UK aid threat to anti gay nations

 

Great Britain has threatened countries which ban homosexuality with losing UK aid payments unless they reform, said UK Prime Minster David Cameron, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Australia recently, writes Jason Shaw

Cameron says those receiving UK aid should "adhere to proper human rights". The news has been welcomed by gay and human rights campaigners around the UK, although some remain more than a little sceptical of far reaching and successful such threats will be.

The way David Cameron has threatened to withhold UK aid from governments that do not reform legislation banning homosexuality,  at first glance looks like a great positive leap forward.  However,  this threat applies to only one type of bilateral aid, general budget support, so would not reduce the overall amount of aid to any one country. Therefore, it’s highly likely that countries with oppressive regimes toward gay and lesbian people could and will still get aid from the UK government.  Money of the population of the UK feel could be better spent at home, especially considering the vast sums of money involved.      The ‘budget support’ second of aid the UK gives is just about 5% of the total annual aid budget of £7.46bn and has always been conditional direct assistance to governments.

Mr Cameron told BBC TV  that "British aid should have more strings attached",  however agreed that countries could not change immediately, and cautioned that there would be a "journey".  Some of the commonwealth nations are always slow to react to pressure from overseas, including that from those within the commonwealth.

"This is an issue where we are pushing for movement, we are prepared to put some money behind what we believe. But I'm afraid that you can't expect countries to change overnight.   Britain is one of the premier aid givers in the world. We want to see countries that receive our aid adhering to proper human rights.”

"We are saying that is one of the things that determines our aid policy, and there have been particularly bad examples where we have taken action.”  Cameron told how he had talked with "a number of African countries" and confirmed that more pressure had been applied by the UK’s Foreign Secretary William Hague.

Malawi is one of those countries that has already felt some of that pressure, it had £19 million of its budget support suspended over concerns about its attitude to gay rights,  poor progress on human rights and media freedoms.  Similar concerns have also been raised with the governments of Uganda and Ghana.

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