Europe Aid
The Europe Aid and Co-operation Office is a department of the Commission that handles the Commission's external aid. The office was set up on 1 January 2001 in an effort to co-ordinate and to improve the Commission activity in this field.
The European Union as a whole is the world’s largest donor in the field of development aid and provides more than half of all global development assistance: over € 30 billion in 2003. More than one-fifth of the European Union’s total current aid budget is managed by the European Commission. These funds come from the Community budget as well as the European Development Fund (EDF). The geographical span of the Community’s assistance programmes is global and includes the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries (ACP) as well as the Central American Common market or the South Asian Countries. Altogether this assistance helps more than 160 countries, territories or organisations worldwide.
The objective of European Community development co-operation policy is to foster sustainable development, to eradicate poverty in partner countries and to integrate them into the World economy. In the year of 2003 € 5.8 billion was disbursed for programs like education, promoting conflict resolution, human rights and democratisation, assisting small businesses including agricultural sector, improving infrastructure etc.
