Aid must be maintained despite crisis: EU

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Aid flows to poor countries must be maintained despite the global financial crisis, the European Union executive said on Friday ahead of a U.N. conference on development financing.

In a statement ahead of the Doha conference at the weekend, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said sustained and effective aid was not only a moral duty, but a "strategic investment."

"It is crucial to maintain the aid flows," he said. "It is an investment in shared prosperity and in shared security."

He said the world was on track to meet Millennium Development Goals by 2015, "provided that there is no backtracking on aid promises to tackle global poverty."

Barroso said the poorest people on the planet would be hit hard by the economic crisis and there was a need "to build a bridge between financial rescue and human rescue."

U.N. member states in 2000 set eight goals to be achieved by 2015, including halving the number of people living on less than $1 a day and halving the number of people suffering from hunger.

U.N. aid groups fear the financial crisis will curb political will to deliver development dollars while providing a reason for some states to renege on previous commitments as they fight economic downturn and rising unemployment at home.

The 27-nation EU is the world's biggest aid donor.

Only one Western leader is expected to attend the Doha conference, which starts on Saturday and runs until Tuesday, and that is French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn and World Bank President Robert Zoellick have cited scheduling conflicts for not attending.

(Editing by Giles Elgood)