More and Better Aid

There is a great deal of misleading information about development aid and its impact on developing countries. While aid alone can never solve the problems of the developing world, we most definitely should not stop giving. Overseas development aid is helping to save millions of lives throughout the developing world. DfID helps an estimated 3 million people escape poverty every year.

There are important issues to be considered when it comes to development aid. We must work toward ensuring that the aid money we send to less-developed countries (LDCs) is spend on health-care and education and not wasted by corrupt governments. DfID now gives money to LDC governments in return for regular reports on how the money is being used and also by informing local people of what they should expect from their governments. Where it is not possible to give money directly to government, we provide aid directly to the worst-affected people through international and local development agencies.

I will continue to push for reforms that will make our aid more effective and less susceptible to corruption at any level.

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Committment to Aid Target by 2013

One of the greatest achievements of the Make Poverty History campaign was securing a commitment from the government that the UK will meet the target of giving 0.7% of GDP in international aid by the year 2013.

From spending just 0.36% on international aid in 2004, the government has committed to reaching the 0.7% goal by 2013.

However, without far-reaching changes in how aid is delivered, it won't achieve maximum benefits.

The government will continue to press the international community for change in this area to ensure that aid is given without economic strings attached and in ways that will really improve the lives of those in the developing world.

This is an issue that I often lobby on - I am keen to see progress in this key area of the fight to eliminate world pverty.

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Conditionality Challenged

The Annual Meetings of the World Bank took place during 2006 in Singapore. In advance of the meetings Hilary Benn announced that he would be withholding £50 million from the World Bank to ensure that enough progress is made on reforming the way it attaches conditions to aid.

The UK disagrees with the World Bank applying conditions on privatisation and trade liberalisation to its aid.
We think that countries should be free to decide how they want to develop and that the World Bank should support them in doing so. Aid should help countries move in the right direction, not tell them what to do.

In 2005, the UK promised £1.43 billion to the World Bank. But have always been clear that £50 million of this depended on the World Bank reforming its approach to conditionality.
When Hilary Benn met Paul Wolfowitz in Singapore, Paul Wolfowitz agreed to produce a detailed report on how the Bank’s new approach is being applied. This is just one example of how Britain is persuading the international institutions to improve.

This success was also down to those who tirelessly campaigned on this issue and especially the work of Christian Aid.

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