Britain said on Saturday it could leave one of the United Nations’ agencies fighting hunger unless it improves its “patchy” (ujævne) performance.
The threat to pull out of the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) follows a review of British overseas aid ordered by the nine-month-old conservative-liberal coalition government, which administers one of the world’s biggest aid budgets.
By contrast, the government said it would step up support for the FAO’s UN sister agency, the World Food Program (WFP), which it said had performed strongly.
FAO deals with longer term projects, such as providing seeds and tools for agriculture, and the UK is reviewing how effective this work is. As a major aid donor, any cut or change in UK funding of UN programs is likely to have a big impact.
UK International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell is under pressure to make every penny count as his budget is one of the only parts of government spending that will see an increase this year.
Britain is to stop sending aid to a series of relatively affluent developing countries as the government focuses resources on countries with the highest levels of poverty, and failing states that have become havens for Islamist fundamentalists.
A review of Britains 8,4 billion pounds international development budget will herald the end of aid to Russia, Serbia, China, Cambodia, Vietnam and Moldova.
Aid to Yemen, regarded by Britain as a failing state whose lack of economic development provides a fertile groun for at-Qaida, will instead be doubled from 46,7 million pounds this year to 90 million by 2015.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
