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On 14 June 2021, the EU Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI) was adopted with a budget of €79.5bn, of which 10% is allocated to migration-related actions. 93% of NDICI funds must comply with Official Development Assistance (ODA) criteria., An Oxfam analysis of the ODA eligibility of NDICI funded migration projects in Libya, Tunisia and Niger finds that a significant portion of the projects contain elements that may limit ODA eligibility and appear to prioritise the EU’s domestic migration concerns over development objectives. Moreover, insufficient documentation hinders the monitoring and democratic scrutiny needed to ensure NDICI migration programming meets the EU’s legal obligations for development spending.

Europe is facing unacceptable levels of poverty and inequality. Instead of putting people first, policy decision making is increasingly influenced by wealthy elites who bend the rules to their advantage, worsening poverty and economic inequality, while steadily and significantly eroding democratic institutions. Austerity measures and unfair tax systems across Europe are skewed in favour of powerful vested interests. It is time to reverse the course of poverty and inequality in Europe, putting people first., This briefing paper reviews the current situation and presents recommendations to help put an end to poverty and extreme inequality in Europe. It draws on data from Oxfam's research paper Background Data for Oxfam Briefing ‘A Europe For the Many, Not the Few’ for which the raw data can be viewed via our online data tool.

The realisation of the right to health for millions of people in poor countries depends upon a massive increase in health services to achieve universal and equitable access. A growing number of international donors are promoting an expansion of private-sector health-care delivery to fulfil this goal. The private sector can play a role in health care. But this paper shows there is an urgent need to reassess the arguments used in favour of scaling-up private-sector provision in poor countries. The evidence shows that prioritising this approach is extremely unlikely to deliver health for poor people. Governments and rich country donors must strengthen state capacities to regulate and focus on the rapid expansion of free publicly provided health care, a proven way to save millions of lives worldwide.

Five years ago, members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) signed a ministerial agreement to ensure that intellectual property rules would no longer obstruct developing countries’ efforts to protect public health. Since then, however, little has changed. Patented medicines continue to be priced out of reach for the world’s poorest people. Trade rules remain a major barrier to accessing affordable versions of patented medicines (generic medicines). The prevalence of debilitating and life-threatening diseases in poor countries is growing, but medicines are simply not available. Urgent action is needed.

Diseases that disproportionately affect the developing world cause immense suffering and ill health. Medical innovation has the potential to deliver new medicines, vaccines, and diagnostics to overcome these diseases, yet few treatments have emerged. Current efforts to resolve the crisis are inadequate: financing for research and development (R&D) is insufficient, uncoordinated, and mostly tied to the system of intellectual property rights. Delivering appropriate medicines and vaccines requires reforms to the existing R&D system and a willingness to invest in promising new approaches.

Some donors and governments propose that health insurance mechanisms can close health financing gaps and benefit poor people. Although beneficial for the people able to join, this method of financing health care has so far been unable to sufficiently fill financing gaps in health systems and improve access to quality health care for the poor. Donors and governments need to consider the evidence and scale up public resources for the health sector. Without adequate public funding and government stewardship, health insurance mechanisms pose a threat rather than an opportunity to the objectives of equity and universal access to health care.

As the 2007 German G8 summit approaches, the demands of the millions of anti-poverty campaigners worldwide are clear. G8 leaders must increase and improve aid to provide health, education, water and sanitation for all. They must cancel more debt and deliver trade justice. They must take urgent action to bring peace to the world’s most troubled countries and to halt the devastating impact of climate change. Where action has been taken by G8 countries, lives are being saved. Yet despite some areas of real progress, in the past two years overall progress has fallen far short of promises. The cost of this inaction is millions of lives lost due to poverty. G8 countries must meet their promises to the world.

Millions of people are dying, sick, or out of school because there are not enough teachers, nurses, and doctors in poor countries. Some poor-country governments have doubled expenditure on health and education since 2000 but still cannot afford to pay for these workers, so aid must plug the gap. But current aid is failing poor people – only 8 cents in the aid dollar are channelled into government plans that include the training and salaries of teachers and health workers. Two million teachers and 4.25 million health workers must be recruited to make health and education for all a reality. Aid donors must change the way they provide money, making long-term commitments and supporting national plans.

In January of this year, the European Commission published its Renewable Energy Roadmap, proposing a mandatory target that biofuels must provide ten per cent of member states' transport fuels by 2020. This target is creating a scramble to supply in the South, posing a serious threat to vulnerable people at risk from land-grabbing, exploitation, and deteriorating food security. It is unacceptable that poor people in developing countries bear the costs of emissions reductions in the EU. To avoid this, the Commission must include social standards in its sustainability framework, and develop mechanisms by which the ten per cent target can be revised if it is found to be contributing to the destruction of vulnerable people's livelihoods.

Aceh, the northern-most province of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, suffered terribly in the tsunami of December 2004. The water washed over 800km of coastline, killing 169,000 people and leaving 600,000 homeless. In several areas, no buildings, roads, or trees were left standing. Large areas of land were permanently lost. Sumatra as then hit by an earthquake on 28 March 2005, killing almost another 1,000 people in Nias island.

The Doha ‘Development’ Round of trade talks has stalled, but the world’s poorest countries remain under pressure to open up their markets with potentially disastrous consequences. These negotiations were meant to ‘make trade fair’, but they were blocked by the USA and EU, unwilling to address the rigged rules and double standards from which they benefit. The EU wants to forge new free trade agreements with 75 of its former colonies in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific (ACP). These imbalanced negotiations of ‘Economic Partnership Agreements’ between the two regions, pit some of the world’s most advanced industrial economies against some of the poorest nations on earth. In addition, the ACP countries are split into six small groups for the negotiations; the smallest group, the Pacific Islands, is negotiating a trade agreement with an economic giant more than 1400 times its size.

On 31 March 2006 the Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa announced that from that day on basic health care would be free to everyone. This was made possible partly due to the money saved following the cancellation of Zambia’s $5 billion debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). A visit to the clinic for basic medicines, which until then had been the privilege of the few, became the right of all.