French NGOs welcome the government’s decision to launch a strategy to aid developing countries but say the government needs to go much further if it is to live up to its pledge of making aid more transparent and predictable.

Under the new strategy 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa – most former French colonies – will receive 60 percent of France’s total development aid focusing on five sectors: health, education, climate change, agriculture and economic growth

An inter-ministerial committee for international cooperation and development (CICID) announced the strategy on 5 June; it was the first time the committee has assembled since President Jacques Chirac left office in 2007.

But aid campaigners say many questions remain unanswered. “The news is better late than never,” Oxfam France-Agir’s head of advocacy Sébastien Fourmy told IRIN. “But…the government is not being clear on what kind of aid it is giving, how much of it is going where, and what is behind its decision-making.”