France’s minister of state for Francophone and international partnerships, Thani Mohamed Soilihi. (Photo: Pablo Cuadra / Getty Images for Global Citizen) 
Other donor countries — especially the European Union and its members — need to step in to fill the gap in development financing left by the withdrawal of the United States, says Thani Mohamed Soilihi, France’s minister of state for Francophone and international partnerships, who is responsible for international development assistance.
Soilihi attended last week’s meeting in Skukuza of the G20 ministers on development, which agreed on the G20 Skukuza Development Ministerial Declaration focusing on the need to increase efforts to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, mainly by combating illicit finance flows — a big issue for Africa especially — and by establishing floors (minimum levels) of social protection.
The declaration said the financing gap for reaching the SDGs by 2030 had undergone a “quantum jump” from billions to trillions of dollars.
Yet, as Soilihi told journalists, the context for financing development was adverse, especially with the withdrawal of the US and the shutting down of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) by the Trump administration.
This would have “very serious and dramatic consequences”, especially for health, leaving a development financing hole of some $4-billion a year to be filled. Soilihi said it had been calculated that about 14 million people would die by 2030 because of the end of USAID.
The rising public debt of countries was also a problem (which was addressed by the G20 finance ministers earlier in July).
And so EU leadership and action were now more important, he said, because the EU was the first contributor of official development aid, providing about 42%.
“So we have a major responsibility, especially when it comes to supporting the health system and finding new ways to build cooperation with the countries that need it the most and have an effective impact on the ground.
“France does a lot for development, but we do a lot more when we’re together within the European Union. So we have a major responsibility, and it’s important for us to come and to speak as one.”
That was why he had convened a meeting in Skukuza of EU development ministers and other heads of delegation to discuss how they could together contribute more to meeting the G20 development targets.
He added that to increase the collective effort, France was also holding a meeting of its Paris Pact for People and the Planet (4P) initiative for more innovative development assistance. It includes 73 countries.
He noted that having the development ministers of assisting countries — as well as ministers responsible for development in their own countries — all present at Skukuza had been useful for holding a constructive dialogue on how to tackle development problems.
France was attending the meeting to help the success of SA’s G20 presidency because “France is really dedicated to the success of multilateralism”.
He said the G20 was also advancing the agenda of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, which was held in Seville, Spain, last month.
Development priorities
Soilihi said France fully supported the three development priorities that SA had set for its G20 presidency.
The first was how to join forces to have universal social protection as a driver for development and reducing inequalities.
“This topic is very important and it relates to the importance of the health sector and what we are trying to do to change the way we address health issues.”
The second priority was how to fight illicit financial flows (IFFs) as a way to mobilise more domestic resources to finance development. He said IFFs “hinder states’ capacities to mobilise resources for their own development”.
The third priority was how to protect global public goods.
Soilihi was asked whether France would change the way it offered development assistance to Africa in response to the US withdrawal.
He said France had not waited for the US withdrawal but had started “deeply” changing the way it partnered with Africa in 2017, as announced by President Emmanuel Macron in a major speech in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
“The core principle is that we want partnerships based on mutual interest, we want win-win partnerships, and we want partnerships that are based on the country’s needs and what they are asking from their partners.”
He said France was not now going to change the way it operated in Africa.
“But we need to bring more means to the table now,” working together with the EU and the 4P partners.
He said that when G20 member countries were asked by their public why they were in the G20, they should point out to them that the G20 countries represented 75% of global trade and 90% of global GDP.
“And if we join forces, we have a real power to change things.”
Soilihi was asked about France’s military strategy in the Sahel and West Africa since it had been forced — under pressure from new, pro-Russia juntas — to withdraw all its forces that had been invited in by the previous elected governments to help them fight jihadist insurgents.
He stressed that the governments had asked France for help.
“But if today a number of countries in West Africa no longer want military French bases to have those kinds of cooperations, we’ll be happy to change those military bases for schools.”
France no longer had a security focus in that region, he said.
“We’ll just be there to answer the calls from our partner countries if there is another ground for military cooperation or others. But we’ll mostly be focused on ensuring the security of French and European people in Africa.
“And we’ll always be in that position of considering the needs of the countries we work with.
“But we’ve understood loud and clear that in some countries in West Africa, military cooperation is no longer the focus.” DM