Malta’s overseas development aid : an obligation or an opportunity?

Abstract

For over thirty years since achieving independence in 1964 Malta’s foreign policy was partly geared towards attracting overseas aid in the form of technical aid, grants, special loans and so on. Such aid was received from the United Kingdom, Italy, China, the EU the USA and other sources. Well into the 1990s Malta was negotiating Financial Protocols with Italy with a view of improving its infrastructure in the run up to membership of the European Union. The Overseas Development Policy of Malta’s Foreign Ministry acknowledges this forma mentis at the outset: “Malta was prior to membership of the European Union, for a long time largely viewed as a recipient state.” Popular expectations and perceptions prior to Malta’s accession to the EU also viewed membership, to an extent, as an opportunity for Malta to receive aid from the EU (through the European Social Fund, European Research and Development Fund etc). However scant attention was paid to the fact that Malta as an EU member state has assumed obligations pertaining to overseas development aid. In one sentence the national psyche was, and I would contend remains, more attuned to the idea of Malta as a recipient of aid rather than a donor. However the fact remains that Malta has, as an EU member state, undertaken to reach specific targets in the context of overseas development aid. The first target is that of providing a minimum of 0.17% of its Gross National Income (GNI) as overseas development aid (ODA) by 2010. Furthermore Malta has also undertaken to endeavour to increase the proportion of GNI devoted to ODA to 0.33% by 2015. In the field of ‘policy-making’ Malta has had to evolve its own Overseas Development Aid Policy which through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs it eventually did with the Overseas Development Aid Policy document. Moreover the Maltese government has also included the ‘Elaboration and Actioning of a Work Programme for Humanitarian and Development Assistance’ as part of Malta’s Foreign Policy Strategic Objectives.