As individuals, we proudly donate more than PS2.5bn privately to many overseas causes that I suspect reaches more desperate people directly than the staggering PS12bn-plus Government UK
overseas aid.
This figure is so large that it is not unreasonable to question to what extent the PS500 million pounds of
overseas aid actually achieves.
Under the committee's rules a country can count certain refugee-related expenses as
overseas aid for the first year after a refugee's arrival.
OVERSEAS AID:Cut billions from international development budget.
That may not go over very well with Conservative MPs who are demanding that Prime Minister David Cameron scale back
overseas aid while domestic Britain suffers deep public spending cuts.
Overseas aid should be "a matter of private charity", he insisted.
The fact tens of thousands can die without massive appeals and fundraising concerts is why Welsh MP David Davies is wrong when he calls on the Government to cut funding
overseas aid and divert cash to ease the budget cuts facing the police.
Details of the foreign projects emerged just days after Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, criticised Government
overseas aid.
The decisions, to be announced by International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell on Tuesday, follow a nine-month review by Britain's Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government of its
overseas aid budget, one of the world's biggest.
In May 2007, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population and Development described the restrictions as "cruel and illogical" and recommended that family planning, contraception, and sexual and reproductive health services should be integrated with HIV/AIDS programmes and that at least 10% of Australia's
overseas aid budget should be devoted to sexual and reproductive health.
Aid agency Oxfam International, launching today its report Credibility Crunch--Food, Poverty and Climate Change--an agenda for rich country leaders says the ministers' most urgent priority is to fill the US$30b hole in
overseas aid. Failure to do this will cost five million lives, Oxfam says.