Category: ConDem Coalition
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Watch out for any budgetary backtracking on aid commitments
Supporters of international development should watch this week’s budget announcement very carefully. Overseas aid and the role of DFID are not usually at the forefront of a Chancellor’s mind when delivering a budget – personal taxation, welfare and big capital spending projects tend to get all the attention. But just because the budget is usually
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Left Foot Forward on Tory delays on passing 0.7% law
Left Foot Forward reports on the Tory-led government delay in enshrining the 0.7% target in law. Reminding readers that, it’s not the first time that the Tories have broken this commitment; As Left Foot Forward reported on June 4th 2010, just weeks after the election, it’s a promise the Tories failed to immediately deliver once they’d made it
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Tories break manifesto commitment to legislate on aid spending
Today’s Sun reveals that legislation to ensure Britain meets the UN goal of 0.7 per cent spending on international aid will be delayed despite a manifesto commitment from the Tories ahead of the 2010 election that they would; “legislate in the first session of a new Parliament to lock in this level of spending for every year from
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Tax Havens, Conservatives and the Developing World
After the recent investigation by Channel 4 Dispatches programme that Conservative Ministers, Andrew Mitchell the International Development Secretary amongst them, store their wealth in off-shore bank accounts, the question of the harm done by these locations and their practices are now being asked. The figure quoted in the Dispatches investigation is that for every £1
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Serious questions raised about aid commitment as Clegg fails to confirm policy
Despite repeated questioning on the Andrew Marr show today (BBC 1, Sunday 19 September 2010) Nick Clegg failed to confirm whether the government would meet the 0.7% overseas aid target from 2013, despite having previously promised to do so, sending out worrying signals just days before he attends a critical UN summit on global poverty.
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Cameron fails to fight for world’s poor as G8 drops $50bn aid pledge
First posted on Left Foot Forward. When Harriet Harman asked David Cameron last week to give due credit to Gordon Brown for his work on development, he replied: “I’d be delighted to, if he could be bothered to turn up to this House.” Apart from being disrespectful to a former prime minister and Chancellor respected
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Foreign Office “planning a raid on DfID’s cash and on its turf”
The Financial Times website today carries a disturbing story on the future of DfID funding. This comes just weeks after an election when the now-Government pledged to ringfence DfID funding and that principle’s affirmation in the Coalition Document. According to Sue Cameron at the FT, the Foreign Office is “planning a raid on [DfID’s] cash
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The coalition in development: a bluer shade of green
First posted on Progress Online as part of Steve’s regular column. The Lib Dems have not fought the corner of international development – they are absent from DfID and big ideas such as the Robin Hood Tax have been dropped When analysing the influence of the coalition partners on their joint programme for international development, we
Labour Campaign for International Development 