The elephant in cooperation is called refugee aid

The heads of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD have shown concern about the significant growth in spending on refugees in donor countries with Official Development Assistance resources.

The president of the DAC himself, the Danish diplomat Carsten Staur, referred to this problem as “the elephant in the room”, pointing out that it has become a major challenge for the global aid policies that we have before us and to which We are not paying enough attention.

Indeed, recent data on the evolution of Official Development Assistance (ODA) in 2022 by the 31 countries that are part of the DAC demonstrate how the costs imputed for caring for refugees and asylum seekers in their first year of stay in aid donor countries have multiplied by three, going from 4.6% of all global aid in 2021 to 15% in 2022. This significant growth has never been experienced in the entire history of development aid , not even during the Syrian refugee crisis of 2016, underlining the extent to which very rapid changes are taking place in the dynamics of aid policies, in line with some events that are marking the international agenda.

The fundamental reason is the war in Ukraine, which has forcefully entered the agenda of development cooperation policies through two different and unique elements.

The first is the impressive growth of resources from all donor countries towards Ukraine, which has become one of the main recipients of aid: throughout the last year for which figures are available it received 17,818 million dollars (16,500 million euros), of which 1,755 (1,630 million euros) were for humanitarian aid.

Ukraine received 8% of all global aid from DAC donor countries in 2022.

Ukraine received 8% of all global aid from Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donor countries in 2022

The second and most important factor that demonstrates the weight of the war in Ukraine in the allocation of global aid is confirmed by the spectacular growth that the controversial chapter of refugee aid has experienced in the donor countries themselves.

Specifically, it reached the highest expenditure figure in the entire history of its application, reaching 31.75 billion dollars (29.5 billion euros), 15% of global ODA in 2022. Aid to Ukrainian refugees by Western countries, and in a very particular way, by the donors belonging to the European Union - who quickly deployed the European Temporary Protection Directive, reactivated due to this war to give aid to the Ukrainian refugees who left the country - seems to be the fundamental cause. of this increase.

In application of this instrument, European countries have registered 4.2 million Ukrainians as beneficiaries of the directive.

Although the volumes of aid to refugees attributed by different countries are highly variable, donors such as the Czech Republic, Poland and Ireland have allocated expenditures of more than 50% in their total development aid budgets.

Other important donors would be the United Kingdom, with 28.9% of expenditure on refugees in their ODA, followed by Switzerland, with 28.2%, and Spain, with 23.5% and 990 million dollars allocated to their aid. in 2022.

The particular case of Spain

When analyzing the recent data referring to the execution of development aid by Spain, we find that we do not have a detailed report from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, since the last one is from 2019. In relation to the ODA for the year 2022, the Government has only published a sheet that contains eight lines and five very vague and generic tables, without any other additional information, accompanied by an information module in English copied from the CAD tables.

A third of the development aid that Spain gave in the last year went to care for refugees in Spanish territory, something worrying

In light of the official statistics published by the OECD DAC, and with a certain dance of figures and initial items recorded by Spain, which in some cases have been considered ineligible in light of the agreed statistical criteria, the aid development has increased slightly, going from 0.26% of ODA/Gross National Income (GNI) in 2021 to 0.30% in 2022. Spain remains below the average of the DAC countries, which by 2022 reached 0 .36%.

And well below the average of the countries of the European Union, which reached 0.57% for this same year.

It ranks 20th among the 30 donor countries in its ODA relative to its wealth in terms of Gross National Income, quite far from its commitments.

The homeopathic growth experienced by Spanish aid in 2022 is, if possible, even more fragile and unstable if we take into account that it is based on two very temporary elements, such as the expenditure applied to the covid-19 pandemic together with the attention to refugees on Spanish soil, particularly Ukrainian refugees.

In the first chapter, Spain has dedicated a total of 305 million dollars (283 million euros), while to the second it has allocated 990 million (about 920 million euros), which adds up to 1,295 million dollars (1,203 million euros ) in 2022. This amount represents 32% of Spain's Official Development Assistance in 2022, 60% of all its bilateral ODA.

In other words, a third of the development aid that Spain gave in the last year for which there are records was for assistance to refugees in Spanish territory, something worrying.

Restrictive criteria

In the case of aid to refugees in Spain, this item has become the most important of bilateral aid without there being a single document, report or directive that includes the criteria applied in these expenses, nor is there any detailed information on Your job.

Information about his employment requested through the Transparency Law has also been denied.

Furthermore, even in the recent Law on International Cooperation for Sustainable Development and Global Solidarity, approved in February of last year, pending development and application, there is not a single mention of these interventions, which represents a gigantic paradox as it does not No indication can be collected for what has become the largest intervention of Spanish bilateral cooperation in terms of development aid.

The war in Ukraine has changed priorities and redirected important resources necessary to eradicate poverty, care for victims of wars and conflicts, fight the effects of climate change and environmental migrations.

The regulations approved by the OECD Development Assistance Committee determine that only the costs of the first year of refugees and asylum seekers in the donor countries themselves can be recorded as an exceptional element, referring basically to temporary living expenses, without costs related to rejected asylum seekers, expenses for forced transfers or detentions cannot be computed.

In view of this, and with the existing data, it can be stated that Spain has been incorporating ineligible expenses that should be paid attention to, especially when the CAD Secretariat has requested very strict treatment with these items. accused.

To the point that it has been advised not to record all possible costs in order to give greater emphasis to other priorities that are being abandoned, such as aid for less advanced countries or the fight against poverty.

Some donors, such as Germany or Austria, have voluntarily chosen not to incorporate these items as they do not consider them appropriate.

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has changed priorities and redirected significant volumes of development aid resources, necessary to support the eradication of poverty, care for victims of wars and conflicts, fight against the effects of climate change and environmental migrations.

Under the international criteria established for the allocation of aid to refugees with the first-year rule, it is foreseeable that these items will decrease in 2023, so we must be vigilant so that this does not have an impact on a decrease in aid in a scenario of chained crises in which famines advance, important advances in development in essential sectors such as early childhood education and basic healthcare are reversed, while climate chaos is accelerating that especially harms the most vulnerable populations.

Faced with this, it is important to guarantee the integrity of development aid that continues to be a fundamental resource in a world full of poverty, violence, inequalities and emergencies.

Preventing the quantity and quality of this development aid from being damaged by other current priorities, such as aid to refugees in Western countries, is an essential debate if we really want to make progress in fulfilling the agendas, commitments and principles to which Spain has also committed itself.

Carlos Gómez Gil

is a professor and researcher in Development Cooperation at the University of Alicante, academic director of the Interuniversity Master in Development Cooperation at this University and researcher at the Institute of International Economics of the UA.

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