European aid is both 'self-interested' and 'generous,' says top official

The criticism that the world’s third-largest donor has lost its moral compass on foreign aid leaves the man holding the purse strings cold. For Koen Doens, the influential (though often unseen) director-general of the European Commission’s development department, contrasting the charitable aspect of official development assistance with the pursuit of donors’ own self-interest is a false dichotomy. “Simply spending [official development assistance] grant money as a charity gift in partner countries has hardly lifted any of them out of poverty,” Doens told the European Parliament’s Development Committee this week. “The countries that have lifted people out of poverty are not the ones that have received most ODA, but are the ones that actually have managed to put in place systems whereby economic growth is created connected with the world economy.” And forging a connection with Europe’s own interests is an unmistakable part of the commission’s plan, Doens said. Take critical raw materials — an area where the commission is signing a string of agreements with the likes of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chile, and Zambia. “Why would we do it, if it's not to ensure European off-take?” Doens said, while adding that “the investments we bring look at local beneficiation, look at doing it in a socially and environmentally sustainable way, and it's creating local jobs and local value addition.” Damage prevention Doens’ appearance at the committee now was no accident, just weeks before MEPs get the chance to approve or reject the commissioner-designate for development policy for the next five years. The man in the hot seat on Nov. 6, former Czech industry and trade minister, Jozef Sikéla, from the center-right European People’s Party, posted on social media last month that the portfolio would “allow me to focus on strengthening the EU's economic security, diversifying our suppliers of critical raw materials, and opening new markets for European companies.” That won him few fans among development NGOs and MEPs who have been sounding the alarm for years over what they say is an overly self-interested foreign aid policy from the commission under its latest Global Gateway investment strategy. A study out this month by development NGOs Eurodad and Counter Balance argued that not enough Gateway projects are focusing on health and education and that European firms are being given too prominent a role in the scheme as the commission tries to give them a leg-up in the global south. Barry Andrews, the Irish centrist MEP who chairs the Development Committee, told Devex that he thinks the commission is now “vulnerable” to a court challenge at the European Court of Justice, as it has strayed too far from its treaty obligation to make poverty eradication the primary objective of its foreign aid. The art of the possible The commission is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s third-largest foreign aid donor, behind the United States and Germany, providing $27 billion in ODA in 2023. It introduced the idea of the Global Gateway in late 2021 as a plan to generate €300 billion in (mostly private) investments in green and digital infrastructure. However, it struggled to meet early expectations — falling back on labeling pre-existing projects as coming under the Global Gateway. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wants Sikéla to scale up the scheme, including disbursing funds more quickly where possible. His pathway to confirmation appears relatively clear, with only an unlikely alliance between the center-left, liberals, and green political groups in the Parliament able to stop him. Doens’ committee appearance was partly an attempt to smooth the way, allowing the civil servant who helped create the Global Gateway brand to try and defuse the committee’s concerns. “It seems that either we are generous and charity-based, or we are self-interest-driven,” Doens said. “I feel in this discussion that you create a dichotomy that, in my view, has absolutely no basis for existence. It is perfectly possible, perfectly possible, to actually do both at the same time.”