Storbritanniens finansminister, Gordon Brown, lovede i sin budgetoversigt mandag at hæve u-landsbistanden med et ordentligt tryk seksten, således at britisk bistand når FNs 0,7 procent mål senest i 2013.
Her det afsnit i Browns tale, der omhandler udviklingsbistanden, gengivet ordret på det engelske originalsprog:
2005 is the year where, as the Prime Minister has said, the needs of Africa will be the focus of the UKs G7 Presidency as a Presidency for Development. And as we play our part in addressing global injustices, our countrys obligation is not to cut overseas aid but to increase it.
In 1997 Africa received just 450 million pound of UK bilateral aid. By 2007-08 Africa will receive one thousand two hundred and fifty million to fund health, education and anti poverty programmes. To promote treatments and cures for HIV/AIDS across the whole developing world we will allocate in each of the next three years 450 million, 500 million and 550 million pound – 1,5 billion pound in total to tackle this scourge.
So to meet all our international obligations – including recommendations from the Prime Ministers Africa Commission – the Secretary of State for International Development is announcing that we will increase his budget for aid from 3,8 billion pound this year to 5,3 billion pound by 2008 – an average annual real terms increase of 9,2 per cent.
Total UK aid which fell in real terms by 23 per cent in the eighties and early nineties will – by 2008 – have risen since 1997 by 140 per cent in real terms to nearly 6,5 billion pound (totale bistand, ikke kun gennem det britiske Danida, red.).
For every pound of UK aid spent in 1997, we will be spending by 2008 three pounds… along with debt relief, raising UK Official Development Assistance from the 0,26 per cent of national income we inherited (fra de konservative, red.) to 0,39 per cent next year, 0,42 per cent in 2006-07, to 0,47 per cent in 2007-08.
We wish to maintain those rates of growth in the overseas aid ratio which on this timetable would rise beyond 0,5 per cent after 2008 and reach 0,7 per cent by 2013. And I can also state that if Britains plan – the new Finance Facility – is agreed internationally, the objective of 0,7 per cent could be achieved earlier, by 2008-09.
But Mr Speaker, today (Monday), the humanitarian tragedy in Sudan is deeper than at the time of Live Aid – which started in Sudan twenty years ago – and we must act now. The International Development Secretary is today announcing that he is setting aside now – to be made available immediately a peace agreement is signed – emergency and other relief to address Sudans crisis – a total over the next three years of at least 150 million pound more.
And I thank the churches, faith groups and NGOs for their representations – to date, and to the Treasury, over 15.000 representations for this Spending Review – that we raise spending on aid and not cut it.
Kilde: www.hm-treasury.gov.uk
Læs også “Britisk udspil om mere bistand og guldopskrivning i IMF”, 13.07.04, på nyhedssiden.
