UK Development Agency Ends Bilateral Funding to Cambodia

The UK’s interna­tion­al development agency yesterday announced an end to bilateral fund­ing to Cambodia and 15 other cou­n­tries including Iraq, China and Burundi.

Funding to Cambodia ends in 2013 after the $16 million budget for 2010 to 2011 drops to $10 million, $9 million then $4 million over successive years, said the Department for International Development Bi­lateral Aid Review published yesterday.

“Britain will end bilateral programs in countries such as Viet­nam and Serbia, which are now no longer in need of British aid. It will withdraw from other countries where the UK is not the best-placed aid provider,” a DFID statement sa­id.

More money will go to the re­main­ing 27 countries, such as Som­alia, which sees the largest percentage increase, followed by Nigeria and Pakistan, which was the country to get the most aid, totaling about $1.4 billion.

Julian Oram, head of campaigns and policy at the World Develop­ment Movement, in a statement cri­ticized the prioritizing of fragile states and loss of funding for some poor countries.

“The government will be fighting terrorism, not poverty, with the aid budget,” Mr Oram said. “This is shameful because aid is supposed to help provide health care and education to the poorest countries in the world, not bolster the UK’s military operations or tackle the threat of terrorism in countries that the UK deems a security risk.”

British Ambassador Andrew Mace, denied funding was diverted to address security risks, saying that the decision to end funding to Cambo­dia was made about 18 months ago given that the country receives relatively high aid per capita. “It’s better to focus on countries with fewer do­nors and greater need,” he said.

Cambodia’s DFID office closed at the end of January, but a co­m­mit­ment to save the lives of women and children will run until 2013 while funding to NGOs continues.

At the moment, training for health providers had temporarily paused while more funds were sought, said Tung Rathavy, deputy director of Cambodia’s National Maternal and Child Health Center.

“We hope that we will find [funds] soon,” Ms Rathavy said.