Following the elections of 2010 in the Netherlands, the incoming coalition government announced that it would cut the level of aid spending from 0.8% to 0.7% of gross national product (GNP). This cut would take place over two years with the level of aid spending falling to 0.75% of GNP in 2011 and again to 0.7% in 2012.
The detailed breakdown of aid spending published in October 2011, following the government’s budget announcement, shows for the first time what this decision will mean to the Netherlands’ aid spending over the next five years. This document reveals that The Netherlands’ Official Development Assistance (ODA) is set to fall from almost €4.9 billion in 2010 to just over €4.4 billion in 2012, a cut of over 9%.
However, the previous government had planned for year-on-year increases in the ODA budget over the period 2011-2015 so, if the new governments’ plans are compared to those of the previous government, the differences are even larger.
In fact, taking all of the estimates of ODA spending up to 2015, the current Netherlands’ government anticipates spending over €3.8 billion less on international aid than the previous administration had planned for over the same period.
Among the nine individual policy themes of Netherlands’ development cooperation there are significant variations in the way these cuts are implemented across these themes. As shown in the table below, three of the policy themes actually show significant increases over the period 2010-2012 (detailed estimates by theme are not available beyond 2012) whilst six of the nine themes suffer cuts to their budgetary allocations over this period.
| Policy Theme | 2010 (actual) | 2011 (estimated) | 2012 (proposed) | % Change 2010-2012 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Theme 1 - Strengthening international law & human rights | 42,745 | 41,323 | 39,400 | -7.8% |
| Theme 2 - Security & stability, humanitarian assistance and good governance | 656,662 | 593,709 | 618,670 | -5.8% |
| Theme 3 - European cooperation | 460,595 | 494,000 | 502,982 | +9.2% |
| Theme 4 - Increasing wealth and reducing poverty | 1,224,675 | 1,102,546 | 1,126,342 | -8.0% |
| Theme 5 - Promoting human and social development | 1,552,634 | 1,344,178 | 1,143,507 | -26.4% |
| Theme 6 - Protecting the environment | 362,621 | 415,013 | 429,254 | +18.4% |
| Theme 7 - Promoting the welfare and safety of Dutch nationals and regulating migration | 258,496 | 365,498 | 309,147 | +19.6% |
| Theme 8 - Raising the Netherlands' cultural profile | 42,414 | 42,469 | 29,109 | -31.4% |
| Theme 9 - Other (including administrative costs) | 271,500 | 220,783 | 221,133 | -18.6% |
| TOTAL | 4,872,342 | 4,619,519 | 4,419,544 | -9.3% |
Table 1: Netherlands’ ODA spending by policy theme over the period 2010-2012
The increase in Theme 3 is due to an anticipated €65million increase in Netherlands’ ODA contributions via the EU budget between 2010 and 2012.
The increase in spending on Theme 6 is largely due to a €50million increase in spending on water and sanitation, one of the new government’s stated development priorities.
The increase in spending on Theme 7 is almost entirely due to an anticipated €47million (19%) increase in the funding of refugees in The Netherlands. However it is not clear what is the basis for this increase in refugee costs.
By far the largest share of the cuts in ODA over the period 2010-2012 is borne by programmes relating to human and social development (Theme 5). The cuts in this theme mostly relate to three areas:
- The Netherlands’ ODA spending on education is set to fall by over 45%, or €194 million, from €430 million to €236 million
- Spending on civil society in developing countries is set to fall by 20%, or €117 million, from €591 million to €474 million
- Spending on HIV/AIDS is set to fall by 22%, or €91 million, from €426 million to €335 million
Although these cuts still leave The Netherlands as one of the few countries who are achieving a level of aid spending of 0.7% of GNP, these plans plainly represent a significant loss of resources to developing nations. It is especially unfortunate that, with the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals fast approaching, the steepest cuts have been made in the budget for human development programmes, especially education.
Sources:
2012 Homogene Groep Internationale Samenwerking (HGIS) – full document (in Dutch) https://zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl/kst-33002-2.pdf
2012 HGIS factsheet (in English) https://www.minbuza.nl/binaries/content/assets/minbuza/en/import/en/the_ministry/hgis-factsheet-2012-en.pdf/hgis-factsheet-2012-en.pdf/hippogallery%3Aasset
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End of the aid boom? The impact of austerity on aid budgets, and implications for Australia | Development Policy Blog
DATE:
03/05/2012
8:02 pm
[...] scale-up aid by 8% each year, instead aiming to shrink the budget 7% by 2015. The Netherlands has cut 2012 aid to €4,420 million, €917 million less than previous estimates, corresponding to a decline from [...]