India needs 'help' in aid to achieve MDGs: Mitchell

H S Rao
London, Mar 2 (PTI) Despite criticism at home, Britain
would continue to provide 280 million pounds a year in aid to
India over the next four years as the country's poorest
regions need help to achieve the Millennium Development Goals,
Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell has said.
Following an inquiry ordered by the International
Development Secretary, Britain has decided to stop giving aid
to 16 countries including China, Russia, Vietnam, Cambodia,
Moldova and Serbia but has cited India as a "development
paradox".
Mitchell told BBC's Politics Show that in order for
the UK to abide by its Millennium Development Goals
commitment, "the poorest regions of India would still need
help".
With 450 million people living on less than 50 pence a
day while millionaires enjoy great wealth, India, he said was
a "development paradox".
"The fact is that if you want to reach these
Millennium Development Goals, which we are also keen to do by
2015, you have to operate where poverty is greatest. In India
there are more poor people in three states... than there are
in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa," Mitchell said.
Though the UK has decided to slash aid to 16
countries, its aid budget will actually increase by 4 billion
pounds in the next four years.
Vast amounts of extra money - 30 per cent of the
budget - will be pumped into unstable hotspots such as Yemen
and Somalia, to help them crack down on terrorism.
The Daily Mail said that critics will question whether
that is prudent, as there will be no way for Britain to check
whether the money is being spent wisely, or being embezzled by
officials.
Britain's aid budget is one of the few areas protected
from cuts, unlike defence, education and the police, which are
having to make deep savings.
The total spent on aid will rise from 7 billion pounds
to 11 billion pounds by 2015 - at the same time front-line
public services at home are being slashed.
Mitchell admitted many of his constituents "go
ballistic" about the amount of British cash spent on overseas
aid at a time of belt-tightening at home.
But, he said the plan was to "buy results" rather than
"lob money at problems" - setting targets and stopping aid if
they are not met.
According to the newspaper, Mitchell is also likely to
order the removal of funding from international organisations
which have not delivered.
For example, the 12 million pounds given to UN
cultural body UNESCO is likely to be axed.

Mitchell said from now on the UK will give aid only
where it can follow the money and ensure that the British
taxpayer is getting value for money.
"Most international organisations are doing a decent
job but some need to be shown the yellow card. Others will,
frankly, get the bullet," he said.
"It's the mission of my department to focus ruthlessly
on results, on delivering 100p of development value for every
hard-earned pound of taxpayers' money".
He said resources would be concentrated on the 27
countries that account for three-quarters of the world's
maternal mortality and malaria deaths, such as Ghana and
Afghanistan.
The UN children's charity UNICEF will see its UK
funding to double to 40 million pounds. But the UN Food and
Agriculture Organisation and UNESCO will lose out.
A spokesman for the department of international aid
said that British projects in India would help half a million
mothers to deliver babies more safely and reach over three
million children through nutrition programmes.
"The scale of need in India's poorer states - each of
them larger than most African countries - remains huge. The
state of Bihar alone has double the number of people living in
extreme poverty than Ethiopia.
"Madhya Pradesh has the same population as Britain but
an economy 100 times smaller and 50 times more mothers die
there every year," he said.
DFID's top priorities in India include ensuring the
poorest girls get quality schooling, healthcare and nutrition,
supporting the private sector to deliver jobs, products,
infrastructure and basic services in areas which desperately
need them, he said.