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London,
July 11, 2009 – Britain is to target foreign aid at improving security
and justice in the world's most "fragile" states.
International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander is due to
say that up to half of new aid could be pushed into states ravaged by
war, weak governments and poverty-fuelled civil unrest.
Countries such as Sudan, Somalia and Afghanistan will be the main
beneficiaries of the switch, which will be set out in a White Paper
arguing that security and justice are "basic services".
Funding for those areas will be more than doubled and pumped into
community policing, legal training, dispute resolution, securing peace
agreements and creating jobs, such as post-conflict rebuilding.
A Government source said: "We will never eradicate world poverty
unless we focus on the most fragile countries. We must tackle the
difficulties they face head on.
"Security and justice are human rights. We want to ensure they
are treated as basic services for all people. That is why we will put
them at the heart of our aid programmes.
"The people we are helping are among the most disadvantaged in
the world. They deserve to have confidence in their local police, know
they can seek justice when they are wronged and have the opportunity to
work.
"In an interdependent world, this is not just in their interests
but in ours."
The change in priorities was signaled by Mr Alexander in a speech
in April when he said: "Poor people want security and justice in the
same way that they want sanitation, education or health care. Without it
they cannot tend their fields, collect water, send their children to
school or seek to improve their incomes. Insecurity is a handbrake on
development."
He warned then that aid agencies had become "afraid to engage in
building political institutions for fear of being accused of interfering
in a developing country's politics".
Source: The Mirror
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