As a direct consequence of the financial crisis, developing countries are faced with a tightening of loans, investments and private capital flows as well as increased exchange rate fluctuations. The World Bank estimates that the capital flows in the developing countries will fall by USD 1 trillion in 2007 to ca. USD 600 billion in 2009. The global economic downturn also has a significant impact on the developing countries. The IMF expects a slowdown of the economic growth in the developing countries from 6.3 % in 2008 to 3.2 % in 2009. The slump of the global economy is particularly dramatic for the developing countries, as in most cases governments do not have the necessary financial scope to keep social expenditure or social safety nets in general at the same level. The EU Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, Louis Michel stresses that the crisis in Europe signifies more unemployment; in the developing countries, however, its direct consequence would be increased poverty and hunger. According to an estimate by the World Bank, another 90 million people in the developing countries could be faced with poverty in 2009 as a consequence of the current crisis. This would in particular affect women, children, the elderly and the disabled. One would also have to expect an increase of migration flows both within the developing countries as well as towards industrial nations.

Even though EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso pointed out several times during the press conference that although the developing countries were least to blame for the financial crisis, they nevertheless were strongly affected, the support package of the Commission seems to be lacking in ambition. The Commission focuses its measures primarily on three key aspects.

The first effort is to fulfil the aid commitments pledged by the EU at the 2005 G 8 Summit. The EU set itself the goal of making 0.56 % of the GDP available for development assistance by 2010. 0.56 % of the GDP represents an average value of the development aid made available by the EU Member States. The “model students” of providing development assistance are Sweden and Luxembourg, who already contribute 0.99 % of national GDP. Austria in contrast only allocated 0.5 % of her national GDP to development aid.

The second aim is to provide preponed and reoriented EU aid. In 2008, the European Commission has pledged almost € 3 billion for the states in Africa, the Caribbean area and the Pacific Ocean as a preponed financing measure. Following an appropriate examination, this should enable a preponed payment for those countries, which are most at risk. By applying a so-called “Ad-hoc FLEX Mechanism”, developing countries should receive additional € 500 million by the end of 2009 to enable them to meet their expenditure for social safety nets. Apart from that the G-20 Summit adopted a “food facility” of € 1 billion for the coming three years. This facility is supposed to boost the agriculture in the developing countries and to counteract the food crisis.

Thirdly, the development aid of the EU Member States should be better coordinated. The European Commission estimates that this could release additional € 7 billion per year.