End Development Aid!

Speech by Pepijn van Houwelingen

Lower House of the Dutch Parliament, 2 April 2005

Chairman,

Forum for Democracy obviously welcomes the substantial cuts in development aid that are to take effect from 2027. But why only from 2027? Is this not far too late? If the government falls prematurely, the risk is that these cuts will be reversed even before 2027. 

Forum for Democracy would like to go even one step further than cuts: dissolve the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation entirely and add any remnants left to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In this regard, we could take a leaf out of the Trump administration's book on what it did with the US Department of Development Assistance - USAID. USAID was a ministry where all sorts of highly questionable practices and spending from the past have surfaced: fuelling censorship, undermining free media and influencing elections - all with the aim of thus safeguarding the interests (or rather perceived interests) of the United States. Elon Musk even called USAID a ‘criminal organisation’.

This is worrying given the Netherlands’ Ministry of Development’s previous cooperation with USAID. Former minister Sigrid Kaag said in 202, “We are working very closely with USAID, with Samantha Power, newly appointed by President Biden, to see how we can use our clout, knowledge and experience even more.”

I would like to know what this close collaboration consisted of and whether it still exists. Is it true, as RTL News reports, that the Netherlands has transferred 18.5 million euros to USAID since 2014? 1 Why? How can it be in the Dutch interest to transfer our tax money to a US ministry that champions the American interest?

That brings me to another point. This Chamber has very limited influence on ministry budgets, since often more than 90% of expenditure is already legally fixed. From a democratic point of view, would it not be better to establish subsidy schemes for a maximum of one year, the financial year in question?

Finally, the minister writes in her letter of 20 February that the commitment to climate will be reduced. That is fine. However, what I don't quite understand then, President, is that the same minister signed the UN “Pact for the Future” in New York last September. It is a pact full of alarmist texts like “Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time”, a pact in which countries declare that they will commit to.  The Netherlands wants money back from USAID, but it also wants the accelerated implementation of Agenda 2030 - of which the climate agenda, as we know, is the beating heart - and its 17 sustainability goals.

I would like to hear why the minister agreed at the time - or, more precisely, did not object to, which is seen as silent assent - to this Pact for the Future, and thus to the accelerated implementation of the climate agenda. How does that square with her plan to actually reduce the commitment to climate?

I look forward to the minister's answers.