million people died in the next four years, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). And this is just one of the major consequences expected, since the virtual elimination of American aid leaves many aid organisations without the resources they need to carry out their missions and guarantee their survival.
Action Education calls on France to honour its commitments
Action Education is deeply concerned about the impact of government disinvestment in development aid and the consequences for the populations we support. We strongly condemn these political choices, which will make the world an even more impoverished place. unstable, chaotic and insecure.
This decision is all the more reprehensible in that the cuts come at a time when critical moment for the least developed countries already burdened by crushing debt, particularly in Africa. Nearly half of the countries in the African Union devote more than debt repayment than financing their education system.
In the face of intensifying global challenges, Action Education therefore calls on France to honour its financial commitments in favour of international solidarity and to allocate 0.7 % of its GDP to education as soon as possible, as it had pledged. Alongside the Education Coalition, we also call on France to preserve the funding allocated to education, and to dedicate 10 % of its bilateral funding for international solidarity to education, half of which should be allocated to basic education, concentrating funding on the least developed countries and sub-Saharan Africa.
Main contributors to development aid (4) :
- United States: 64.7 billion 1Q6
- Germany: 37.9 billion 1Q6
- EU: 26.9 billion $
- Japan: 19.6 billion 1Q6
- United Kingdom: 19.1 billion $
- France: 15.1 billion 1Q6
Reduced ODA means :
❌ Fewer schools built, fewer teachers trained, more children out of school.
❌ Increased vulnerability of marginalised groups, particularly girls and women.
❌ A more unstable world, intensifying crises, exploding inequalities.
👉 Leaving the most vulnerable states without support means creating tomorrow's crises.
Let's get together to defend education and a fairer world.
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Sources :
(1) : Global Fund, 19/09/2024, https://www.theglobalfund.org/fr/about-the-global-fund/
(2) : Coordination Sud, 12/02/2025, https://www.coordinationsud.org/actualite/adoption-du-projet-loi-de-finances-pour-2025-quest-ce-que-cela-change-pour-la-solidarite-internationale/
(3) : Ouest-France, 27/02/2025, https://www.ouest-france.fr/associations/point-de-vue-laide-publique-au-developpement-un-outil-indispensable-au-service-de-la-paix-577f92a8-f4e9-11ef-a658-d59bc62913c1
(4) : OECD 2023
(5) : Poverty is back, to pre-Covid levels globally, but not for low-income countries, World Bank, 3 October 2023.
(6) : UNESCO, EFA Global Monitoring Report 2015 - EDUCATION FOR ALL 2000-2015: Achievements and Challenges, 2015
(7) : World Bank Group. World Development Indicators, 2024
(8) : UNESCO Education Global Monitoring Report 2023
(9) : Global Fund, 19/09/2024, https://www.theglobalfund.org/fr/about-the-global-fund/
