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Response to ActionAid by International Development Secretary Hilary Benn

 

Related pages: Millennium Development Goal 8: Aid, Trade, Growth and Global Partnership | Case studies | External linkRough Guide to a Better World


Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for International DevelopmentCommenting on ActionAid's report of 27th May, 2005 "Real Aid -an agenda for making aid work", International Development Secretary Hilary Benn said:

"It's simply nonsense to suggest that a third of UK aid is 'phantom'.

"ActionAid's figures just don't stack up. "It's absurd to argue that debt relief, or practical advice from technical experts, isn't real aid.

"I've seen a school block in Ghana built with debt relief money. How can that be phantom aid? In the mid-1990s, before debt relief, only 2.5 million Ugandan children were in school - now, after debt relief, there are 6.5 million. You don't get four million more children in school with phantom aid.

"But we do recognise that there is a need for more and better aid. We've been saying this for some time and that's why we've doubled our aid since 1997. That's why the EU agreed on Tuesday to doubling its aid by 2010. In the UK, we're giving 90% of our aid to the very poorest countries, and working more closely with other donors to avoid duplication and waste."


Response to the report