Official Development Assistance: which spending priorities?
When French people are asked about their top three priorities for development aid, they prioritize areas which might in the long-term reduce dependency on aid, i.e. support for the economy and employment.
However, the third priority, support for humanitarian crises, appears to contradict this long-term vision. This reflects the common difficulty in development policies straddling both present-day emergencies and future challenges.
The issues of least concern include nutrition, water and sanitation, and education. Health – divided in this question between global pandemics and immunization – is not seen either as a priority for development spending.
Infrastructure (roads, electricity, etc.) and banking services generate the least interest among French people in terms of important investments for aid.
This data comes from our survey conducted by the YouGov Institute and piloted by the research team at University College London and Birmingham University as part of the project Aid Attitudes Tracker which measures the evolution of opinions and behaviors on issues of international solidarity in four countries.
