About 1/3 of the Brussels residents live with a monthly income below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold. That’s the main message that comes out from the last report released by the Brussels-Capital Social and Health Observatory last week. To be clear, the at-risk-of-poverty threshold is calculated by taking into account the national median income. If a person earns less than 60% of this national median income (EUR 1139 in Belgium for a single person without children), he or she lives with an income below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold.

That’s quite a huge rate. Comparing that rate with Flanders and Wallonia, you might be surprised (10% in Flanders and 21% in Wallonia, live below the threshold respectively).

If you have a look at the GDP per inhabitant, the Brussels-Capital region is, however, much richer than the other Belgian regions. The average GDP per inhabitant indeed reached EUR 63 790 per year in 2016, while it only reached EUR 38 288 in Flanders and EUR 27 220 in Wallonia.

The public body states that both the jobs and the incomes in Brussels-Capital do not benefit many Brussels residents. And half of the positions in Brussels are held by people who live either in Flanders or in Wallonia.

This at-risk-of-poverty rate exposes very different realities. 27% of the people without higher education (who have only graduated from high-school for instance) face risk of poverty, while only 6% of those who have graduated from a Bachelor’s degree or a Masters’ degree are in this situation.

Having a look at some details, some figures are scary. In Brussels-capital, 17% of the labour force and 24% of the young residents (up to 25 years-old) are registered at Actiris, the regional body in charge of employment. About 21% of the 18-64 years-old residents benefit from social help or an alternative source of income.

The report is full on information, and makes public the geographical inequalities in Brussels-Capital. For instance, while about 1/8 of the seniors (as of 65 years-old) benefit from social income designed for aged people, this rate reaches only 4% in Woluwe-Saint-Pierre and 28% in Saint-Josse.

Living and/or working in the EU neighbourhood might make you forget some sad difficulties thousands of Brussels residents face on the daily basis. We all should keep those elements in mind.

For more information, here you can find the report.

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Belgium ranks right behind Ireland, but ahead of Scandinavian countries such as Norway, Sweden and Finland. The focus on least developed countries and the strengthening of aid effectiveness has been one of the priorities of the Belgian development cooperation policy over the last years.

Alexander De Croo, Minister for Development Cooperation: “Let’s take a moment to look at the work we’ve done and the results we’ve achieved. The last few years, we have tilted the Belgian development cooperation policy in a new direction and we are happy to see this also lead to better results. It is a compliment to the work of all those turning the Belgian development cooperation policy into reality on the ground. It’s also an extra incentive to do even better in the coming years. »

The new ODI-index looks into how donor countries score in terms of aid effectiviness. Besides the choice for the least developed countries, it looks also into the efforts made by donor countries in sectors which are critical to eradicate extreme poverty such as education, heath, food security and social protection. Belgium didn’t score so well today by accident.

Choice for least developed countries

Minister for Development Cooperation Alexander De Croo made the explicit choice a few years ago to focus the efforts of the international cooperation policy on least developed countries and fragile states. Eleven out of the fourteen partner countries selected by Belgium in 2015 belong to the category of least developed countries. When it made this choice, our country was going against the tide at the international level.

The ODI report indicates that efforts must be stepped up if we want to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030. More countries must, like Belgium, focus their efforts on the least developed countries. Middle-income countries have more options to finance their own development, for example through income tax, foreign investments and remittances.

Higher transparency

When comparing development efforts together with effectiveness, Belgium ranks 4th on the ODI index after Norway, Sweden and Denmark. A few weeks ago, it appeared that the Belgian development cooperation had also made a big leap forward in terms of transparency with one of the strongest progression on the 2018 Aid Transparency Index. While Belgium appeared at the bottom of the “weak” category in 2014, it now gets a spot in the category “good”. This transparency index shows to which extent donors communicate in a transparent manner on their development efforts.

The full report

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