PRESS RELEASE / Coordination SUD

Poverty and inequality are on the rise, while France is taking a step backwards in terms of international solidarity.

The Coordination SUD NGO collective, of which Agrisud is a member, denounces a new increase in cuts to Official Development Assistance (ODA) in the 2025 finance bill.

On January 16, 2025, on the Government's proposal, the Senate added an additional ODA cut to the finance bill, bringing the total amount of the cut on international solidarity to over 2 billion euros. A measure that goes against the commitments of the Development Programming Law unanimously adopted in 2021, in a context nonetheless marked by the widening of global inequalities and poverty.

Olivier Bruyeron, Chairman of Coordination SUD, a collective representing over 180 NGOs, warns of the consequences to come: 

“France's ability to respond to development challenges and crises, and to promote its feminist diplomacy, is now under threat, according to Jean-Noël Barrot, Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs. Such a draft budget will force France to backtrack on commitments already made! For example, what about the promise made in June 2023 by the Head of State that low-income countries and vulnerable populations would not have to choose between fighting poverty and fighting climate change? We are taking a step backwards in the face of inequality, and considerably reducing France's ability to meet global challenges that concern us all, and whose repercussions we are already feeling in France.”

READ THE FULL PRESS RELEASE on the Coordination SUD website (in French)

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Coordination SUD is the national coordinating body for French international solidarity NGOs.