The finance bill, unveiled on October 10, provides for a cut of more than a billion euros in the public development aid budget. A decision that worries NGOs. They are also alarmed by a lasting change in the financing mechanisms of this tool.
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The announcement had the effect of a small earthquake for NGO French. On October 10, the Ministers of the Economy and the Budget unveiled their highly anticipated finance bill (PLF) for the year 2025. According to Antoine Armand and Laurent Saint-Martin, the text provides A ” significant effort»: more than 40 billion euros in reduction in public spending.
Among the sectors affected by this blow, one of them is particularly targeted: official development assistance (ODA). This budgetary envelope, which notably supplies the French Development Agency, finances international solidarity and numerous NGO projects around the world: access to drinking water, healthcare, electricity, education.
“ Very worrying situation»
Already last February, ODA had been cut 13% of its budget. But this time, the new tenants of Bercy are going far by reducing the budget allocated for next year by 1.3 billion euros. “The situation is very worrying», Recognizes Olivier Bruyeron, the president of Coordination Sud, a coalition of French NGOs. “The PLF even provides for up to a third reduction in one of the ODA programs, the one which makes it possible to address the most vulnerable countries.»
However, French parliamentarians had committed, in 2021, to increasing the ODA budget thanks to a programming law, which provided for this aid to represent 0.7% of French gross national income in 2025. This trajectory now seems to be ‘away. For Olivier Bruyeron, “it is all the more shocking since a few months ago Paris, Emmanuel Macron had called for a shock in public financing for development in front of an audience of heads of state“. A position that the French president reiterated a few weeks ago in New York, during the United Nations General Assembly.
For NGOs, this cut in the ODA budget represents a considerable shortfall: between 40% and 50% fewer subsidies for some of them. This is the case of Asmae-Soeur Emmanuelle, an organization which helps the most vulnerable children in eight countries, including Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso. “We are going to be faced with a dilemmaworries its president Adrien Sallez,we will have to choose between reducing the number of beneficiaries and maintaining a high level of quality of actions, or the opposite“. Asmae cares for 75,000 children around the world, but could reduce this figure by “20,000 beneficiaries“.
A “double attack» on official development assistance
Especially since NGOs are under more and more pressure, and denounce increasing conditionality of ODA. For Adrien Sallez, “This is a negative trend: we are going to direct public development aid credits towards friendly states. This is not conceivable when we work in international solidarity and humanitarian work.“.
Beyond budget cuts, Coordination Sud denounces a“double attack», because Bercy also wants to reform the ODA financing mechanism. Until now, the tax on financial transactions and that on plane tickets were used to partly finance ODA. A provision which the Ministry of the Economy intends to put an end to. “On the contrary, we propose to reform the tax on financial transactions», Explains Elise Rodriguez, advocacy director at Action Santé Mondiale. According to her, this tax would be poorly collected, with a shortfall estimated at “three billion euros“. “By improving it, we could supplement the public development aid mission and thus enable the France to maintain its rank, without weighing on the state budget or household taxes», underlines Olivier Bruyeron.
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The coalition of NGOs does not intend to stop there and mentions discussions with “deputies and senators from all sides“. The objective: to amend the finance bill, increase their budgetary envelope and thus prevent France from returning “five or six years ago» in terms of development aid. Especially since, for Olivier Bruyeron, this is certainly not the time to deprive yourself of this tool. “What happens anywhere on the planet also impacts us. We have seen this clearly in the context of the Covid-19 crisis, conflicts, climate change. We must all care about the future of the world and work together to meet the great challenges that face us.»
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