Italy unlikely to fill its obligations towards African and Asian Development Funds

Italy is likely not to fullfill its financial commitments towards the African and Asian development Funds, as the Chamber cut 40 million euros to the financial resources appropriated for these Regional banks. Italy has already a 2 year delay towards the African a Asian development funds, but the cut 40 million will be committed to the Italian brand new participation to the Corporaciòn Andina del Fomento.

Officers within the Ministry for Economy and Finance (MEF) - responsible to manage the Italian contributions to multilateral financial funds - think that the approved amount will be enough to comply with the commitments. They think that Italy will get a discount by disbursing all its financial commitments in one installment. If this is not the case, in 2008 the Government will have to present another bill to fill the deficit. Procedures for resources appropriation to the regional development Banks are more complex than those for bilateral and UN related commitments that are managed by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
Yet, there is no law -not even in law n°49 - making any reference to any procedure to multilateral development Bank. In the late '90 the MEF proposed to simplify the procedures, but this proposal was ruled out.

Aid reform bill likely to be presented during December

While the upper House of Parliament - the Senate - is discussing the fFinancial bill, the informal Committee within the Committee of Foreign Affairs is attempting to draft the "Aid reform bill". The informal Committee has been working on the reform draft since last June, with initial hope to have a public text for discussion by Septmber.

However the drafting is taking loger, as the speaker for the Aid reform bill, Senator Tonini, is attempting to present a bi-partisan text. If he is successful, the presented text could be quickly discussed by the Senate whereby the ruling coalition has a thin majority. After fears of a stale mate in the informal committee could never finish its work, Sen. Tonini, is optimistic and the text could be publicly available over December.

The main roblematic issue still to tackle is the creation of an independent implementing Agency that the center-right opposition fears as a de-facto limit to the Ministry of foreign Affairs strategic leadership in development cooperation. In order to build a consensual environment, the speaker is accepting proposals by the centre-right coalition, for instance, introducing the Interministerial Committee for Development Cooperation.

Italian tied aid: some examples

According to the current 20 yers old legislation on Italian ODA, all concessional loans must be tied. Yet, following 2001 DAC recommendations on aid-untying in LDCs countries, the Law was informally modified by a decision from the Interministerial Committee on development and planning by accepting the DAC recommendations. The ODA law was not re-drafted and its tying provision is still partially responsible for the tying of Italian aid. The last official report on Italian development cooperation (2005 - 2006 report is to be made available early 2008) list some tied aid cases. In the Kwanza Sul province of Angola, the telecommunication network is being updated by the Alcatel Italy company thanks to a 18 million euro loans. In Vietnam, a 2.3 million a tied loan funds the building of the water system in the city of Quang Ngai and an Italian company is setting up the Vietnamese floods monitoring system – 2.5 million euro.

Surveies on Italian citizens support to AID

The findings of a poll survey commissioned by Catholic NGO platform were published at the end of October. According to the poll, the main development priority for the Italian public is the fight against hunger (47%). 40% make any aid increase conditional to its improved quality and allocation, but 24% favours an increase with attached conditions. Decrasing military expenditures to appropriate additional money for aid is the best option for 64% of the respondent. The UN systems is the one actor, scoring the highest for aid managing (73%). According to the EU barometer, 32% of the Italian public supports the idea that should encourage good governance and to be directed to Sub-saharan Africa (54%).

Deputy minister confirms a 100 million euro increase for NGOs

In the initial draft Financial bill's annexes, the 100 million euros increase for development cooperation was to be allocated to multilateral organizations ( 80 million) and emergency aid ( 20 million).
Yet, according to the recent declaration by Deputy Minister Sentinelli, the increase is to be made available to NGOs, bringing up the budget for civil society initiative to the record figure of 200 million. NGOs financial allocation has increased four times since 2006.