The UK's aid budget will be shifted to projects that promote its interests, the foreign secretary has said.
Boris Johnson said the money will be "more sensibly distributed" to support foreign policy aims such as denying safe havens to Islamist militants.
His comments came as Penny Mordaunt, the international development secretary, said the UK will provide a £21m boost to an emergency aid fund.
The UK currently spends £13bn on aid each year.
Speaking to the Times newspaper, Mr Johnson said "the old jam jars are being smashed" and money would be diverted to support government aims, including combating terrorist groups in Africa.
It would also go to help refugees in Yemen and Rohingya Muslims fleeing across the Burmese border into Bangladesh, he added.
The government is committed to spending 0.7% of national income on overseas aid but some politicians oppose such spending.
Conservative backbench MP Peter Bone has said the target "means that important things at home like social care are struggling," while Ukip have called for the aid budget to be cut by 80% and focus only on emergency responses and eradicating disease.
Labour backs the 0.7% target, saying global poverty reduction is itself in the UK's interest.
For years there have been calls from some MPs for Britain's foreign aid budget to be cut, and the subject provides a steady stream of headlines in the right-leaning press.
Priti Patel said too much of Britain's aid money was wasted, or spent poorly, when she was international development minister.
The government recently suspended a £12m aid programme to Syria after a BBC investigation revealed the cash was at risk of going to jihadist groups.
And before the 2017 General Election there were suggestions that Theresa May was planning to revise the 0.7% spending target, but eventually it remained unchanged.
Mrs May says she is "proud" of the UK's record on foreign aid while Labour, the Lib Dems and SNP are also committed to keeping the 0.7% target.
Mr Johnson's promise to spend foreign aid more wisely may improve confidence, but for the harshest critics it will not go anywhere near far enough.
Many will continue to argue that in a time of economic difficulties for the UK, money spent abroad could be used to help tackle health and social care funding problems at home.
Mr Johnson said the UK would gain more control of its aid spending after Brexit.
About £1bn of the money the UK pays to the EU budget counts as part of the foreign aid budget.
The EU spends that money on humanitarian aid and on emergency responses to world crises, as well as on projects in countries close to the EU and those hoping to join in the future.
Ms Mordaunt said that the extra £21m for the United Nations' Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) was needed because 2018 could be "even bleaker" than this year, with its "harrowing" humanitarian crises.
The money will hep to provide millions of people with food, clean water, sanitation and vital health services.
Where does UK aid go?
As of April 2017:
More than 40% of the budget went to multilateral organisations, such as the United Nations, who fund big projects like disaster relief
The remaining 60% goes directly to developing countries
The Department for International Development says the biggest regional beneficiary is Africa, which received a total of £2.54bn from the UK last year
Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Syria, were each given more than £200m
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
No comments:
Post a Comment