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United Nations - As France announced a further R62bn in public aid for development in poor countries from 2020, President Jacob Zuma called for climate financing to further help poor nations curb greenhouse emissions.
French President Francois Hollande said on Sunday that "France has decided to increase the level of its public aid for development to release 4 billion euros extra from 2020".
Hollande said during a summit at the United Nations General Assembly on global development goals that he had also decided to reform France's public aid agency to link it with a big local financial group to create Europe's largest development bank to ensure that "commitments would be met".
Hollande did not specify whether the money would be used to fight climate change or global poverty.
France's share of gross domestic product to development aid fell for the fourth year running in 2014, accounting for 0.36% of GDP (€8bn), which was well below the 0.7% set by developing nations.
Meanwhile, Zuma said during the UN Summit for the Adoption of the Post 2015 Development Agenda in New York on Sunday that the Development Partners should upscale Overseas Development Assistance (ODA), "with binding timetables, including the reaffirmation that ODA remains the main source of development assistance for many developing countries".
"We also reiterate that climate financing is new and additional to and cannot be counted as ODA, nor can it be mixed with traditional development finance," he said.
- Reuters and Fin24.
