UK development secretary Justine Greening said tackling poverty at source would give people hope that they could have a better life in their own countries

The international development secretary Justine Greening is urging the EU to match Britain’s commitment to higher aid spending, warning that the flow of migrants will only be stemmed once poverty is tackled at source.

Greening said the long-term solution to the crisis was to give people hope that they could have a better life in their own countries, rather than trying to intercept boats crossing the Mediterranean.

Speaking to the Guardian, Greening said: “People are not prepared to accept a life sentence of poverty just because of where they are born. We are seeing people driven by conflict or by the hope of getting a job. These people are on our doorstep.

“They see people in the world living better lives and say why can’t I have a better life myself.”

Britain has sent the flagship HMS Bulwark to the Mediterranean to help rescue migrants, and Greening said she fully backed attempts to crack down on the criminal gangs based in Libya. But she said the EU needed to “tackle the root causes of why people are moving in the first place”.

Greening added: “We need the EU collectively to step up to the plate. The UK is doing a lot because we have got to 0.7% (of gross national income spent on overseas aid). Our leadership comes from the fact that we are backing our words with action.The EU needs to bring its development budget to bear and so do member states.”

She added that the response to the UK’s message had been positive. “There is a growing realisation of the fact that the way you choke off the supply of people that the human traffickers rely on is through development.”

Britain is one of only four EU countries that has met the UN target for spending 0.7% of national income on aid. None of the other major EU countries – Germany, France, Italy and Spain – were close to reaching the UN goal in 2014.

At a meeting of EU development ministers in Brussels this week, Greening stressed the dangers of not using financial assistance to help create jobs and prosperity in poor countries.

She said: “There are consequences of not being prepared to to work with other countries to help them become more prosperous. I was urging other EU member states to work collectively to tackle the root causes of the migration problem.”

Germany, which is hosting a meeting of the G7 group of industrial nations in Bavaria next month, has just announced an increase in its aid spending.

Greening said: “There are the beginnings of a realisation that the lack of development around the world has clear domestic ramifications. The world is shrinking. People see that we live better lives in Europe. They notice the remittances being sent home. They ask themselves why they should have a life sentence of poverty.”

The government has spared aid from the spending cuts of the past five years, and despite heavy criticism from some Conservative MPs and parts of Fleet Street, George Osborne has continued to ringfence Greening’s budget.

She said her department was shifting its focus to economic development, adding: “We want to turbo charge growth.”

Greening told the meeting of EU development ministers that of the 5,000 migrants who died at sea in 2014, 3,000 perished in the Mediterranean. Those making the perilous crossing, she said, were following the basic human instinct of searching for a better life.

Britain’s response to the civil war in Syria, which has resulted in four million refugees fleeing to neighbouring countries, has encouraged Greening to think that big migration flows can be halted if people feel they have the chance of a decent life.