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European Community Development Assistance to Asia: Policies, Programs and Performance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Martin Rudner
Affiliation:
Norman Paterson School of International Affairs Carleton University, Ottawa

Extract

The European Community is distinctive among the donors of international development assistance. Although it is categorized officially as a multilateral aid institution, the Community differs in structure, purpose and role compared to other, more familiar organizations of that genre. Like other multilaterals, the European Community derives its aid budget, as well as its other financial resources, from the fiscal contributions of its Member states (each of which provides its own bilateral assistance to developing countries). Yet, to be sure, the Community represents more than just a multilateral economic union, since it also constitutes a supra-European governmental authority in the making. Indeed, the European Community has begun to evolve a common foreign policy, which is reflected in its role in Official Development Assistance (ODA). Its aid effort, in giving expression to the Community's common international purpose, has taken on most of the attributes of government-to-government assistance. It is this combination of multilateral and quasi-bilateral characteristics that sets the European Economic Community (EEC, as the Community is styled in its ODA role) apart as a uniquely meta-national participant in international development cooperation.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

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4 Units of account (‘ua’) represented an EEC monetary denomination originally valued at parity with the United States dollar. This ua denomination was subsequently succeeded by the European Currency Unit (ECU).

5 Information on EEC aid programs in Asia and Latin America has been derived mainly from the Commission of the European Communities (European Commission), Ten-Year Report: 13 Years of Development Cooperation with the Developing Countries of Latin America and Asia—Data and Results, SEC (89) 713 Final, Brussels: 10 05 1989 [mimeo].Google Scholar

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30 Up to the early 1980s some 97% of EEC aid to Asia was allocated to lowerincome recipient countries, which later declined to 82% and 91% in 1986 and 1987, respectively. This compared to overall EEC aid allocation to lower-income countries of 81.9% in 1980/81 and 73.9% in 1987 (OECD/DAC, Aid Review 1988/89, Table 4i).Google Scholar

31 European Commission, Ten-Year Report, Table 6.11.Google Scholar

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