Britain cuts aid to 16 nations and 4 U.N. agencies

Thursday, 3 March 2011 01:24 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain said on Tuesday it would stop funding 16 countries and four United Nations’ agencies as it focuses its 6.5 billion pound overseas aid budget on helping the poorest or conflict-ridden countries.

The major overhaul of aid policies follows a nine-month review of their effectiveness by the Conservative-led coalition government.

“This government is taking a radically different approach to aid. We want to be judged on our results, not on how much money we are spending,” International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell said.

Overseas aid is one of the few areas of public spending that has been ring-fenced by the coalition, which stands by the previous Labour government’s goal of raising foreign aid to the U.N. target of 0.7 percent of gross national income by 2013.

Polls show many Britons disagree with protecting foreign aid when many domestic services are being cut to help curb a record peacetime budget deficit. That has made the government determined to show it is getting value for money from one of the world’s biggest aid budgets.

The government will phase out aid programmes by 2016 to 16 countries considered no longer to need it, including China, Russia, Vietnam, Moldova, Cameroon, Kosovo, Iraq and Serbia.

Aid will in future be focussed on 27 poor, conflict-ridden or “fragile” states, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, India, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and Zimbabwe.

FUNDING HALTED

“Together, these countries account for three quarters of global maternal mortality, nearly three quarters of global malaria deaths and almost two thirds of children out of school,” Mitchell told parliament.

After reviewing 43 international agencies, Britain decided to pull out of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation.

It will stop funding UN HABITAT, which promotes sustainable urban development, the International Labour Organisation and the U.N. International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. All four agencies were judged to be poor performers.

Britain will increase funding to nine organisations, which it says provide good value, including children’s fund UNICEF, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

It put four agencies on notice that it could stop funding them in two years unless they improve their performance.

They are U.N. cultural arm UNESCO, the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, the development programmes of the Commonwealth Secretariat and the International Organisation for Migration.

Britain spent 4 billion pounds on bilateral aid in 2009/10 and 2.5 billion through international organisations, such as the European Commission, United Nations and World Bank.

Aid group Oxfam welcomed the review. “We are very pleased that the government has kept its promises to the world’s poorest people at a time when they need help the most,” Barbara Stocking, Oxfam’s chief executive, said in a statement.