France s spending: Development Aid & Military budget

Development Aid Budget and MDGs

In 2009, the French contribution to Official Development Assistance (ODA) represents 0.46% of GDP.
This ODA budget has increased up to +16.9%. France is the second leading donor in terms of volume and the second leading donor in terms of the increase in its net ODA.
By keeping this growth every year, France will be able to reach the UN-MDG target of 0.7% of its GDP by 2015.

Though the 2009 figures show an increase of the ODA budget. The French ODA agency - AFP - has been reducing its donation by substuting them by bilateral lending and contributions to international organisations:
a) the donation has been drecreased:
- in 2009: down to €175 millions (i.e. two times lower than in 2006).
- bilateral health donation has been decreased by five between 2007 and 2010, reaching €20M.

b) the lending have increased:
- bilateral contributions: up to €8.7 b.
- in IMF loans: from €28 millions in 2008 upto €586 millions in 2009

c) the multilateral contributions have increased:
- contributions to the EU (+ 330 millions)
- contributions to the World Bank (+ 75 millions)

NOTA:
1. Further analysis need to be developped in order to detail the contributions to the ODA.
2. ODA could serve for disbursement of loans as well. The Committe of the Abolition of the Thirld World Debt (CADTM) points out several limits of the interpretation of the previous ODA figures.

Defense budget

Between 1999-2008, the SIPRI shows an increase of military spending (+3.5%). The latest figures from SIPRI are for 2008, the military budget is equal to 2.3% of GDP ( France = 4th of the most military spenders in the world with 4.5% of world sharing, and 2nd European country behind UK in terms of GDP).
The SIPRI definition of military spending includes: « Defense », « Security», « ex-serviceman & National memory » and « R&D and university ». The « Defense » budget alone represents, in 2008, €37b (against €65.7b for all military spending).

The 2010 French voted budget indicates that Defense represents the second budget of France (15.3% of state spending), behind the Education program (47.7% of state spending).
According to the French White Paper on defense (strategic review), the gouverment investment will either keep maintaining or reinforce its military strength. From 2012, the France effort in defense will increase at the rate of 1% per year and per volume.

But we could wonder in which strategies the France is based on to foresee the "future of the world"?
According to Pierre Conesa, in "Le Monde Diplomatique", the French think-tank or - even at the regional level - the European institutions are not big enough to be enable to define their own European strategies, but follow the Americain perspective.

Present open-points are:
What is the Americain Tendancy? (Pierre Consea explains already in its article, but need to be developped or dubbed in French)
Does the France export weapons? If so, where, how much, what kind of?