Extra funding only available for the best performers – Alexander

12 August 2009

International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander today made clear that extra UK funding will only be available to international agencies that deliver results.

As he confirmed that four UN agencies will receive £6.5 million in additional funding to tackle problems faced by the world’s poorest people, such as AIDS and maternal mortality, the Development Secretary underlined his firm commitment to rewarding results and reforms that make the UN more efficient and effective.

Douglas Alexander said:

"We will only make full extra funding available to the best performing organisations, as part of our commitment to making the UN more effective.

“Of these four organisations, UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and UNAIDS have been assessed as the best performers and will be given full additional support to fund further projects on the ground.

“The UN Development Programme and World Health Organisation will receive 50 per cent of the available additional funding - while there has been good progress in some areas, there is clearly still more to do in others and we will continue to push for this through our challenging assessments.

“We will continue to drive forward reform in the UN to enable it to tackle global problems such as the economic downturn, climate change and national fragility, which impact on us all."

The four agencies were assessed against a range of challenging targets and awarded an overall score which determined levels of additional funding.

Targets included numbers of births in developing countries attended by qualified personnel, prevention of mother-to-child transmission of AIDS and improving how the different UN agencies work together to reduce poverty.

The recent DFID White Paper announced the Government’s intention to “link UK core funding for individual UN agencies to impact, efficiency and reform.”