As EU Pares Budgets, Turkey and Korea Step up Aid Spending

“EU leaders meeting in Brussels this week are to consider austerity measures that could reduce the EU’s foreign aid spending by 11% in the 2014-2020 budget, while several EU nations are likely to miss their aid commitments to disadvantaged nations.”

“Sylvia Tiryaki, the vice-chairwoman of Istanbul Kültür University’s international relations department, said Turkey was increasingly active in overseas development not just through foreign aid, but via non-governmental and charity organizations.

‘One of the reasons is that Turkey itself is becoming richer and the economic situation here is much better than it is in other countries, so we can afford it,’ Tiryaki said in an interview from Ankara.

Turkey’s help to Egypt following the Arab spring, as well as in fragileSomalia, has been designed to bring political and economic stability in regions close to Turkey, because ‘poverty breeds radicalism’, she said.”

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