Talking Europe interviews Jutta Urpilainen, the EU Commissioner for International Partnerships, who is in charge of overseeing official development assistance. She announces exclusively on FRANCE 24 a fresh €66 million package for Niger, to be spent on education. Urpilainen stresses that development aid is part of geopolitical competition, and that it would be a "huge mistake" for Europe and the West to turn their back on the Global South. We also discuss climate financing, corruption in recipient countries, conditionality of aid and the post-Cotonou agreement with African, Caribbean and Pacific states.
The EU is a global leader in official development assistance, spending over €92 billion on it last year. On the new support package for Niger, Commissioner Urpilainen says: "Niger is an important partner for the European Union in the Sahel, a region which is very young in terms of population; half of the citizens in Sahel are below 15 years old." This is why, she argues, "it is so important that we are able to provide access to education to all those young people and children, including women and girls".
