Rich countries' aid promises at risk

As Chancellor Gordon Brown and other Finance Ministers gather for the Spring Meetings of the G7, IMF and World Bank, ActionAid urges that the aid pledged in 2005 by the worlds rich countries to combat poverty must actually materialise.

It warns the IMF must allow countries to spend aid money, not block spending on key services such as education and health through restrictive spending limits.

There is a real risk that countries either wont keep the promises made, or will only keep them by double counting debt cancellation as part of aid. Aid must be designed to meet the needs of the poor, not the desires of the rich, says Romilly Greenhill, ActionAid Senior Policy Officer, who is at the Washington meetings.

Some poor countries have already been forced to turn down desperately-needed aid offered by donors.

Uganda, for example, has been forced to reject new education funding and in Kenya, caps on the national budget have prevented the Ministry of Education from hiring the 60,000 teachers it needs to expand primary schooling.

ActionAid also wants to see developing countries free to determine their own economic policies, rather than placed in a straitjacket by World Bank and IMF conditions which force them into free market policies such as privatisation and free trade, which often hurt, rather than help, those most in need.

The organisation welcomes IMF Managing Director Rodrigo de Ratos recognition that governance reform is needed, but it says that his proposal to give more votes to middle income countries is not enough.

Poor countries, where IMF policies have the greatest impact, must also get a fairer say in how the institution is run. Its simply not acceptable, in the 21st century, for Europe to have five times as many seats on the IMF board as Africa, says Victoria Kemonou Djitrinou, Education Advocacy and Campaign Coordinator for ActionAid International.

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ActionAid International works in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas to fight global poverty and tackle the injustice and inequity that cause it. www.actionaid.org.uk