EU Doubles Aid for World's Poor

EU doubles aid for world's poor

$80bn by 2010 for developing nations is boost for Blair-Brown crusade

Michael White and Larry Elliott
Wednesday May 25, 2005
The Guardian

European Union ministers last night surprised and delighted aid agencies around the world when they agreed a dramatic increase in help to countries in Africa and the rest of the developing world that will see the EU's richest states reach the United Nations' historic goal of giving 0.7% of national income in aid by 2015.

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It prompted rare unanimity from aid agencies like Oxfam and Christian Aid, as well as the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. They all praised what Tory spokesman, Andrew Mitchell, called "a significant move in the right direction".

The chancellor, Mr Brown, and the international development secretary, Hilary Benn, who took part in the negotiation, also welcomed what Mr Benn called "a major breakthrough in the fight against international poverty".

But the deal's potential significance lies in its impact on other countries. "It's really fantastic, it could have been better, but it's a very generous deal that lays down the gauntlet to the United States and Japan. We were desperate for such an injection of cash into the poker game they are all playing," said a spokesman for Oxfam.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/hearafrica05/story/0,15756,1491632,00.html

up yours? why does everything have to be a competition?

isn't this for the poor?

the West would commit to that percentage of Aid giving. Bush has given some aid to Africa (with strings like % on virginity education and no use of condoms in an area where many girls have no choice who they marry or when or what he has done in his past if he is 20 years older than her).

And they laud the donations going out from U.S. corporations around the world. But you know what? Coca Cola has been selling coke everywhere on the planet for 100 years so it isn't so much that all of Coke's donations are "from America" - when there profits have been made everywhere.

This simple vote by the EU flies in the face of current US policy.

I hope Canada does the same. I hear they have talked about making the goal over the years..but never quite made it.

So to be fair I should have said 'up yours Canada' too.

It is actually about the 'money honey' (I kid). In this case..hitting that percentage in mostly untied aid really matters. And hitting it every year. There is only one bill gates in the world. The wast majority of the work on Africa has to consistently come from dollars. Because when it is tied aid that means a too high percentage goes to the salary of some Texan or some American corporation.

I wonder if the EU didn't finally meet this 'standard' this year and pledge.. as a big huge bitch slap to the face of Bolton & Wolfowitz. Cause god only knows what those two have planned. But I imagine that it has something to do with the less developed nation getting their only succor (as they try and catch up desperately) from the corporate tit. Any neocon MBA would see 'untied foreign aid' as vicious competition for the loyalties of the little people.