Month: November 2011
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Rushanara Ali MP: Where’s the International Leadership on International Development?
Rushanara Ali, Member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Bow and part of the Shadow International Development team writes in Huffington Post this week about the importance of leadership at the Busan Forum on Aid Effectiveness saying; Busan should not just be another photo opportunity where leaders substitute rhetoric for action. This is an opportunity…
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Osborne announces £1.17 billion cut in UK aid budget in Autumn Statement
Today Chancellor George Osborne has announced an effective £1.17billion cut in the aid budget. He said; Let me turn to other areas of public spending, starting with overseas aid. This Government will stick by the commitments it has made to the poorest people in the world by increasing our international development budget – and the…
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Ivan Lewis on reports that aid agencies have been banned from operating inside Somalia
Ivan Lewis has commented on reports that international aid agencies have been banned from operating inside Somalia. The news that some UN and international aid agencies have been banned from operating inside Somalia is extremely concerning. I am relieved by reports that staff are safe at the moment but it is undoubtedly a distressing situation…
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Ivan Lewis on the Busan Forum on Aid Effectiveness
Shadow Secretary for International Development, Ivan Lewis, writes in the Guardian today about the Busan Summit on Aid Effectiveness. He argues; As world leaders, including the UK’s international development secretary, Andrew Mitchell, meet in Busan for the fourth high-level forum on aid effectiveness, it is apparent that clear-minded coalitions and strong political leadership are essential if there…
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Thank you to ConHome for an excellent summary of the Right’s opposition to aid
Over at Conservative Home they’ve done a useful job in summarising the vehement opposition to the aid budget from the centre right in this country…here are some highlights; “The annual international aid budget is approximately one quarter of the existing defence budget. If commonsensical economies were applied to the aid budget, they could at the…
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Conservative Home’s Ruth Lea: Cut aid budget to cut tax for richest 1%
No wonder the Tories are opposed to the Robin Hood Tax – they’re proposing the opposite – to rob from the poor to give to the rich. Political Scrapbook reporting what we highlighted yesterday; Conservative Home columnist Ruth Lea has given the “same old Tories” brigade another round of ammunition, with her suggestion that the government…
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Andrew Mitchell’s boring comments on Labour’s record mask his own shortcomings
Yesterday the Huffington Post published an interview with Andrew Mitchell in which he criticised Gordon Brown and Labour’s record for not being focused enough on results; “There was a lot of focus on huge headlines with huge sums of money. The key thing is that the results are delivered on the ground. Going on a…
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BBC World Service should be funded by the FCO, not by UK aid
Despite other raids on DfID’s budget, responsibility for the World Service was spared from DfID at the Comprehensive Spending Review last October. Now that decision has been reversed. It was announced last week that £90m is to be given over 5 years to fund the BBC World Service. There is no doubt the BBC World Service should…
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Ivan Lewis – Britain should be proud of the progress made in battling pneumonia
Ivan Lewis MP, Shadow Secretary of State for International Development, writes for Left Foot Forward today on a visit to Bangladesh to see how UK aid is delivering value for money, concrete results and saving lives Today is World Pneumonia Day and I am in Bangladesh to witness firsthand the UK supported healthcare programs that…
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£200m of aid budget to be spent on St Helena airport – after lobbying from Lord Ashcroft
First posted on Left Foot Forward Today’s Mirror reports international development secretary Andrew Mitchell has approved £200 million to be spent building an airport for the South Atlantic island of St Helena. When news first broke of the proposals last July, MP Denis MacShane slammed it as: “A scandal of Pergau Dam proportions.” Why? Because the decision comes after lobbying from Tory donor and £127m tax avoider Lord…
Labour Campaign for International Development 