Poorest nations hurt as cash goes to Iraq
British government aid programmes aimed at some of the poorest people in the
world are to be emasculated to allow ministers to commit £540m in aid to help
rebuild Iraq, The Independent has discovered.
So writes Leonard Doyle Foreign Editor
23 October 2003.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=456249
As America runs into difficulty drumming up the $36bn (£21bn) it needs for
Iraq from more than 70 countries gathered for a conference in Madrid, Britain
is acting as chief cheerleader. But finding the promised British contribution
without raising taxes or cutting government spending has meant that the
overseas aid budget is being used.
On 25 April, two weeks after Saddam Hussein’s statue was toppled in central
Baghdad, Tony Blair gave an assurance to British charities in a handwritten
note that “funds will not be redirected from other emergencies … nor from
programmes supporting poor people elsewhere”. But the Department for
International Development (DFID), now led by Hilary Benn, has been told to
find up to £100m by reducing programmes in countries such as Peru, the
Philippines, Bolivia and South Africa.
“This means Tony Blair has broken his promise,” said Justin Forsyth, policy
director at Oxfam. There was similar condemnation from Christian Aid, while
Caroline Spelman, shadow International Development Secretary, said it was
“morally wrong” to take aid from other countries to fund the rebuilding of
Iraq. President George Bush has persuaded Japan to pledge $1.5bn for Iraq next
year. South Korea and Canada have come up with a further £206m and the World
Bank is lending Iraq up to £3bn. But German and French unease means the
European Union is limiting its contribution for Iraq to a relatively paltry
£140m from 15 countries for one year.
The American blueprint for the invasion and occupation of Iraq foresaw a
virtuous circle whereby billions of dollars from oil exports were to pay to
rebuild the country.
Attacks on Iraq’s oil-export pipelines by the Iraqi resistance have reduced
exports to a trickle, wrecking the business model for the American-led
occupation.
The International Development Secretary, who is leading the British delegation
to Madrid, will tell the conference that £540m in British aid is being
committed to Iraq for the years 2004-07. A spokesman for DFID said yesterday:
“Yes, we are going to have to reprioritise where the money goes.” But he added
that final decisions on which projects would be cut had not been made. Mr Benn
said in a statement: “We had already planned to reduce our overall allocation
to middle-income countries in order to increase our spending in the poorest
countries.”
On 10 April, the day after Saddam Hussein’s regime crumbled in Baghdad, the
former international development secretary Clare Short told the House of
Commons that aid needed to rebuild the country would not be at the expense of
other poor people.
LOSING VITAL RESOURCES
BOLIVIA
The poorest country in South America, suffering from a huge wealth gap and
social unrest.
SOUTH AFRICA
Has a soaring Aids/HIV rate. There are more than five million sufferers,
250,000 under the age of 14.
RUSSIA
More than half of the population live on less than $11 a day. There are also
at least 443,000 internally displaced people.
PERU
Despite its rich landscape and vast potential wealth, the development of Peru
has been thwarted by endemic corruption and failure to address social and
economic inequalities. As a result the average annual income is $1,980 and one
in ten in the 27.1m population is undernourished
Tags: Poverty Analysis